New Year, New You: Diet Dilemma

 

Oh boy, this is a topic I can’t wait to sink my teeth into.

Could be that is just the excitement of two cups of coffee kicking in?

Probably not, ask Weston, I love to talk about food.

Sometimes I dream about what I would do if I wasn’t a teacher. In an alternate universe where I actually had the training to do it, I would love be to be a dietician or nutritionist. Here also is the disclaimer that I do NOT have the training to be either or these things, so feel free to take what I’m about to say with a grain of salt.

Stop making New Year’s Resolutions to lose weight.

Here’s why I hate this resolution: If your focus is weight loss, you are focusing on the wrong thing. I’m just going to throw this out there, you will never keep weight off if being skinny is your only motivation. I know, I know, people love to say “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels,” but that’s just wrong.

If you really want to make a good resolution for yourself, make your goal to be healthier. Because healthy is way better than skinny.

Let me tell you a story about a 20-year-old who was obsessed with “skinny.”

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away…

There was me. 

I’m just going to recap one of the things I did trying to be skinny, just to make a point that healthy and skinny are not synonymous.

Have you ever heard of the Cabbage Soup 7-Day Diet? If not, I encourage you to look it up. Not because I recommend it or because it’s healthy, but because it is so ridiculous. Here are a few highlights for your entertainment. Day 1: Eat all the fruit you want, but only eat fruit (no bananas). Day 2: Eat a baked potato for breakfast, then eat only non-starchy vegetables for the rest of the day. Skip ahead to Day 4 and all you should eat are bananas, milk, and yogurt. Day 7: Eat as much cabbage soup as you want!

Sounds great, right?

Y’all, I want to slap 20-year-old Sarah in the face and then hug her close and tell her to stop. Dear, sweet, confused girl, stop. Cabbage soup diets, meal replacement shakes, meals that look like this:

 

That's a delicious lunch of spinach, spray balsamic vinaigrette, and Diet Coke.

These are NOT what you want in life. Was I skinny? Yeah, probably the skinniest I've ever been and ever will be. I also felt like garbage most of the time. I wasn't properly fueling my body.

Instead, focus on nutrition and health. Please. Do it for me. Do it for 20-year-old Sarah. Do it for your children who are watching you and who don’t need to grow up to be 20-year-old Sarahs. (A quick clarification: My parents are NOT to blame for my poor nutrition choices)

Fad diets, meal replacement shakes, cabbage soup diets, they all work (if they do) for one reason:

Calories in are less than calories out.

That’s how weight loss works. In fact, it’s the only proven way to lose weight.

I could go on and on about this, in fact I’ll probably revisit this topic many times. The only way to lose weight is to eat less calories than you burn. Technically, it doesn’t matter what the calories are. If you could eat only 1,200 calories of Cheetos and workout, you could lose weight. But you aren’t going to, right? Why?

Because no one can eat only 1,200 calories of Cheetos, they’re too addicting! Or maybe that’s just me....

And because that’s not healthy!

It's another post for another day, but so many other fad diets and meal replacement programs aren’t healthy either friends.

So, please for the love of all of the delicious and healthy meals out there, make this your New Year’s Resolution: Eat healthier.

Focus on eating things that aren’t processed. Look at ingredient lists and see if you can recognize and pronounce everything that’s listed. Better yet, eat foods that don’t come with ingredient lists. Prioritize eating lean protein, whole grains, and fresh produce. Just trust me on this one. Because you know what FEELS better than skinny, healthy. And who knows, you may just lose weight along the way.

If you need any barely qualified advice, reach out. I don’t have any official training on this but I do read A LOT about health and nutrition. I’d love to help you get started on the path to eating healthier.

And keep an eye out for my next post when I talk about why perfectionism is the enemy of healthy eating.