One of my favorite strategies and proven methods for any type of body composition change, is a long term approach instead of a strict diet or guideline. Of course there are times in life, where we need to make more aggressive decisions or have a timeline for us to lose weight. These times are often to do with drastic health measures, to get an individual back to a healthy weight, or with timeline goals, such as an upcoming wedding or competition.
We have to consider our eating strategies in these two categories of long term and short term approaches. Many fad diets and strategies that we see in the media and news are short term approaches. They will reward you with significant results in a short period of time. One may lose 10-20 lbs in a month and start spreading the word about how wonderful that particular eating strategy is. It doesn’t take too much brainpower to realize that if one was to continue to lose 10-20 lbs a month, it wouldn’t be long until that individual reaches goal weight or goes in the wrong direction and loses too much weight. This is where the problem lies with short term more aggressive strategies. Most people dont have the next step or the long term strategy prepared. Many people ask for a maintenance meal plan. Maintenance is balancing life and making consistent sustainable choices.
The long term strategy should be a balanced approach to eating. One where we can accept that we will not be eating perfectly. We need to acknowledge and be mentally ok with celebrations, birthdays, thanksgivings and holidays. Once we can accept that we are not perfect, we can then not punish ourselves for eating unhealthy foods sometimes. After these decisions, we need to simply go back to our sustainable healthy choices. Consistency over time is the key to success.
These next few blog posts will deal with creating healthy habits one meal at a time. Our strategy will be to not overwhelm ourselves with a huge new eating plan, but to tackle one meal at a time starting with our breakfasts. Before we even begin with breakfast however, lets start with your water intake.
While reading this, you may not be prepared or even have the ingredients to change your breakfasts, but we certainly have access to water. Lets start by adding in our daily requirements of water. Lets do this for the next week while we prepare to start changing our breakfast routine. Dont worry about anything else, just get your daily water intake in! Click here for a calculator that tells you how much water to drink.
Stay tuned and come back tomorrow for our breakfast strategy, which will include some options that will keep things simple and get you in the habit for sustainable, healthy breakfasts. Check out our instagram @vaughansfitness for daily at home workout circuits during this time of self-isolation.
