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You are what you eat
Feeling good and looking good go together like an old married couple, without one the other just doesn’t work properly. For too long women have been led to believe that skinny = sexy and the way to get there is by self-induced starvation. Thankfully this is changing.
Finding balance across all aspects of your life is the single most important factor to realising your fitness goals, whether they be to lose a bit of weight or develop the body of an athlete the approach has to be the same.
It might sound a bit cheesy but you really won’t get there without a bit of compassion for yourself, taking the time to think about making changes in areas of your life that might be making you unhappy and preparing a long-term plan that will let you realistically achieve targets in a fully sustainable manner.
One thing that is noticeable about women who are on a permanent diet is how obsessed with food they become. It doesn’t help that the food industry and the advertising industry have conspired to bombard everyone with ‘diet’ foods such as cakes and ready meals, which are generally unpleasant versions of unhealthy foods that only serve to keep you feeling hungry and depressed.
Making changes means changing the way you eat forever, permanently and never being hungry. A balanced diet of fresh food high in healthy proteins, carbs and fats, along with regular exercise, is the key to finding your perfect shape.
Crash diets may work in the short term for some, but this tiny short-term gain is totally undermined by the long-term physical and emotional effects that come with it. Being skinny is one thing but if the price you pay is unhealthy skin, nails hair and a gaunt miserable complexion is it really worth it? Does spending all day thinking about what foods you can and can’t eat making you feel depressed as you try to stick to 400 calories a day, only to fall off the wagon and then feel like a failure?
You need to take a long-term approach to your health, this means being patient, changing bad habits and planning in advance your work outs and your diet. Modern life takes over too easily, so staying in control at the beginning will stop you from succumbing to the wrong foods, so make a diet plan and stick to it, after a while you’ll find it gets easier as body begins to naturally gravitate towards healthy food rather than quick fix sandwiches and snacks. This is because your body’s insulin levels will have balanced out so you won’t be getting those desperate hunger pangs anymore.
Cut out refined carbs, such as white rice, biscuits, sugar, cakes and pastries and white bread and replace them with brown rice and wholemeal/multi-grain breads, reduce the amount of saturated fats in your diet, these are typically 20% over what we should be consuming, but remember that these fats (the ones that go solid at room temperature) also contain unsaturated fats in them which are good for extracting some vitamins from foods. If you are unsure about saturated fats stick to about 20g a day for women and 30g for men, on a food label try and only buy products with a saturated fat content of between 1.5g and 5g per 100g.
Eat little and eat often. Generally it is considered wise to eat 5 – 6 small meals a day rather than 3 big ones, and remember that as you exercise your body will require more protein so increase this and you won’t find yourself getting pangs for food at work. Protein shakes provide an excellent source of low-fat, low GI protein and work great as an afternoon snack or as part of your breakfast.
Remember, being good does not mean being hungry, this is a long-term change that is going to benefit you for the rest of your life so be happy and enjoy yourself, allow yourself the occasional treat at weekends and don’t beat yourself up if you make mistakes; this is about forever not just next weekend.