I am often asked about nutritional advice and tips from clients, and my response is often not what people think.

As I am sure you know, there are a number of different areas of nutrition you can focus on and thousands of tips I can give you.  One of the big things I have learned over the years, is how to give actionable advice.  If I give you any advance and you don’t take action, then the advice I gave you must have been pretty terrible.

It’s not that the information is wrong, but if it is something you cannot apply and take action on, it just wasn’t the right advice for you.

If I am going to give any recommendations I have to know two important pieces of information.  What are your current eating habits and what is the primary goal you are working on.  Just like giving directions.  I need to know where you are going and where you are starting from.  Only then can I help you get there.

This brings me to the first thing you should do in order to change your eating habits.  You need to track your food.  I can ask you what you typically eat in a day, but most likely you will give me only your greatest hits.  You will probably conveniently leave out things that you don’t want me to hear.

Yes I have trust issues.  I will not take anyone at their word in this scenario.  I have just seen it happen too many times.  Someone complains that they eat perfectly and cannot lose weight.  Then we have them track their food for 2 weeks and the scale magically starts to move, before even giving any recommendations.

Food tracking isn’t just for me.  Sure I want to see what you typically eat so I can have an idea what the best next step is for you.  But really, food tracking is for the client.  When people start tracking food, they get a crash course in nutrition education.  They start to see how quickly certain things add up and how some things are harder to get enough of.

Yes I know that food tracking is tedious.  But it just work so well.  And according to the research, you don’t have to be perfect.  One study showed that tracking food just 30% of the time lead to around 3% of weight loss over 6 months.  Tracking it 40% of the time lead to 5% weight loss.  And 70% of the time lead to 10% loss.  The more you track the better but just doing it sometimes can be incredibly helpful.

Here is what I recommend for you.  Download a nutrition tracking app like https://cronometer.com/.  Track your food as best as you can for 2 weeks.  Once you have completed two weeks you can start to look at your numbers.  You can start with total calories.  What is your average caloric intake per day?  Is it going to help you reach your goal or do you need to make a change?  Next take a look at your average macro nutrients ratios between carbs, fats, and protein.  Are you hitting recommended numbers here?  Finally look at your micronutrients.  Are you neglecting certain foods that leading to deficiencies.

It really can be that simple.  If you are trying to lose fat or build muscle, you need to consistently following nutrition strategies that reflect that goal.  Then you can make changes that will help you get closer to your goal.

One final note is to make sure you are tracking your progress effectively.  Using a scale that tells you your weight is not always giving you the whole story.  Use scales that give you better data so you can specifically see how effective the changes you are making are having on your body.

I highly recommend checking out the Body Pod from Hume Health.  This incredible scale using 8 frequency sensors to deliver precise weight, full body composition, and heart heat.  This home scale can achieve a 98% correlation with a DEXA Scan.  Using this scale you can easily understand how your body reacts to food, sleep, stress, and other lifestyle factors.

Check out the body pod here and use code OCRUNDERGROUND to get 15% off.

https://myhumehealth.com?bg_ref=OmkL9jt7FG

 

Thanks,

 

Mike Deibler