Food: The Most Important Piece of the Puzzle

Food consumption is the hardest piece of the puzzle when trying to change one’s body. Whether your goal is to lose weight or define your muscles, changing what and how you eat is the most important component.

I experienced this myself when I competed in figure competitions several years ago. I had been working out hard with my exercise plan, but as soon as I cleaned up my diet, boy, did it really show positively in my physique. To this day, I still eat very clean and try to eat every three hours because just I have trained my body; I have trained my eating patterns.

When working with my clients, nutrition is one of the first things I talk about in our initial meeting. How one eats takes time to alter because it is something that you have to do everyday. You may not exercise everyday, but you eat everyday. Prior to someone needing assistance, they have habits that are ingrained in their daily life and brain. This is why it is the hardest part of the puzzle.

This part of the puzzle will not be successful until the individual is ready to change. I wrote about the Stages of Change in the January 4, 2009 entry. It discusses how you go through stages of precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action and maintenance whenever you make a major change in your life. You first have to feel that you need to make a change and ready yourself to commit. Without it, you will not succeed. However, when you do commit, results happen.

In the past month, I have had several clients notice how when they finally committed to staying on course with a consistent food plan, their bodies responded. They have either started to track their food and activity (see January 31, 2010 entry on Track Your Progress) or started eating the right amount of calories their bodies need or started eating the right combination of fats, carbohydrates and proteins. Clients with both weight loss and body sculpting goals are succeeding.

I also want to discuss how if one wants to see change, they have to stick with the program. I am sometimes made aware of how the body is either not changing or the weight is going in the wrong direction. The truth is that when one is exercising to their maximum potential, you may think you can eat anything. There is a misunderstanding that when you are burning calories in a hard workout, you can have that extra glass of wine or that piece of cake won’t hurt . . but it does. Once you make a commitment, you have to stick with it. When you get to a point of maintenance (in the Stages of Change) where you have reached your goal and you are happy with what you see in the mirror, how you feel in your clothes or what the scale says, then you can stray from time to time. At that point, you deserve it.