Nutrition Priority #1: Eating on Purpose instead of Reactively
- This means planning your meals and snacks, so you’re not at the mercy of grabbing whatever’s easy when you’re starving.
- This means learning to recognize the danger signs of emotional eating so you don’t reactively binge any time life gets stressful.
Nutrition Priority #2: Portions
Nutrition Priority #3: Eat Natural Foods
Natural foods are typically much lower in calories and higher in nutrients than processed foods. Plus from a health standpoint, you want to stay away from eating as many chemicals as possible.
So stick with natural, unprocessed foods like vegetables, organic proteins, nuts, and whole grains. Keep the processed grains, sugars, artificial flavors and colors, packaged foods, preservatives, and fast food out of your diet as much as possible!
Nutrition Priority #4: Protein + Plant
Every time you eat, try to combine a protein source with some kind of plant matter (vegetable, fruit, or whole grain). Combining your carbs with protein and/or dietary fat will help control your blood sugar, and limit fat storage — as long as your portions are in line! (see priority #2)
Eating enough protein can also help you feel satisfied for longer periods of time, and stave off cravings for sugar or other unhealthy foods.
Nutrition Priority #5: Nutrition Support with Supplements
Once you’re PLANNING your meals and snacks, and have mastered Reactive Eating,
and you’ve regularly got your PORTIONS under control,
and you eat predominantly NATURAL FOODS instead of processed foods,
and you have built the Protein + Plant habit,
THEN you can start looking at nutrition support for optimal health.
Simple things like a quality multi-vitamin/mineral supplement, fish oil, and probiotics make sense for most people. But always consult a qualified nutrition professional before adding any nutrition supplements to your diet. It’s important that you get the right stuff, and not too much of it. Plus, some nutrition supplements can interact with prescription medications, so it’s important to keep track of that too.
Nutrition Priority #6: Macros
“Macros” is short for “macronutrients”, which are proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. “Tweaking your macros” is a term we use for adjusting the ratios of proteins, carbs, and fats that you eat. After you have all the other nutrition priorities in place, playing with your macro ratios is a way to maximize your fat loss and physical performance.
Get Help With Nutrition
If you need help putting together a healthy weight loss nutrition program, and — most importantly — STAYING ON TRACK WITH IT, just drop us a note and we’ll talk about options. We love nutrition counseling and we’d love to help you either in person in Nashville, or remotely anywhere in the world!