Most Asked Nutrition Questions, Diet Myths, and Secretsof the Best Trainers and Coaches
As a trainer, gym owner, and author I have spent the last 17 years I have worked with thousands of people on nutrition, training, lifestyle.
You have to eat 6 small meals per day.
There is no truth to this. We have had clients successful eating 3 meals per day. In some cases work and life commitment make it impossible to eat this often. If you can only eat 4 times per day you are not dead in the water. Make better food choices those 4 meals and move on.
You can’t eat carbs. (Applies to the Atkins and younger generation of Keto folks)
Most people are over eating carbs and not enough protein. Increasing protein and cutting back on carbs is often a step in the right direction. Eliminating carbs completely is not necessary and cannot be done indefinitely long term. When it comes to nutrition your success is in a long-term approach. If I had a dollar for every time I heard “ I lost weight on Atkins”… and that weight would have never found its way back if you could stick with Atkins. Same for Keto.
Cheat Days, Cheat Meals, and Dieting Always.
If you really want something have it. You do not need a day of the week or meal of the week to do it. Cheat days, I used to plan to drop anchor at a buffet on Saturdays as this was my cheat day. What happens if a special event (wedding/anniversary/graduation/birthday/promotion/you get the idea) happens on a Wednesday but your cheat day is Saturday? Are you really going to miss the special event because it falls on the wrong day of the week? This makes no sense.
Here is what I know. If you have six days a week of better food choices one day a week, regardless of what day of the week it is, is not going to stop progress. On a monthly basis this will be 25-28 good days of eating and on an annual basis over 300 days. Not too bad and enough to lead you to progress.
Always being strict with food and dieting means life will pass you by. Friends, family and loved ones will not be here forever. Enjoy those special events. Don’t let life pass you by.
Eating after 6:00 PM, 7:00 PM, or Later
It does not matter what time the calories come in. What matters if calories are not consumed in excess. Plenty of our clients eat before bed and have not issues losing pounds and inches. The bigger picture is making sure you eat enough calories but not too many.
Detoxes and Cleanses
Contrary to what the multi-level marketing people say on the internet, a detox and cleanse are not necessary for weight loss and long term weight maintenance. Plenty have lost pounds and inches and kept them off long term with out doing either.
Forever Cutting Calories
Initially cutting calories gets the scale moving down. There is a point where cutting calories will not keep the scale moving down and a plateau will happen. In some cases if calories go too low the scale might actually go up. Cutting calories is not always the answer and we see people make great progress by actually increasing their calories. Read that again. We see most people that lose weight and keep it off for the long term actually having to eat MORE not Less!