if nutrition is made easy, its a recipe for success
We’re sticking with nutrition again for this blog post, simply because I know its the one aspect that people struggle with the most.
Most people who come to DMF just want to be the healthiest version of themselves, feel confident as a woman on the beach in a bikini as a man, similar just in his swim shorts.
Very few of the members I’ve worked with since opening DMF 7 years ago have aspirations of getting absolutely shredded to the bone or absolutely massive/jacked.
They are just regular guys and girls like you and me, who have busy lives, kids, jobs, businesses and just want to feel their best.
This is one of the very reasons I created DMF: evolve, to provide a place you can achieve exactly that, no matter what shape, size, fitness or experience level you have.
The nutrition element is always such an important part of this.
Getting your nutrition right will lead to:
- leanness
- increase in muscle size and strength
- improved fitness
- improved immunity
- resistance against disease
- more energy
- better mood
- better concentration
To name but a few.
Misconceptions on Nutrition
How many diets can you name that you’ve done in the past? I can name a few I’ve done in my early years of trying to be my best, such as Paleo, Atkins, Low Carb, Protein and Veg only, Bodybuilding/Clean Eating etc.
Guess what? They all “work” in terms of getting initial results, as they all do the same thing, remove energy from your diet. However, are they sustainable? With all the “information” at our fingertips, which ones will suit us if any?
Where do we start?
At DMF, we want to teach our members about the body, how food works and what processes it goes through when you eat it, what happens to it and why. The reason I do this, is so that the individual starts to understand that its not just will power and motivation causing them to snack on poor quality snacks, or that cutting out food groups is not really necessary to be healthy.
I hate sayings like “no carbs before marbs” with a passion. Carbs don’t make you fat, only a calorie surplus makes you fat, ie an excess in energy intake from food or drink that you aren’t balancing out with movement and exercise.
Providing a simple overall framework of what constitutes a healthy diet in a simple to read book, plus providing videos and literature on how the body works as above and more is what we do, then…..
“MEET THEM WHERE THEY ARE AT”
In my years as a nutrition coach, completely overhauling someone’s diet rarely works well. People need to focus on building good habits, learning about nutrition and their body and put the foundations in before major changes in every area are applied. Why? Simply, life is hectic for most people and adults have built habits already, trying to change them takes time, patience and consistency. So I will always look at small, simple but hugely impactful changes that will get them brilliant results whilst making life easy for people.
Individual Dynamics
Most people are physiologically similar, we process food the same way, we burn energy the same way. Age isn’t really significant factor within this, your metabolism between the ages of 20-60 years old remains relatively intact as we progress through life Harvard Metabolism Study.
What is mainly different in individuals is their personal dynamics with daily movement, physical activity, jobs, kids – ie their lives.
This is important to understand to make sure we learn the person and figure out what they can reasonably change.
“Reasonable asks” is something that features quite heavily at DMF when it comes to nutrition coaching.
There’s not much sense in asking a busy Mum of 3 kids, absolutely rushed off her feet to stand and do food prep 4 hours a week as previously mentioned. It will be really hard.
Something we might suggest in that situation is to ask how she does her food shopping, provide her solutions such as shopping lists and some go to meals that are easy to prepare for the family to enjoy. Much easier to achieve and won’t impact her daily dynamics significantly at the very least, but potentially will save her time and headaches of trips to the supermarkets with kids, with no idea what to do.
Building Habits
As above, I stated that building long term sustainable habits is the key to success. To lose fat, we need a calorie deficit, it really is that simple, the trick with that is to be able to sustain it. Once the fat loss phase is finished, yes ladies, I am looking at you! The fat loss phase has an end! We should not be dieting our entire lives – once its finished, we increase our energy intake to find our “maintenance” calories. This is to maintain homeostasis – our bodyweight, but you have achieved the level of leanness you’re happy with.
Calories go UP.
Many if not most people struggle to get their heads round this. Understanding that we don’t want to be dieting for the remainder of our lives is very important.
Sustaining habits built in the fat loss phase, that have been built over time and become engrained, prevent that feeling of being “on the wagon” or “off the wagon”.
Building quality habits = THERE IS NO WAGON – we just know how to eat for our health and wellbeing and its all completely natural and habitual.
Definition of the word “DIET” – The way one habitually eats
Dieting = calorie deficit
Summary:
As per our featured members in this post, Adrian and Anna who between them have lost over 25kg of FAT, not weight, FAT – we have done this by working as above.
Both have absolutely nailed the first 5 months and are in an excellent routine with nutrition and training. They have families, social lives, they’ve come out for drinks at our famous DMF Xmas party and lived “normal” lives alongside the gym.
We’ve focused on the habits, providing support and accountability along the way, making changes and reasonable asks as and when necessary to keep progressing.
When Adrian returns from his holiday he has booked in a few weeks time, he has reached a level of leanness that we can start flipping things round and build appreciable muscle tissue. He has no aspirations of becoming some sort of bodybuilder, but we will look to build at a decent rate (for a man 2-3% of your total bodyweight per month), whilst mitigating fat gain – I’m excited.
With Anna, well she’s yet to tell me, but I believe she wants to achieve a healthy body fat percentage and maintain it. She’s well on course and I couldn’t be prouder.
