5 Reasons Flexible Nutrition Leads to Weight Loss

5 Reasons Flexible Nutrition Leads to Weight Loss
We all want to lose weight, but we don’t want to give up our favorite treats. I can’t imagine ever having to “give up” my coffee creamer. Not going to happen! Many times people believe the more “bad foods” they cut out, the more weight they will lose. But why do we have to deprive ourselves and cut out things we enjoy to trim unwanted fat? Doing so will only lead to feelings of guilt when we end up “cheating” on our diet. With flexible dieting no food is off limits as long as it fits your macros. No foods are considered “bad”. Eat real food. Eat delicious food. Eat what you enjoy with a wide variety of Real Food choices. Weight loss is simple math. Calorie deficits lead to weight loss and calorie surpluses lead to weight gain. If your are not in a deficit, weight loss will not happen. With flexible nutrition on the other hand, you record and track foods you consume to meet your daily macronutrient goals. This daily tracking allows you to be aware of exactly what you eat and control your caloric intake. Also, when tracking you can adjust your macronutrients to speed up or slow down your weight loss goal. One of the biggest problems with modern day structured, rigid “meal plans” with maybe 8-10 different food options (if you’re lucky) is that there is no plan for when life happens. This type of eating can cause many different problems, including “falling off” your diet. Many people who eat in this way will eat one food that isn’t on their “meal plan” (an extremely easy mistake to make when they’ve been eating the same bland foods for weeks) and decide since they’ve already screwed up their diet, they might as well just eat whatever they want and start again next week. What happens to your “meal plan” when you have outings with family and friends, when you find yourself on a date, or run out of the food in your meal plan in a pinch, or simply get tired of the food on the plan and can’t stand the sight of another bland, dry chicken breast? Are you really going to bring your tupperware with chicken, rice, and broccoli on a first date you scored with that person you’ve been crushing on for months? Me Neither. It’s easier to take a peek at the menu ahead of time and work the food of your choice into your macros; you’re all set. No worries, you’ve got it covered! Go enjoy your date. When life happens, you’ve got flexible nutrition. If you’ve been craving your favorite ice cream, fit it in your macros. Would a juicy hamburger would really hit the spot right now? Fit it in your macros! No need to pack broccoli and chicken in your Tupperware and bring it into the restaurant. The beauty of E.P.A.T. and flexible nutrition is you can work any food into your diet (in moderation of course) to hit macronutrient goals and still not only lose body fat, but keep it off for good! So you’ve stuck to your rigid meal plan for months. It was tough and grueling and you “cheated” on your diet more than a few times. But you finally prevailed and lost some weight. What now? You’ve cut every bit of sugar and almost all the carbs out of your diet and now you want to enjoy yourself. How does another meal plan sound to maintain the progress you’ve made? :( That’s probably the last thing you’ll want to do. You’ll go eat your favorite foods and enjoy yourself with family and friends and eventually, gain it all back. End the American yo-yo diet. Build a lifestyle diet with Flexible nutrition. It is a sustainable way to maintain the progress you’ve made and enjoy every minute of it. E.P.A.T. (Our own adaptive method) works hand in hand with flexible nutrition and is designed to be a sustainable, lifelong method to weight-loss. As I mentioned above, when people cheat on their “meal plan”, they tend to go on a binge and shove down half a tub of ice cream or half a pack of cookies because in their minds they feel like they’ve already screwed up their diet so they “might as well try again tomorrow.” This sort of eating and thinking is an extremely unhealthy way to live mentally. And let’s face it, in the long term, it’s ineffective. It encourages the “yo-yo” back and forth between “on a diet” and “eating whatever”. This is a terrible relationship to have with food. Maybe people who sell crash diets may love it, but you sure won’t. Some coaches and trainers even allow “cheat meals” or “cheat days” that encourage an all out binge fest to eat the foods you’ve been deprived of on their prescribed “meal plan”. But what happens when you can’t stop eating your cheat foods? You go on an unstoppable binge that leads you feeling guilty and ashamed. There are no “cheat meals” in flexible nutrition. Your “cheat” is just another meal. When you are already allowed to enjoy your favorite foods like cake and cookies (in moderation of course) you won’t feel the need to go on “cheat” when you are faced with temptation! Flexible dieting seeks to augment this problem by finding a happy medium. Do you see yourself on your “diet” 6 months from now? I bet you don’t. Fad diets come and go like the seasons. They rarely work, and there’s never a game plan for what comes next. They are never sustainable and you’ll slip off the horse at some point. There is no quick-fix 4 week or 4 hour meal plan to a bikini body. When you follow E.P.A.T. and flexible nutrition. Your diet doesn’t change with the seasons, you simply enjoy your weight loss success long term. Food anxiety causes us to fear what we are going to eat or what we can’t eat. Who wants an unhealthy relationship with food when we are trying to become healthy ourselves? With an eating habit that actually incorporates real food, we no longer will stress and worry about eating “good” or only “clean” foods. You won’t have to worry about what to eat when going out with your friends. Less stress actually aids in weight loss, so the less we stress, the easier it will be to lose weight and keep it off! There is no need to fear real food and delicious food you love! Have flexibility with your nutrition. Buy your cookies and eat them (in moderation of course)! If you’re ready to rid yourself of the crash diets for good, and learn how to transform your body and life with flexible nutrition, take a peek at some of our programs. To learn more about flexible nutrition, check out our coaching programs.