The topic I want to discuss today is something that I don’t often discuss with clients, mostly because our discussions are focused on you and your goals. But I found myself chatting about this in a consult this week to describe to someone the difference between what I do with different clients.
I try to help people find the sweet spot with their nutrition.
The place where it feels easy (sometimes effortless) but it is effective in helping that person to feel great and reach their goals.
But for every person, this process is very different.
For some people, I am teaching moderation.
I am helping these people to learn the skills they need to reduce their intake of foods that are appearing to often in their diet and are not helping them towards their goal.
I often help these people to practice things like mindfulness and learning to decide what makes them feel good and perhaps learning some restraint around foods (or drinks) that they need to pull back on.
On the other hand, I help people to liberate their diet.
I help people to stop restricting their intake so much and to learn to have more freedom with food. This often means that I am also teaching things like mindfulness and getting in touch with their appetite to help recognise what feels good for them at different times.
It is sometimes a tricky balance between liberating your diet and practicing eating foods if and when you feel like them and also eating things that make you feel good.
And finding this balance is what this process is all about.
I love the saying that ‘for some people, eating the donut is progress. For some people, not eating the donut is progress’. I think that perfectly sums up how different everyone’s journey can be.
So it is so important not to compare your nutrition journey to anyone else’s, because we all have different areas that we need to work on and develop a range of skills in to be able to find this sweet spot.
A place where we are eating foods that serve us in terms of not only our physical health, but our mental and emotional health as well. Food impacts all of those areas and it’s important to understand that and to nourish our whole selves.
So yes, use food to fuel your body and yes, use food to reach your goals but also don’t ignore all the other reasons that we eat because they are also vital to you being able to sustain what you are doing in the long run.
If you need help finding your nutrition sweet spot, get in touch today.