Is your body ready to diet? As a coach, I hear common trends with people who want to change their body composition and dieting habits.
They come to me eating less than 1200 calories a day, trying to diet for the past few years and attempted every single dieting trend that came out over the past few years with no real shot at sustainability.
Are you guilty of trying to diet
Your body doesn’t care about the fact that you want abs or to lose more fat. If you are not taking care of your body, why should it give you the results you want? Are you guilty of trying to diet more than 1-2 times a year? Do you feel frustrated because no matter what you do, you can’t lose weight? I totally understand and I want you to learn what is going on with your body when this happens. If you are in ANY of the following situations, you might want to reconsider dieting and start eating more food to heal your body.
Reconsider dieting and start eating if you are in ANY of these situations…
- Depression/ Anxiety
- Mood is in the crapper
- Low sex drive
- Thyroid issues
- Always hungry or never hungry ( yes both are bad)
- Lack of menstrual cycle
- Just had surgery ( you need food for recovery)
- Breastfeeding ( you are FEEDING a human)
- Gym performance decreased from previously
- Sleep is suffering from waking up or insomnia
Your body has the ability to lose weight
You see, it is FAR MORE than just what you are eating. Your body is so good at finding ways to prevent you from dying that it will just down-regulate other areas of your life in order to save energy. Everything else that is going on in your life that is a “stressor” plays a role in your ability to lose weight.
Things to consider if you are looking to go into a fat loss phase
If you are looking to go into a fat loss phase, I want you to highly consider a few things. First is understanding that you cannot diet your whole life. You do need to be eating enough calories to survive day to day activities but if you are working out on top of this, your body needs that fuel for recovery and to build muscle. If you have been dieting more than 1-2x this year, trying to diet more is not the best option for you.
Fat loss phases should last no more than 12 weeks and followed by eating at maintenance calories for at least the following 6 months. Yes, you should be eating MORE food for the majority of the year. This means you need to be planning for when you want to do a “cut” around your lifestyle.
Your body needs to be under the right conditions
Understanding that you cannot diet all year round and that you do need to be at a good place to even start dieting is the hardest conversation to have. Your body needs to be under the right conditions for it allow fat loss to happen. If you have been trying to diet and nothing is working, try to look at the quality of foods you are eating PLUS how much you are eating. Start by tracking your intake and focus on the quality of nutrients you put into your body.
