Eating healthy and/or following some sort of a diet seems to be the popular thing right now. Without even knowing it, you’re probably following some sort of a nutrition protocol as well. It feels like not following a diet or protocol is more of an exception than rule at this point in the fitness industry. Still, we’re not even close to getting everyone on the ”healthy” lifestyle train and we’re continuing to fight obesity and diabetes every single day. One of things that keep people from committing to a healthy lifestyle is assumptions. Assumptions like living a healthy lifestyle is hard or boring or ” just not for them” but most assumptions aren’t based of anything and are mostly just an excuse not to do it. I want to talk to you about some other expectations people might have when it comes to cooking or eating ”healthy”
Let’s take a look at some other examples of expectations versus reality in the kitchen.
Expectation: Working out hard will make me lose weight regardless of what I eat
Reality: First off, working out hard is an opinion rather than a fact, what might seem like a tough workout for me, might not count as a tough workout for you and vice versa.
However much I promote fitness, it has been shown that working out does not really do all that much when it comes to losing weight. This might come as a big shock to some of you as I know it came as a big shock to me. I have always known that nutrition should be a priority but it was still hard to accept at first, looking at the science and facts behind it, it’s hard to deny. It helps you to get stronger, flexible, energetic, happy etc. but it does not make or break weight loss/ weight gain, that consequence lies almost completely with what and when you eat. So, saying that you can eat whatever you want because you workout is backwards, nutrition should always be the priority. You will absolutely need both nutrition and working out to stay strong, healthy, mobile, fit and capable of doing things that our daily lives expect from us.
Expectation: Eating less will make me lose weight
Reality: Sure, eating less will make you lose weight for the time being, but sooner or later it’s going to catch up to you. Whether it’s in a day, a week or a month from now, you’re going to feel tired, unmotivated and simply hate your nutrition because you are cutting down those calories. Think of a car, that car runs on fuel obviously, you can have all the fuel in world stocked up inside your garage but if you don’t restock that fuel source it will eventually run out. If the fuel is running low and you don’t have the means to restock, the obvious thing to do is drive slower, smaller distances or just less in general. The same thing holds true for our body, there’s a decent amount of energy stored away inside of us but we need to re-fuel before our engine starts expecting complete depletion. If our body expects there to be less calories than needed, it will start to run at less capacity to save us from breaking down. That’s the point we start feeling tired or hating our nutrition and that’s also the point where we start to eat the way we were doing before and gain everything back.
Eating less as a very short-term solution? sure, do you. A solution for the long term / life? No way.
Expectation: Eating healthy means I have to cook every single day
Reality: I am sure you have heard of meal prepping before? Even if you don’t like meal prepping, it’s not like people who eat ”unhealthy foods” don’t have to cook (unless they order in every night). Meal prepping doesn’t have to be complicated, boring or take up much of your time. If you know what you want to make for the next couple days and maybe even get some pre-cut ingredients etc. you will be able to get your meals done in under an hour, which will save a lot of time in the upcoming days. Canned/frozen foods are a huge time saver because there’s barely any preparation time there. Just because it’s canned or frozen doesn’t mean it’s not healthy. Sometimes (especially for fruits and vegetables) the fresher option is the canned/frozen foods because it takes less time to freeze it in than packaging and shipping it to the supermarket.
Eating healthy is a commitment but it doesn’t mean you have to cook every single day. If it’s healthy one day, it will be healthy the next days as well. If you like to cook but are short on time, consider the frozen/canned foods to help you save some of that time.
Expectation: Eating healthy doesn’t include ”comfort foods”
Reality: Let’s start this off by saying that a lot of things can and should be enjoyed in moderations, just like anyone would tell you. The thing here is that comfort foods are not necessarily bad for you, it all depends on your preparation and ingredient choices. There are thousands of recipes out there that can guide you to a healthy version of your favorite comfort foods. And if you feel like having the ”real” thing just enjoy it once a week, month, whenever your nutrition and goals allow you to. In the end it’s all up to you to make good decisions, if you make good decisions 99% of the time, there’s nothing wrong with enjoying that meal. If you’re trying to weight and you have just started to get the ball rolling it might not be the best idea to treat yourself to something that might lure you into your old habits.
Know and understand what you want to achieve physically/ health wise and what it’s going to take for you to get there and base your decisions of that. It’s up to you.
I hope you enjoyed this one, keep an eye out for part 2….. More is coming!
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