Believe it or not, even the Triage Coaches once knew nothing about nutrition. We didn't come out of the womb knowing what we know now, and like you, we made many mistakes along the way. Some of my most valuable lessons that I now relay to clients stem from my
own mistakes.
Let's focus on fat loss for a moment, as this is often what people initially aim at when trying to get their nutrition in order. Reduce your calories. Exercise more. Simple. What’s to mess up?
Although you know the rules, you know from
experience that it's just not that easy. You might be the exception, but the most common pattern we observe in hopeful-losers-of-fat goes something like:
1. Set calories too low
2. Make very restrictive food choices
3. Early success
4. Dwindling adherence at 3-8 weeks
5. Drop-off in results
6. Feeling of failure
7. Rebound weight gain
Sometimes, this pattern even repeats itself, not just throughout the year, but every single year. These were the mistakes I made too. I would set my calories low, and even when I did have success with fat loss for a week, I'd be overzealous and then drop my calories again rather
than repeating what worked. This would work for 3-4 weeks, and then things would begin to fall apart as above.
You don’t want that.
You don’t want to be the permadieter.
The good news is that you don’t have to be, as Triage clients consistently demonstrate. Our clients get in and out
of their fat loss diets by following this process:
1. Set target weight loss
2. Set range of appropriate weight loss (typically 0.5-1% BW/week average)
3. Reverse engineer duration (e.g. 10kg @ 1kg/week = 10 wk diet)
4. Add 2 weeks to timeline for assumed errors
5. Set calories accordingly
(you can use this calculator)
Remember, the faster you decide to lose weight, the hungrier you will be, and
the lower your energy levels. Often, this results in poorer adherence to the diet, which was certainly the case for me early on. This is not always the case, as some people do find that lower calories help them to be more adherent, but for those engaging in vigorous exercise, excessively low calories would not be advised.
If you have a history of “failed diets”, or are already very lean, choose a more conservative rate of loss (~0.5%/wk).
If you have had great success previously,
or have a higher body fat level (e.g. obesity), faster rates are appropriate.
Don’t make this just another haphazard attempt at weight loss. Make this the time that you lose fat for good. It’s not easy, but it is simple. Simple habits repeated daily produce amazing outcomes
over time, which is exactly what we teach those enrolled in the
Nutrition Certification.
Need more help? We've got you. If you'd like to work with the Triage Team toward your goals, we are currently taking on clients. Simply pop your details in here.
