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# 83 - 12 Things That Made Losing 100 Pounds Easier
26 Plays4 months ago
Weight loss is simple but not always easy. But there are some things you're probably not doing that could make it easier. In this episode, I'll share some of those things with you.
You'll learn:
- How to set up your environment for easier weight loss
- How to stop overeating so often
- How to create a better relationship with food
- The first step is to eat less
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Transcript
Introduction to the Fit-ish Project
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome back to the Fit-ish Project with your host, Lathan Bass, where we make fitness and health simple for regular people like you and I. Getting into another weekly episode, I guess before we get into that, if you could leave a review, if you have not done that, I've seen a few more in there. So those of you who have left a review, I really appreciate that. Continue to get this out to more people. If you have not left a review, it takes 10, 20 seconds. It would mean the world to me, so I appreciate that as well. ah But getting into the topic of this
Choosing Podcast Topics
00:00:29
Speaker
week. So the way that I come about some of these topics is I'll post on different social media platforms. So Instagram, sometimes I'll use TikTok or Threads or Facebook or just a bunch of different social media platforms, and I'll put different pieces of content out and see what things kind of resonate with people. And that gives me an idea of when things have a lot of engagement, like they get a lot of comments, likes, shares. They're seen by a lot of people, get a lot of views. That lets me know that people want to know more about this topic. And so I recently created a post on threads about random things that made losing 100 pounds easier. And it got tons and tons of views. I think it was well over 20,000 views and a bunch of likes and shares and things like that. So I figured it'd be a good topic to make into a podcast because I know a lot of people struggle with their weight. And also a lot of people just really struggle with overeating in general. And so this is more so based around
Awareness of Food Consumption
00:01:24
Speaker
that. So if you're somebody who like you have it all down, you have really good eating patterns, like you don't struggle with your weight, this probably isn't a podcast for you. But if you do struggle with some of those things, and you want some practical tips as to how to start fixing that stuff today, then this will be a super helpful podcast for you. So a couple of things that play a pretty big role in how much you eat that I don't think a lot of people think about or even realize is number one, just your awareness around food. And so if you've ever sat down in front of the TV while you were eating maybe like a bag of chips or you had just a big plate of food or some snacks, and then like you kind of get into the TV show or maybe you get into the movie and then you realize like 30 minutes later that you absolutely demolished like just a ton of food. Like you went through a whole bag of chips or just ate way more than you normally would. This is that awareness piece. Or maybe you find yourself just like going into the kitchen, looking in the cupboard or maybe looking in the fridge, looking for snacks. And you're not even really hungry. You're just kind of bored. Or maybe you're just like doing it out of habit. But you just find yourself just like doing these things and eating this extra food, extra snacks and and not even really paying attention to what you're doing. Again, this is that just having that awareness around food and how much you're eating. And so awareness plays a pretty big role in the second piece of this is your
Influence of Environment on Eating Habits
00:02:39
Speaker
environment. And what I mean by environment is just like where you're at just as far as like the place that you're in, but also like the people around you and then also just certain things within that environment. And so like, for example, if you keep a bunch of like sweets and highly processed foods and like super tasty desserts and all that kind of stuff in your house, you're probably going to eat more. I don't think any of us would disagree with that. It's going to be a lot harder to turn that stuff down if it's all over the place. You see it all the time. It's super accessible versus if you have an environment where like you have a bunch of more healthier choices, higher quality food choices, like good things that make you feel good and look good and all those different things, you're probably going to tend to eat a little bit healthier diet if you're in an environment that is more conducive to making those type of choices. And another example would be like, maybe you're somebody who is pretty dialed in with your diet, like during the week, but on the weekends, you like to go out to eat. And when you go out to eat, you find yourself like typically eating more food. And that could be for a lot of reasons, like the portion sizes are bigger. Maybe you're drinking while you're out to eat. Maybe like you're just enjoying your friend's company and you're not really like paying attention to like how much you're actually eating. Or maybe the food is just like super tasty and they use a lot of different ingredients and things like that. So like there could be a bunch of different factors to it as to why you eat more when you do go out to eat. But the fact of the matter is that like your awareness around food and the environment that you're in influence your decisions about food, like how much you eat and all those different things, your eating patterns, more than we probably realize. And so once you realize those things, I think it can be a little bit helpful coming up with just some practical tips to maybe create more awareness and maybe set up your environment in a way that helps you eat healthier and helps you develop positive eating patterns that align with your goals and how you want to create a healthy lifestyle. And so when you think about awareness around food, like for some people, this is something that they just automatically do naturally. And like, they don't even really have to think about it. Like they just really in tune with their body. They're in tune with like their hunger cues and their satiety cues. They know when they're full, they know when they're hungry, they know what their body wants and needs. And like, they never really struggle with like gaining or losing weight or anything like that because they just seem to kind of be really in touch with that. But I think for a lot of people, especially people who have been overweight for a really long time, like we don't have that. Like I did not have that growing up. Like if there was food in front of me, I was going to eat it. If somebody offered me free food, like I was going to eat it. If there was more, like if there were seconds, like after we had our initial meal, like I was going to eat seconds. Like there wasn't really this like awareness with like, was I actually hungry? Did I need more food? Did I want more food? It was just like, if food's around, I'm going to eat it. And like, I didn't really think twice about it. And so as you get older, if you're one of these people and you don't really have this awareness around food, like obviously it can lead to gaining weight and health struggles and overeating and all those different things that a lot of people struggle with. And so creating more awareness around this is important. And like, we know that creating more awareness around food helps quite a bit. So like there's studies that have looked at people who check out food labels more regularly, or more likely to eat healthier, higher quality diets. And I think that makes sense if like, you know, what types of things that you're putting in your body and you make it an emphasis to check on those things and, and make it a point to really look at how much you're eating, what types of foods you're eating, all those sorts of things, you're probably going to be a little bit more in tune with your food patterns and your eating patterns.
Mindful Eating Practices
00:06:04
Speaker
ah We know that like people who tend to be more mindful eaters, this leads to less like overeating, binge eating, emotional eating. And all mindful eating means is just like, again, you're just paying attention to your hunger cues and those different types of things. You're eating when you're hungry. You're not eating when you're not. You understand the choices that you're making or having effect on you in one way or another. And that would just be what we would consider mindful eating. And I think that's something that a lot of people strive to get to. But in our environment today and just like where we're at with food and things like that, it makes it very difficult to do that. And so you have to actually practice these things and get yourself to a place where like you can actually start to do those things. And something that I've noticed with just clients that I've worked with, and even with myself is like, creating this awareness, it's really not that difficult. But once you start to do it, it gives you just a whole new outlook on food in general. And so for example, like when people work with me, like when they come and they want to lose weight, one of the things that I have them start doing is like tracking food in some certain way. And now obviously, like's the basic, like everybody knows, like you can track your calories or you can track your macros, but it doesn't necessarily even have to be that. Like it could be like keeping a food log or a food journal and just paying more attention to your food and tracking in some sort of way. Because when you start tracking food, it forces you to look at food a little bit differently. And you start to learn a lot about food. Like you start to learn about how many calories are in certain foods, what serving size looks like, what foods you feel better on and don't feel great on how many carbs and proteins and fats are in certain foods. So you start to learn all these things about food and it starts to give you a different outlook on food in general. And it's not just like, Oh, I just eat when I'm hungry and I just eat whatever. Because if you have more of an understanding, you can make better choices. But if you don't really know, like if you don't really have much food education, it makes it hard to eat in a way that's actually conducive to your goals and helps you live a healthier lifestyle. And so think of it kind of like this, like, let's say you're somebody who just has never really done super well with money, like You struggle with your finances and you don't really maybe have a great relationship with just money in general and you don't really know about how to save. You don't really know how to invest. You don't really know how to budget. You don't know any of these things. Well, it's going to make it awfully hard to get better at those things and figure out what you actually need to be doing if you never look at the numbers. and so Food is a similar thing. It's like we have a certain amount of food that we can eat per day. And if we're well above that or constantly going over that, we're going to gain weight. If we're below that, we're going to be losing weight. If we're kind of right in that sweet spot, then we're going to be able to maintain our weight. But if you don't have any education about this, like if you don't really know about these things, it makes it hard to actually know what you're doing. So you're trying to map out this certain plan and you're trying to improve like these certain things, but you don't really have anything to go off. Like you don't really have any data. And so like, I'm a big proponent of people tracking food, even if it's just for a couple of months, like just to give them that awareness and give them that education around food, because that is going to help you tremendously moving forward and helping you to make better choices and just give you more of an understanding of what's actually going on. Because what I know now after working with a lot of people is like, if people don't have a clear plan, it makes it extremely hard for them to stick to that plan. And it makes it extremely hard for them to actually get results. Because if you don't believe in the plan, if you don't know if it's actually working, if you don't know like if what you're doing is going to pay off, then you're not going to stick to it. And so when you have this data, when you have this way to track food and learn about it and improve your choices and get better, it gives you that confidence that you are actually doing something that's moving you in the right direction and you're progressing and you're more likely to stick with it and learn how to actually incorporate these things into your normal life.
Practical Tips for Better Eating Habits
00:09:46
Speaker
The second part of this is the environment, which we talked a little bit about. So when it comes to environment, there's a lot of different aspects to this, but just a couple of things just to kind of give you an idea of what I mean when I'm talking about environment. So like now, if you look at our portion sizes now compared to like what they used to be are obviously a lot bigger now. And we know that through studies when people have bigger portion sizes, they end up eating more food without even realizing it. We have these huge portion sizes and people just tend to eat more of these portion sizes. So even if you don't finish the complete portion, like because that portion size is bigger, you're eating a bigger percentage, you're eating more calories of that food. And if you do that for long enough, now you're just eating all these extra calories that starts to add up throughout the days throughout the weeks. And now you see people like eating a lot more food than they think they are. And now they're gaining weight. I forget the statistics. But I think it's like the average American eats around it's over 3000 calories on average, which like for most people is well over their maintenance calories, which means if they're consistently eating over 3000 calories, they're consistently gaining weight over time. And while yes, like you do that for a couple days, not a big deal. You do that for a couple weeks, still not that big of a deal. You do that for a couple months, like, well, now you're starting to put on a few pounds. You do that for years at a time. Now you've gained 50 pounds, 75 pounds, 100 pounds. And you're in a place where it's like you don't really know exactly how you got here. It doesn't seem like you're doing a ton of damage, but like over time, if you don't figure these things out and recognize these things and create more awareness and improve your environment, it all starts to kind of add up. When we talk about environment, just the places that you're in. So like maybe you work at a place where like they always have food there, they always have snacks and things like that. And a lot of this stuff, like at like workplaces, at parties, at outings, like it's not going to typically be your best type of highest quality, healthiest type of foods, which like, again, I'm not the person who's like, oh, you can never eat that stuff. But like, we're constantly around this stuff at work, at parties, at outings. So like, we're doing this thing, like if we're around this type of stuff. We're around this environment all the time. It's going to make it harder to make the healthier choice and stick to your goals and create better eating patterns because you have access to so many choices and so many things that make it hard to say no so often. Right along with that, the people that are around you in these spaces also make a difference. So if you have a friend group or you know a family that you tend to eat a little bit healthier, it makes it easier for you to eat healthier. If you have a friend group that or a family that like always goes out to eat and maybe they don't eat so healthy and their eating patterns and their eating habits aren't great, well, you're more likely to do the same thing. So there's a lot of these little things that we don't really pay that much attention to that influence our food choices. And I think it's important to realize that at the end of the day, you do have the ultimate decision. Like it's up to you. Like you're the, it's your body. You're the one who gets to decide what things you are choosing and what food choices you are making. But I'm a big fan of stacking the deck in your favor. So like these things like awareness, environment, like these little things that you don't think matter, if you can stack the deck in your favor and set yourself up in a better place, it's going to make making those healthier choices the easier choice. One thing that I always tell people is like, try to make the healthier choice, the easy choice. And what I mean by that is like, set up your environment in a way that makes it easy to eat that quality meal or get that quality snack or workout or exercise. And then like, you know, the other part of it, like I said, with the awareness is just like being more aware about these things is really the first step in order to make healthier choices and lead you towards that healthier lifestyle. And so those are some things just to think about as to why, you know, awareness and environment are important. But as always, like in these podcasts, I don't just want to talk about, you know, why certain things are or talk about like the what, but I also want to give you some practical tips about what you can do about these things. So I'm going to go through 12 tips that you can start to do to start to change your environment or create more awareness around food that can help you with creating better eating patterns, help to stop with overeating and ultimately help you lose weight or at the very least maintain a healthy weight and just feel better, look better, all those different things that we are after. And so tip number one, eat without distraction. And so I know this is a very common one. I think most people probably at this point eat with screens, like whether it's TV, you're watching like Netflix or a movie or a show, or whether it's with your phone and you're just like scrolling on your phone while you're eating. I think a lot of this, a lot of us do this. I know I still do this quite a bit, but if you can eat without distraction, it's just going to create more awareness around food. And when you create more awareness around food, you are less likely to overeat. And so there's just a lot of tips that you can do, which I'm going to go through here that just help you to create more awareness around food that will help you be more in tune with your body and the things that you need. So tip number two is right along with that. Just put your silverware down in between your bites. Like it just creates a longer meal where you're not just like scarfing your food down. And personally, I'm terrible at this. I eat super fast and I don't do this, but this can absolutely help people because if you're prolonging your meal, it allows your body to actually receive those hunger and satiety cues because it takes your body some time to realize whether it's full or whether it's still hungry. And so if you can slow down your meal, you're going to start to get into that, get more in tune with the things that you need. But again, it just also just creates more presence, more awareness around your eating. So you're not just doing things on autopilot. Right along with that, number three, only eat when you are sitting down. This can be super helpful if you're somebody who's like, you're a big snacker, like you find yourself going to the kitchen multiple times throughout the day and you're just eating out of like boredom. Like you're standing in front of the fridge, you just grab something to eat and you eat it right there. Or you go in the cupboard, you know, you grab a handful of whatever snack and you just eat it right there. And like, not a big deal if you do it, you know, once or twice, but when you start to do those things like throughout the day, and then you start to do those things all the time, like that kind of stuff adds up. And especially if you're trying to lose weight, those extra calories add up up super super quickly quickly so you make it a rule for yourself i'm only going to eat when i'm sitting down it forces you to be a little bit more intentional about eating and so now you're just not doing a bunch of this mindless eating because you have to grab the food put in a bowl sit down and then actually eat it and by that time you're like okay this is a conscious choice rather than than just like doing these things out of habit and not even realizing it. Number four, use smaller plates or bowls. This just helps with the portion thing. So like if you're using smaller plates, smaller bowls, there's been studies that they've done that people tend to eat less when they use those things. But if you use this huge plate, you're more likely to fill that plate up. You're more likely to eat more food off that plate. If you use this huge bowl for your meals, you're more likely to fill that bowl up and you're more likely to eat a bigger percentage of the food in that bowl. So super simple thing you can do is just buy smaller plates, smaller bowls, and that's going to help you without even really thinking twice about it. Number five is buy less easy to overeat foods. So again, if you can make the choice at the store, that makes it so you don't have to make that choice in your house a dozen different times. So, and this is something that I think some people do really well with this. And some people are like, ah, you know, I don't really want to do that. Like, I want to be able to have this kind of stuff in my house, which like you absolutely can. And I think it's just having more self-awareness about what type of person you are. Like if you're the person that like you buy some chips or you buy some certain type of food and like you just cannot like control yourself, then don't buy that stuff. Like just keep it out of your house. That doesn't mean you can never have it, but just don't buy it and don't keep it in your house. If you really want it, leave, go buy a single serving of it at the store, eat it, enjoy it, and then be done with it. But like, I think once you get to a level where like you do feel comfortable with having that stuff in your house, then yeah, you can buy some of that stuff and it makes it easier. But like me personally, I still like, I feel like I'm pretty, like I'm pretty controlled around food and I have a much better relationship than I ever did with it. Like when I was a big dude and like just could eat whatever, like I have pretty good self-control when it comes to that stuff now, but there's still certain things that I just don't really buy because I know that like I could control myself, but like, I don't want to have to use that willpower and I don't want to have to like just make those decisions so like for example like chips like I love chips and like anytime there's chips around like I can eat a crap ton of them and so it's like I don't keep chips out of my diet like if I go to a you know like last week I went to a tailgate there was chips there i had some dip like smashed them, had it, enjoyed it. Like loved it was awesome. Like super tasty, but like, I just don't keep those things in my house and it makes it easier for me. It's just something that I don't have to think about. I don't feel like I'm missing out on it. I don't feel like I'm restricting myself. It's just a choice that I make that I don't buy those things. And then like, if I do like, you know, I go to a restaurant, I go to a Mexican restaurant and they have chips and salsa. Like I'm going to eat some of that chips and salsa and I'm going to enjoy it. But like, I just don't keep those things in my house because it makes not eating those things a little bit easier. So having just some awareness around like what type of person you are and like maybe where you're at within your fitness journey or maybe just with your relationship with food can help you decide whether you are somebody who just wants to keep some of that stuff out of your house. Number six is just buy more high quality foods and keep them visible. So on the opposite end of the spectrum, like if you want to eat more high quality foods, typically just more healthier things, keep them around, but also keep them visible. And what I mean by keep them visible is like, we know that if you have these snacks around and like just available to you, just like within your proximity, and also you see them more more often you're more likely to eat those things that are closer more available more convenient and that you see often so like keeping like a fruit bowl at you know on your counter or keeping healthy snacks at your workplace or even taking them on the go with you or like having meal prep ready to go at your house like just having more of these high quality foods around and invisible will just make it that much easier to make healthier choices. And again, we're all about convenience. We're all about making the healthy choice, the easy choice. so Number seven is keep it simple. And so more variety leads to eating more food. And if you've ever gone to a buffet, you probably know exactly what I mean. Like there's tons of different styles of food and different flavors and things like that. And you end up eating way more than you're used to. And it's easier because all the flavors are different or like the dessert effect. Like you're absolutely stuffed. You had a crazy big meal, but then like the waitress or the waiter comes to the table and they're like, Hey, do you want dessert? And it's like, Oh, I could probably find a little room for dessert. And it's because the flavor is different. And so you can eat that and be okay with it, even though you're absolutely stuffed and you're not really hungry and you don't really want any more food. And so this isn't to say that like your food has to be boring or anything like that. But I think if you can eat more whole foods, this solves a lot of problems because humans have been eating whole minimally processed foods for thousands and thousands of years. And when you eat more of this type of stuff, it's easier for your body to actually regulate whether you are hungry or full. Like, because when you're eating highly processed things all the time, like those are not things that we're used to. And they're very easy to overeat because they're very tasty. And we also don't get the same like hunger and satiety cues that we get from just eating more whole naturally type foods. So like if you eat a diet that's full of more whole foods, you're going to notice that you probably eat less calories on average, which is a good thing for our health and for losing weight. And so when I say keep it simple, I don't mean that you just have to eat like boring food. I just mean that incorporate more whole foods in your diet. And I'm always a big proponent of the 80-20 rule. 80% of your foods come from whole minimally processed type foods. And then 20% comes from the other stuff. And I think if you can just do that, do more of that, you're going to find that a lot of these issues around just like hunger and overeating and being full and hitting your protein goals and getting enough nutrients, a lot of those things start to resolve themselves when you do eat more whole foods. Number eight is use the apple test. And so this is one, if you struggle with knowing whether you're hungry or maybe you're just bored, ask yourself if you're hungry enough to eat an apple. If you're hungry enough to eat an apple, it probably means that you're hungry. So grab yourself some food, grab a snack, whatever, and eat it. But if you ask yourself, am I hungry enough to eat an apple right now? And the answer is no, you're probably just bored and you probably just want something to do. And so using that little test can help you actually make decisions on whether you should eat or not eat. And I think for people who, you know, in a situation where like maybe they don't have, they're not as in tune with those hunger cues and satiety cues as some other people, this can be a really easy, tangible thing to think about and help you figure out and start to pay more attention if you are hungry versus if you're just bored or you know just emotional eating or stress eating or things like that. Which brings me into number nine, replace emotional eating with other habits. So a lot of people are emotional eaters. We use food to try to regulate our emotions. like We get stressed out, we get angry, we get sad, and we just eat. And that's not the worst thing in the world. Like if you do that occasionally, but if you're doing that all the time, like if that's the only thing that you do in order to regulate your emotions and get you into a better place, that's going to become problematic pretty quickly because especially when we're emotional, we typically don't go for like the healthiest type of foods. We go for things that are more highly processed, you know, very tasty and very easy to overeat. And those type of foods are typically higher in calories, which again is going to lead to some issues if you're always just eating tons and tons of those foods and overeating and using those things as kind of a crutch. And so replace emotional eating with other habits. It could be exercising, it could be going for a walk, it could be journaling, it could be listening to music. But like when you feel that urge to like use food to deal with your emotions, try to find other habits and other ways to go about solving that issue because that can go a really long way in helping you with your long-term health. Number 10, we got one, two, three more. Number 10, find alternatives to your favorite foods. So for a lot of people, their favorite foods are going to be things that are super tasty and typically higher in calorie. So like for me, I really like pizza and I really like ice cream. If I'm trying to lose weight or even just maintain a healthy weight and just like feel my best, look my best, all those things. If I'm eating like full fat ice cream or I'm eating pizza from the pizza shop every single week, like if I'm eating that stuff all the time, it's going to make it really difficult for me to maintain a healthy weight. And it's especially going to make it very difficult if I'm trying to lose weight. And so what you can do is just find alternatives to these things. So find lower calorie, a little bit healthier type of alternatives to these things. And it's going to make sticking to a healthier diet that much easier. Because if you try to eliminate these things, I know for me, like that just did not seem to work. Like I could eliminate them for a while, but like eventually I would bring them back. And then when I would bring them back, I didn't really have any self-control around it. And I would just overeat certain things. And it would just turn into like this yo-yo cycle of like restrict and then overeat, restrict, overeat. But once you find a way where you can incorporate these things on a more regular basis, it just becomes part of your natural diet and it makes it seem that much more sustainable. So like for me, I have a couple of pizza recipes that I can use that are much lower calorie, but it gives me that pizza fix and I love eating it super tasty. And then I don't feel like I have to go out and eat, you know, Domino's pizza two or three times per week where I know it's going to add in a ton of extra calories and not be the best thing for me. Or like ice cream. Like once I bought a Ninja Creamy, like freaking game over because now I can eat ice cream every single night if I want to, because it's only a couple hundred calories. Super tasty. I get my ice cream fix and now I don't have to go down the street and go get like, you know, a blizzard or something that's like a thousand calories and going to make losing weight and maintaining weight and feeling good, all those different things much more difficult. So find alternatives to your favorite foods if your favorite foods are typically things that are like super high calorie and things that make staying in alignment with your goals difficult. Number 11, already talked about this one a little bit, but just track food in a certain type of way. And it doesn't have to be something that you do all the time, but it can be super helpful in creating more education and awareness around food in general. So this could be tracking your macros. This could be just tracking your calories. This could be tracking your protein. This could be tracking like your fiber or maybe just like your vegetables. Maybe you want to add more vegetables into your diet. This could be just taking food pictures and that just creates a little bit of accountability. So at the day at the end of the day, you're like, okay, let's see what I actually ate today. You look at your food pictures. You're like, oh, those are solid. Like I've made some good choices or maybe there's some things that you want to change. You could keep a food log. There's so many different ways that you can go about tracking food and it doesn't have to be as difficult as people make it out to be. And I think if people actually did it for a while, they would realize like, okay, I did actually learn a ton from that and it is actually helpful. But I think a lot of people have some preconceived expectations about what tracking food entails and like not really knowing what to do or that it's going to be super hard or super restrictive. But I found it to be the exact opposite. It's actually for me more freeing to know how many calories a certain food has, to know what my body does best on, to know like what a serving size actually looks like because when you have more education, it just allows you to make better decisions. And not just that, it allows you to make decisions that you know are going to get to you to your goals. And so what I mean by that is like, once I know how many calories that I need to eat, and I'm tracking my calories, I can fit in all the different types of foods that I want to and feel guilt free about it. I can have some sort of dessert every single night as long as I'm hitting my calories. I can have pizza if I want and fit into my calories. I'm still going to lose weight. I can have these, you know, a drink if I want to and fit into my calories. I know that I'm still going to lose weight. So it gives you a little bit more freedom and allows you to hit your goals, but also enjoy yourself while knowing that you are making solid choices and that you're going to get to your goal eventually, which I think is super nice. And like I said earlier, like if you know that the things that you're doing are going to get you to your goal, but you're also able to enjoy it along the way, you're setting yourself up for success. So definitely would recommend tracking food in some sort of way, at least for a while, if that's something that you have never done. And then the last one, number 12, is to have some guidelines around food. This doesn't mean that these are like strict rules that you have to follow all the time, but I found that for me and for other people that I've worked with, having some sort of guidelines around food cuts down on the amount of choices and the amount of decisions that you have to make every single day. Because the fact of the matter is like food is everywhere. Like it's in an abundance in our society today. Like there's fast food restaurants on every single corner. We have more food than we could ever want. There's tons of snacks, there's gas stations, there's convenience stores, there's grocery stores with millions of different products. And so there's food everywhere. And so being able to just have some certain guidelines around food can cut down on the amount of choices that you have to make every single day. And then you don't have to rely on willpower all the time because your choice is already predetermined. You don't have to wake up every day and be like, I have to say no to this, no to this, no to this. um I'm going to eat this. I'm going to say yes to this. I'm going to turn this down. I'm going to do this. It's like, no, you just have these certain guidelines that you follow most of the time. And it makes those decisions. Like you just don't have to make those decisions anymore. So to give you a couple examples, like so one thing for me, or these are a couple that I use and that I've used for quite a while. And, you know, you have to find what works for you. And maybe you'll try some certain things that do work. And then maybe you'll figure out some things that don't necessarily work. And maybe you need to change things up a little bit. But having some of these guidelines can be super helpful. So for me, like one of the things that I typically try to do is avoid liquid calories, unless I'm having like some alcohol, like on the weekends, like if I'm going out with some friends, having some drinks, I don't drink really anything that has calories in it. I stick to water or like zero calorie drinks, because I know that those add up super quickly. And that's not something that I want to use my calories on. So like, for me, that works really well. One other thing that I try to do is at every single meal, no matter what I have protein at that meal. And I know that if I'm having protein at that meal, it's going to help from like a muscle building standpoint, but it's also going to help with hunger. It's going to help with keeping my metabolism up. It's going to help me with just feeling the way that I want to feel. And it's going to allow me to eat less calories because if I'm eating lean proteins, it means that it's going to help fill me up. And now I'm eating less of the other stuff. And so like, I don't have like crazy rules around, I can't have this food or this food or that food. It's like, no, I have a rule of like, I eat protein at every meal. And in turn, that simple guideline is going to help me make other better choices. Another one that I have is like, I don't really drink alcohol during the week. I like to drink alcohol sometimes on the weekends, but like during the week, that's just something that I don't really do unless it's a special occasion. I know for some people, you know, they like to go home after work and they like to have a glass of wine or have a beer or something like that. But for me personally, like, it's just a rule that I have is like our guideline that I have that I don't normally drink throughout the week. Another one is like mostly whole foods. And I already kind of mentioned this, but like the 80-20 rule is like, even when I'm not tracking, like if I'm not tracking foods, which I typically don't track foods very often anymore, just kind of like eat mindfully and intuitively. But I always try to incorporate mostly whole foods in my diet. So I eat a ton of vegetables, I eat a ton of fruits, and I eat a lot of lean proteins. And then outside of that, I have some other things like I'll have, you know, tortillas and oats, and I'll have like some crackers, and I'll have um some ice cream sandwiches, and I'll have different stuff like that. I'll have things that wouldn't necessarily be like whole foods, like they're kind of processed, or, you know, they don't necessarily fall into that category of like whole manually processed foods, I'll have some of that stuff, and I'll eat that stuff guilt free. But most of the time I know that I'm focusing on whole foods and it just makes the decision making process and the types of foods that I eat that much easier. Last one that I'll give you is like when I eat out or when I go out to eat, one thing that I'll do is I'll just eat less throughout the day. So like I know meals that are super low calorie, higher in protein are going to still fill me up, but then it allows me to eat more calories when I do go out to eat. So for example, if I'm going out to eat, I might eat less throughout the week or I'm going to eat less throughout that day if I'm like going out to dinner. So i'll have a I'll have a breakfast that's high in protein, low in calories. I'll have a lunch that's high in protein, low in calories. And that way I've kind of banked or budgeted some extra calories for going out to eat. And it's just kind of something that I do intuitively now because I've been doing it for so long. So again, I know like you have to figure out what works for you, but I would encourage you to start creating some of these guidelines around food and figure out like what really works for you. Because again, the less decisions that you have to make. And when you have those decisions that are already just kind of predetermined and you know what you're doing, it just makes it easier to stick to the plan. And so those are 12 different tips. Hopefully within that, you know you found one or two things that you can start using today to start helping you improve that awareness around food and help improving your environment to help you be healthier, feel better, look better, all those different things that we want to accomplish when it comes to hitting our health and fitness goals.
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00:32:30
Speaker
But with that being said, I have some one-on-one coaching spots. If you are somebody who is looking to get a little bit of extra help with this stuff, if you have some weight loss goals, if you want an individualized plan, and if you want somebody who's been in your shoes who can help you kind of speed up this process a little bit and give you that confidence and support you and guide you along in this journey, you can always check out the link in the show notes for that.
00:32:51
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