Food Choices That Actually Work
By: James Pinola, MS, CSCS
March is National Nutrition Month so this month we’ll be talking about food. Now regardless of your goals, if you’re hitting the gym on a regular basis you can’t ignore your diet. Since I’m not a dietician, I won’t be telling you what to eat, instead, I’ll be offering ideas on how to eat.
If you’re thinking you need to improve your diet, avoid large overhauls as they’re hard to stick with. Instead, start by taking an honest inventory of what you typically eat and look for small wins. For instance, do you enjoy a morning coffee? Could you reduce your cream & sugar? Do you find yourself hungry while grocery shopping? Could you leave “emergency” food in your car to prevent hangry impulse shopping? Or, do you have an ice cream sweet tooth like me? Could you put some guard rails in place (i.e. buy smaller portions so when you (I) inevitably eat the whole thing, the total calorie intake is lower)?
It’s the little things that add up over time. If you don’t believe me, hop on a piece of cardio equipment and see how long (or hard how) you have to work to expend 100 calories. Next, find your favorite food and check out the calorie content on the back. Now that you know how hard it is to burn 100 calories, doesn’t a slight tweak to your diet sound like the easier option? To be clear, I’m not suggesting you give up your favorite foods, quite the opposite actually, food should be cherished and enjoyed with family & friends. Besides, our diets are heavily influenced by our cultural and social circles, so rather than try to overhaul our loved one’s dinner tables, let’s just make a few small changes and start there.
For example, one of my favorite tricks, when eating with the Italian side of my family who encourages everyone to “finish their plate,” is to simply use a smaller plate. I still get to enjoy all my family delicacies, but no one jeers at me to keep eating when I’m no longer hungry. Rather than having the equivalent of two servings on one giant plate, using a smaller plate provides me with precious time for my brain to decide if I’m still hungry or not when I think about a second serving. The second serving then becomes a deliberate conscious act.
If this doesn’t sound like much of a guard rail, just remember that the feeling of being full, or at least satiated, does not happen immediately. All that I’m doing here is adding friction. Friction, or the lack thereof, is the reason why tech companies who produce addicting content are so successful. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of friction, think about the last time you shopped on Amazon or watched Netflix or Youtube, when you’re done shopping or watching, something else is immediately queued up, you didn’t even need to touch anything. This simplicity is the removal of all friction. These companies understand our psychology, it is so easy to simply keep the ball rolling. Just like it is so easy to eat one more bite if it is in front of us. So, if we use friction, but in the opposite direction of these tech companies, we can give ourselves the grace to slow down and think about how our bodies actually feel.
In addition to family pressure, economic strain and religion can also influence how much we eat. I’m sure I’m not the only one who heard “there are starving children who have nothing to eat so finish your food” or “wasting food is a sin” when they were young. So, if we can start with less, and eat slowly, we can enjoy our foods and keep the harmony around us.
My goal with this post is to change your perspective on the word “diet.” This word is usually laced with negative connotations such as, “oh I can’t eat that because I’m on a diet” and words like “can’t” immediately throw your perspective into the negative. Through this lens, diets are viewed as bad things that we must endure. But the truth is, the food we eat (our diets) is a huge part of our lives, so we must learn to live in harmony. I hope these tips help ease any tension or anxiety you may have around food or family gatherings that are centered around food.
-JP