How many of you had a Resolution to eat better, more balanced and healthier?

How many of you feel like you accomplished that goal?

The hardest part of reaching that goal is not ignoring your sweet tooth… It is understanding what that goal even means!

What does eating healthier or better mean to you? Is it not eating all the “bad” food, eating clean? Again there’s a lot of vagueness in that meaning which means knowing if you are accomplishing your goal is incredibly hard and setting what might be an unachievable goal is too easy.

The truth is when many of us make the goal of eating better, for reasons between losing weight and just being healthier, we tend to aim for perfection.

We believe if we have enough willpower or mental control that we can follow along with the perfect plan. Yet, we can’t.

Let’s unravel both why you can’t follow the perfect plan with a vague goal and how to set the right goals to eat more balanced.

How to Eat “Balanced”

How many of you had a Resolution to eat better, more balanced and healthier?

How many of you feel like you accomplished that goal?

The hardest part of reaching that goal is not ignoring your sweet tooth… It is understanding what that goal even means!

What does eating healthier or better mean to you? Is it not eating all the “bad” food, eating clean? Again there’s a lot of vagueness in that meaning which means knowing if you are accomplishing your goal is incredibly hard and setting what might be an unachievable goal is too easy.

The truth is when many of us make the goal of eating better, for reasons between losing weight and just being healthier, we tend to aim for perfection.

We believe if we have enough willpower or mental control that we can follow along with the perfect plan. Yet, we can’t.

Let’s unravel both why you can’t follow the perfect plan with a vague goal and how to set the right goals to eat more balanced.

The Science of Eating Healthy

There are two facets of why and what we eat: physiological and psychological. When we involve these two sciences changing the what, when, how, and why we eat something becomes quite complicated.

Let’s start with the “straightforward” science: Physiology.

For the most part, we know pretty much what we should and should not eat and how much. Most will agree that fresh vegetables are healthier than french fries.

A quick Google search can bring up a food pyramid that tells you exactly how many servings of what you should eat each day and one more search on the web can bring up an infographic on how to use your hand for serving size measurements. Simple right?

Then you Google about the pros and cons of vegan versus keto. Then you Google about intermittent fasting until you see a great study about eating small meals every two hours. Then you fall into this conspiracy about how the food pyramid was bought out by sugar companies and you shouldn’t actually eat any bread. Then you get stuck into mathematical equations about breaking down your personal macros when you don’t know what a macro even is.

At the end of the night you are eating a full bag of Ruffles with a headache and giving up on finding out what healthy even means.

An honest truth from someone that got caught up with the search and ended up just taking classes and getting certified to know more. The food and fitness industry is full of conflicting theories. There are some common truths that your mom probably taught you about eating and having a balanced plate but what it all comes down to is what works for YOU.

There is the science of what most bodies need for fuel: calories, protein, carbohydrates, fats, and vitamins. Yet where you source them from and the timing of when to eat really comes down to what works for you. Like most science experiments this requires some trial and error.

Do you have any intolerances? Does meat make you feel sluggish? Does eating in only a 6-10 hour window make you irritable? All these questions you CANNOT answer in a google search but it takes time to really get to understand your body.

Feeling overwhelmed? There are nutritionists, dietitians, and personal coaches that can all help you come up with a great plan to figure out what works for you.

Putting the Person Back in Personal Diet

Now say you know pretty much what makes you feel great. You begin to stick to a mainly plant-based diet with light intermittent fasting. Your body is feeling and looking great but then you eat some cake at a birthday, feel horrible and guilty, and the diet is “ruined”.

First and foremost, we are humans and nothing will ever be perfect or be without bumps in the roads.

When looking to live a healthy balanced diet you have to imagine this as a long term lifestyle and not a short cut to lose weight. If you don’t actually enjoy what you are eating or see this experience as a dreaded diet there is no way you will stick to your goals.

This is where most people fail, we see success as perfection and anything less than we give up on.

Let me share my personal story: Back in college I got very obsessed with my health. I was overly stressed with school, and my social life, that my body and what I ate felt like the only things I could control. I routinely got stuck in the web search of different theories and became very strict with what I ate.

I cut out almost everything except for fruit and vegetables with the occasional meat. I worked out religiously and fasted once a week. I lost a lot of weight, was in the best cardiac shape of my life, and most people thought I had the perfect diet. Yet I was miserable. I felt extreme guilt whenever I ate “bad” food and would have a lot of anxiety when eating out.

Now 10 years later, I am more healthy and balanced than I have ever been in my life. I am not as nutritionally “perfect” as I was 10 years ago. Did I eat a bag of popcorn and candy for dinner Saturday night at the movies? Yes I did, and I don’t feel bad about it.

Before, I would have spent 2 hours the next day in the gym and perfectly accounted for the calories in my head, balancing out the math. Today, I kept the routine going the following week with meal prep and regular gym sessions and wine and chocolate when I needed it.

The moral I learned from my story is that the mind can not be taken out of the equation for balance. I could not easily change my thought pattern when it came to perfection. Though I was eating “perfectly” I was missing out on the joy of eating. The social gathering that food has become in our culture. Psychologically my eating habits were not balanced.

Finding Harmony

When I define balance I don’t see the perfectly weighed out scales of justice. I imagine kids having fun on the teeter totters. It isn’t as fun if you are completely out weighed and stuck in one position but neither is the point to be perfectly balanced in the middle. It is a dynamic movement. 

The same can be said about nutrition. For the most part you want to find that balance where you eat what you enjoy while also eating what makes you body feel good. 

There will be times when you are at complete highs meal prepping for healthy choices or eating a large tub of movie theater butter popcorn. Mostly though you will be in the middle, eating unhealthy and healthy in equal moderations. 

Knowing that perfect harmony comes with truly understanding yourself, both physically and emotionally. Which takes time, honesty and maybe some help. 

The most important part is that you enjoy the ride. Take the time to savor the “bad” or “treat” food. Give into your cravings and partake in the sociocultural part of food. While at the same time respecting your body for the amazing machine that it is and giving it some good fuel and regular oil changes. We only get one body but we also only get one life.