Getting Nutrition in Gear

I'm about to give up one of my biggest secrets. I don't read it in nutrition or diet books. I don't here doctors, nutritionists, or dietitians talk about it. It amazes me that all of these experts don't get it. Worse yet, because they don't, I believe, the majority of people fail in their nutritional goals.

So what's the secret and what makes me think I'm smarter than these educated guys? Well, let's just say I will give you the info, you put it into practice and you let me know what you think. It brakes into two pieces of knowledge.

1)The human body is an organism which means that it adapts.

2)Moving from eating the wrong foods at the wrong times to eating the right foods at the right times constitutes a goal.

I've talked in previous posts about the body adapting. It adapts to food, it adapts to activity level, it adapts to sleep habits. If you wanted to run a marathon there's a good bet that you wouldn't start training for that by going out and running 26.2 miles right away. No, you'd start with something smaller and work your way up AS YOUR BODY ADAPTS, right? Right.

When you try to apply some new nutritional plan whether its from a dietitian or nutritionist or a diet book and that person or book doesn't graduate you into the program they are doing you a disservice. They are telling you the equivalent of running 26.2 miles to train for your marathon at the beginning of your training. What happens when someone starts their marathon training by running 26.2 miles? To begin with they fail, they get discouraged, and generally hurt themselves. Guess what? The same thing happens when you don't give your body time to adapt as you go from poor nutrition to good nutrition.

My guess is that many of you have tried some nutritional program and then fell of the wagon. You probably thought you didn't have the will power. Let me suggest to you that you probably had the will power you just were trying something as impossible as running a marathon on your first day of training.

So here's my nutritional fitness tip: DON"T DO IT ALL AT ONCE. That's it. If you do it incrementally you will succeed. Just do it one step at a time. Wait until you achieve each step BEFORE you move on to the next one. Here's the program I give my clients:

Step 1. Eat 5 to 6 equally portioned equally timed meals throughout the day. Don't ask me what, I won't tell you. Just let your body adapt to eating that often and in those portions. That may take some time, but that's fine, let it. You are trying to build new habits, ONE AT A TIME.

Step 2. It may take a few weeks to accomplish Step 1, maybe even a month or more, but DON"T YOU DARE do Step 2 until Step 1 is your habit. After it is a habit then you can introduce some balance in your nutrition by incorporating some form of carbs, proteins and fats IN EACH MEAL. I'm amazed at how hard this is. IN EACH MEAL means IN EACH MEAL. Ladies, I want to see protein and fat IN EACH MEAL. Don't worry about the "no carbs after" whatever time. How many habits at a time are we trying to change? ONE! This step may take as long as a month for your body to adapt to but once you feel like it's habitual then you can move on to Step 3.

Step 3. Most folks, get so dialed in by Step 2 that Step 3 happens kind of naturally and with much less effort than the previous two steps. Now that you're eating multiple times a day and with some balance of your macro-nutrients it's finally time to look at the QUALITY of the carbs, proteins, and fats. My guess is that many of you have an idea in this area. In fact, this is the step that was the nutritional program you were on and failed at that you claimed you didn't have the will power to do. If you still want to know good carbs, proteins and fats I've given you some good reading resources on the side there to the left.

So here's the bottom line: I believe my Steps 1 and 2 are what have not been taught by anyone. I've applied it to my clients and it's worked for them. You can do it too.