Christine and I recently became Nutrition Coaches through Precision Nutrition (PN). We have been wanting to incorporate nutrition services at Body Basics for the past several years, and are finally at that place. Good nutrition is key when wanting to add muscle, burn fat, and obtain good overall health. You may have heard it said, “You are what you eat”. It’s so true!
The certification we did was far more scientific than I expected. It provided quite a bit of knowledge in the areas of biochemistry, physiology, psychology, and metabolic processes. Outside of all the incredibly detailed stuff I learned about how our body processes (digests and absorbs food), I learned a couple of things that changed my perspective of food and how it relates to my lifestyle.
For the most part, unless you are an elite athlete or a body builder, PN is not a proponent of tracking calories or weighing your food. Instead, they encourage coaches to work with their clients on learning how to eat “mindfully”--paying attention to hunger cues, fullness cues, and so many of the elements that affect our psychology. Honestly, that’s most of the battle; isn’t it? It’s not necessarily that we think ice cream and cake are good for us. It’s the fact we somehow rationalize and justify that it’s ok for us to eat them whenever we want, or maybe we just haven’t developed the discipline to say no. Well, there are some tricks that can help, and PN’s Certification filled our “toolbox” with strategies to help clients develop healthy habits.
One of the reasons I like this “mindfulness” is that it changes the focus from an external source (such as a calorie chart) to an introspective Sherlock Holmes’ approach--Why am I eating what I’m eating? Am I eating slowly? Do I feel guilty? Am I able to say no to my cravings when I’m not even hungry? When do I struggle with self-control the most? Most approaches have you ignoring your inner dialogue. “Just eat what’s on the list, or eat the calories you’re told to”. No doubt this can produce results. Again, if you’re at an athletic level at which you need this type of detail, it’s great, but most of us (including myself) do not need this monotonous routine. It can have us focused on possibly the wrong thing. Plus, it doesn’t teach us to listen to our bodies, exercise self-discipline, or create habits based on our values. That’s really it! If we develop habits that align with our values, we’ll succeed long term. If we simply adopt habits we don’t believe in just to accomplish a goal, we haven’t effected lasting change. This is the main problem with dieting.
Being mindful and paying attention to your hunger and fullness cues, how a particular food made your feel, and why you ate what you ate (hungry, depressed, angry, etc...) will help you gain understanding and be far more in tune with yourself. It’s so important to learn our behavioral tendencies. Our society prides itself on our fast-paced, multi-tasking abilities, but this leads to eating while we are at our computer or even while we are driving. This can have us eating too fast, eating too much, or eating entirely the wrong food. It is easy to become unaware with how many times we have reached our hand in the chip bag while watching a video on the computer. Mindlessness leads to so many problems. In order to become our best selves, we need to be very mindful in every aspect of our lives including our relationship with food.
Try it! When you eat next, be mindful about how fast you’re eating, what you’re eating, why you ate that particular thing, and how it made you feel. If you’re looking to gain muscle, you’ll need to eat a certain way and be in tune with that. If you’re looking to lose weight, you’ll need to eat a different way while being aware of mindless eating. If you haven’t developed any discipline and have no idea where to start... that’s ok. Hire a good nutrition coach that can help guide you in the right direction to acquire lasting results!
Precision Nutrition really was a fantastic certification, and we’re excited to apply it at Body Basics. Currently, we are offering 1-on-1 Nutrition Coaching and Nutrition Workshops. Our first Nutrition Workshop begins April 16th and will run for 6 weeks, every Tuesday @ 5:30pm. The topic is Slimming Down for Summer. If interested, reach out to us via email, info@bodybasicsboise.com, or sign up at Body Basics.