Perform Better Nutrition Coaching

Anyone can follow a diet for a few short weeks and maybe drop a few kg's but sustaining that is where we usually fall short.

Developing healthier habits, improving your skills in the kitchen and with time management alongside increasing your physical activity is where your long term success will come from.

Despite how hard you're trying, if you're not losing weight, it's because you're not actually in a calorie deficit.

This is a frustrating truth for many people because they are actively trying but their actions aren't necessarily causing a reduction in calorie intake.

It's a new week, everything is going great.

You're motivated about your new diet of chicken breast, broccoli and salad.

As the week progress things start getting stressful at work. Little Johnny is having a tough week at school and the stress of it all is starting to build.

By Friday you're tired, irritable, hungry, stressed out and emotional exhausted.

After dinner the cravings get stronger than ever and before you know it you're rummaging through the pantry and freezer in search of that something to ease the stress of it all.

By Saturday lunch time you've thrown in the towel and on Sunday you're trying to talk yourself into starting all over again.

This week will be different.

I'll be stricter. I'll have discipline. I can do th....

..We've got to stop this merry-go-round.

Learn some other ways to manage and alleviate stress.

Make behavioral changes that help improve our health, increase diet quality and reduce calorie intake without feeling overly restricted and having food consume our thoughts.

If stress eating is a thing for you, it might be better for you to work on finding ways to alleviate and reduce your stress levels instead of creating more stress through restrictive dieting.

- Better quality sleep
- Find a hobby
- Journal
- Have s*x
- Take a walk outside
- Listen to music
- Read a book
- Explore your feelings and become a problem solver.

This isn't going to change overnight, it'll take some consistent effort, but in the long run it'll be worth it.

If only it were that easy.

Food is intertwined in our human experiences with friends, family, places and memories.

You don't need to 'earn' the foods you enjoy eating.

You don't need to reward yourself with a daily 'treat' for exercising.

Food is food.

It's 100% OK to eat something because you wanted it.

Enjoy it, be mindful of the taste, texture and experience.

"A habit is a routine of behaviour that is repeated regularly and tends to occur subsconsiously."

Every habit you develop whether it's helpful or not, serves you in some way, shape or form.

In the quest of improved health, fitness, body composition and performance, your habits in nutrition, exercise, stress management and sleep are where the real changes come from.

Remember, you cannot create a habit for NOT doing something.

Avoidance isn't going to create a new habit.

E.g avoiding a particular food.

Instead, try creating habits in replacement of the thing youre trying to avoid.

When I'm stressed, instead of going to the fridge, I'm going to take 5 deep breaths and take a short walk to collect my thoughts.

Eat the foods you like, but engineer your environment to help you succeed.

There's a big difference in terms of calories consumed from snacks when you're eating out of the packet vs eating a preportioned size serving.

I get it, the bigger bags might be better value for you money but unless you're willing to weigh them out and portion them every single time, or put them into glad seal bags ahead of time.

Just buy the preportioned variety. The extra $ is paying for the convenience 👌

It's not your fault that plan didn't work.

The fitness industry has sold you the idea of and very restrictive dieting is the only way to lose weight.

Unfortunately this approach almost always ends the same way.

To train hard you need to be well rested.

To help get a handle on your appetite and cravings, you need 7+ hours sleep per night.

To have more energy to get up and go you need to find ways to manage and relieve stress that are actually relaxing.

Hint: Flogging yourself with exercise is not managing stress, it's adding too it.

Yes, you need a mild calorie deficit and you need to put the effort in when you're training but there's no need to start with extremes.

🧘 Stress management
📒 Journal
🛌 7+ hours per night
🥩 Eat more protein
🍅 Eat more veggies
🍌 Enjoy a variety of fruit
🚶 Get your daily step count up
🏋️ Lift weights 2-4x per week

Use 👆 to build your foundation of habits that support your goals and enable you to grow into the person you want to be.

Losing weight isn't the challenge, it's keeping it off that's difficult.

Working on developing habits around physical activity, eating more protein and plants along with managing stress and sleep is a big part of that.

When was the last time you acknowledged your hunger?

Did it build up gradually over a period of time?

Or

Did you suddenly have a specific craving or urge to eat?

Did you know that they aren't the same thing.

Hunger is physiological and builds overtime.

Sudden urges to eat can be caused by ignoring your hunger but are usually caused by other triggers such as emotions, stress, environmental cues (places, people, time of day).

What about during a meal, do you eat until you're stuffed and uncomfortable?

Or do you stop eating when you feel satisfied even if there's still food left?

How often do you put your fork down during a meal?

Do you eat at your desk or infront of the TV and not even realise you've finished your meal only to be hungry again within the hour?

When was the last time you truly paid attention to your hunger and satiety before, during and after a meal?

Yes, everyone needs a calorie deficit to lose weight but the process of losing weight is going to look very different from person to person.

If you've lost touch with your internal hunger and satiety signals, starting another diet on Monday isn't going to help.

Following a nutrition plan alongside relearning about your hunger, learning the difference between satisfied and stuffed, identifying physiological hunger vs emotional or boredom eating is where the show is!

You can and you should!

There is no single food responsible for weight gain and there are no foods that burn fat.

You can still enjoy all of your favourite foods whilst losing weight.

Having some freedom and flexibility with nutrition goes along way.

It's important to enjoy the process and build sustainable habits so that you can make long-term progress.

Fancy labels and pretty packaging doesn't always mean those foods are "healthy" or even any better than their "junk" food counterpart.

Let's take a quick look at a few comparisons between snacks you can grab from woolies & coles.

First up is the childhood fave, the full flavoured chocolate paddle pop with a measley 78 calories.

Compared to the skinny cow double choc sundae with 120 calories per serve.

Then you've got the noshu low carb "indulgence" bars. While they aren't bad, they might not satisfy your craving for some chocolate.

The curly wurly is just 119 calories per bar and will definitely satisfy your sweet tooth.

Lastly, we've got the Well Naturally chocolate.

While it has no added sugar, per 100g it has twice as much fat, and in particular, saturated fat when compared to Cadbury Dairy Milk Crunchie.

While food is far more than just calories, the moral of the story here is that the sweet treats aren't as bad as you might think.

Those "healthy" alternatives might not be any better and in some cases could be causing you to consume more calories than if you'd just had the standard option.