Stop Restricting More Than You Need To!

If you’re like many of the women we meet, your weight loss journey has probably focused mainly on what to restrict in your diet. But is that really the right way to go about losing weight?

One of our favorite pieces of advice is this: “Don’t fix what isn’t broken.” What do we mean by that? We are going to explain this in detail in the video and tips below.

If you aren’t having the success you were hoping for when it comes to weight loss, We get it. It can be super frustrating.

And if you’re frustrated with lack of weight loss and want to make progress, being more restrictive seems like the natural solution.

But is it?

The best way to illustrate how we apply this strategy is to share a case study with you. This perfectly exemplifies what we mean by this and how most women go to much greater (and painful) lengths to lose weight than is actually necessary.

Lisa is one of our past clients. She’s a post menopausal woman who was frustrated with the 20+ pounds she had been carrying around for the past few years.

When we first met, she shared that she’d been on and off several different diets with varying amounts of success.

Problem was, she kept giving up after a period of time once she got tired of the food or other numerous restrictions she felt required to follow.

Lisa’s assumption for her lack of progress was that she was eating too many carbs . . . which included occasional toast at breakfast, banana in her smoothie, potatoes at dinner, and a couple slices of pizza on Fridays, all of which she loved.

But when we reviewed Lisa’s food and lifestyle intake form, we noticed that she actually was eating quite healthfully!

What stood out to us was not Lisa’s carb intake, but that she was eating too much at night.

Digging deeper, we discovered this was mainly because she skipped an afternoon snack, so once dinner rolled around, she would overeat (and eat too quickly). Then she would often snack into the evening sometimes out of habit and sometimes because she still felt hungry.

NEWS FLASH: Lisa did not need a complete diet overhaul filled with unnecessary restrictions. What she needed was a few key habit changes.

So we sent Lisa home with these 3 pieces of advice.

• Eat a healthy mid afternoon snack to calm down her blood sugars
• Slow down her eating pace at dinner to allow the fullness hormone (leptin) to kick in before eating more than her body needs (and hence feel more satisfied without turning to night snacking)
• Fast from after dinner to breakfast the next morning

We also designed a few personalized mid-day snacks for Lisa, and discussed strategies for how to eat more mindfully at dinner.

We continued to work with and coach Lisa as she slowly shed her unwanted weight. She was thrilled because as it turned out, carbs were not what was “broken” in her eating plan and she realized she did not have to give up some of her favorite foods, as long as she ate them in moderation. A few key habits changes did the trick 🙂

Bottom Line? You don’t need to fix what isn’t broken!

Often, you don’t need a complete diet overhaul, but we frequently see many post-menopausal women practicing too many restrictions, and then not getting the nutrients in the proper balance they need to really thrive after 50. 

So how can you avoid falling into the same trap that Lisa did?

Here’s an exercise for you. Track your eating for 3 days, noting the time of day and what you have for each meal. Be honest with everything you eat and drink. When analyzing the journal, notice if your problem area has more to do with a habit than specifically the foods. 

Yes, there are nuances to this approach (it’s still important to balance meals and eat healthy), but you want to be sure you are focusing on the right thing and not needlessly removing foods you enjoy. 

We work so much on habits in our 3 month Simply Nourished Program. While we are nutritionists, of course we have our philosophy on food, but we have found in working with hundreds of women that in order to make permanent changes you need to focus on habits. Real habit changes get to the root of your issues rather than a restrictive diet which acts more like a band-aid. 

We hear from our clients all the time how freeing it is to have the confidence to know they can do this long term rather than the feeling that they have to go on yet another diet. So, if you are interested in not fixing what isn’t broken, we open up a few spots each month into this transformational program. Check out our Simply Nourished Program to see if we currently have space and if it is a good fit for you.