We’re just over a month and a half into the new year and I know some of you out there are struggling to reach your new healthy nutrition goals for the year. Like I always say ”the principles behind nutrition are easy and simple, finding what works for you and implementing them are hard”. It’s easy if you want to eat healthier, it’s easy to be dedicated, it’s hard if you don’t know where to start. That’s where this blog comes in. I want to help you understand where to start. We’re not looking to change your entire lifestyle in the next week. That’s my first tip for you right there, don’t make too many big steps all at once, make smaller steps every single day, week and month.

Figure out your calorie and nutrient baseline

If you want to lose weight you need a set number of calories based on you. If you want to gain weight you need a set number of calories based on you. If you want to keep the same weight but want to lose fat and build muscle mass, you need a set number of calories based on you.

Figuring out your calorie needs is vital to success. Figuring out your macronutrient needs is what makes up the volume of the calories. See it this way, your calories are the shape of the brick, the macronutrients are the cement that actually forms the brick. Without the proper nutrients that your lifestyle and body needs, it will just fall apart. Figuring out what these numbers are should be one of your first priorities in living a healthier lifestyle.

There are different ways to figure out what you need but the easiest way is paying someone to personalize this for you.

Focus on consistency

Consistency over time will lead to great results, at least if you’re consistently doing the right thing. You have to factor in your body and lifestyle needs. If you end up following someone else’s routine I can guarantee you won’t end up where you want and need to be.

Once you have figured out where your calorie and macronutrient intake need to be it’s time to color the lines. We color in the lines with the foods that will help us get the exact calories and nutrients we need each day.

For most people I like to use the rule of 9. 9 staple ingredients you buy each week. 3 carbohydrate sources, 3 fat sources and 3 protein sources. These sources will help make up the bulk of your shopping and daily meal planning. This will absolutely help with consistency every single week.

3 carb sources could be: Rice, rolled oats and blueberries

3 fat sources could be: avocados, PeanutButter and nuts

3 protein sources could be: chicken, eggs and salmon

3 vegan protein sources could be: tempeh, tofu and lentils

Minimize sugar intake

I honestly believe minimizing sugar intake resolves most of our health problems. Without going into too much detail, sugar intake causes us to go onto this internal rollercoaster that is really hard to get off from. This rollercoaster requires us to eat more and more sugar, like a drug, to feel the same thing or effect.

Sugar intake has been proven to be the leading cause in obesity and diabetes. How do we fix that problem? It should be obvious, by eating less sugar.

More in depth information on why avoiding sugar is important can be found here .

Tips on how to minimize sugar intake can be found here.

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