I’ve been a rule follower most of my life. Yes, there were times I broke the rules while in a rebellious streak in my high school years and in my early twenties. For the the most part, I’ve always felt rules gave me guidance to keep me on a path moving towards my goals. What I’ve learned on my health and wellness journey is that following rules isn’t always the right path if you want to become the healthiest version of yourself.
There are so many diets and fitness regimens that if you followed them exactly you would get the results you think you want. However, sometimes what we think we want isn’t actually what we want in terms of lifestyle and mental health.
Today I’ll be talking about the difference between rules and trade offs and the benefits of both when navigating which foods to eat and which ones to avoid with weight loss as a goal.
Let’s dive in!
One of the most asked questions I get as a health and fitness coach is, which diet is best for weight loss? There’s a lot of weight loss friendly diets that are promoted by health and wellness professionals such as paleo, vegan, mediterranean, and keto and it can be confusing and overwhelming when choosing which foods to eat and which ones to avoid.
Even with the complexity of choosing a diet, my answer is simple: it’s the mostly whole nutrient-dense food diet you can stick to. One thing I’ve learned over the years working with my clients is that there’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to food and weight loss. Everyone can customize their diet (or what I like to call “eating style”) to fit their taste preferences, values, and lifestyle.
Rules are viewed as concrete steps that must be followed. A vegan diet eliminates any animal products including any type of meat or seafood. This includes eliminating food that comes from animals such as eggs and dairy. A paleo diet focuses on eating only whole foods such as meats, seafood, eggs, veggies, fruit, nuts, seeds, and dairy that are as close to their natural state as possible. This means there’s minimal processing involved in getting the food to your table. A paleo diet excludes grains, seed oils, and legumes along with ultra processed foods.
There can be a lot of restrictions around these diets depending on your strategy for implementing them. Some of my health coach colleagues require their clients to eliminate bread completely for an extended period of time. This works for some people but not for the majority. After I went through my elimination period when I was focusing on a paleo eating style back in 2012, I was really strict with the foods I ate by eating 100% paleo. The fat started to melt off my body even though weight loss was not my intention.
After a while it became too stressful to keep up with mentally and emotionally. I was craving the occasional bowl of rice and sourdough bread with melted butter but I wouldn’t allow myself to eat either of these even though I knew eating it every now and then was not going to make me gain weight or compromise my overall health. When I did eat rice or bread, I would tell myself that I needed to get back to healthy eating as soon as possible. By the way, I wasn’t telling this to myself in a way that was encouraging. I was way too hard on myself which is not the kind of self-talk that helps you achieve your goals.
On one hand, I learned a lot about which foods give me energy, help me sleep, and support my strength training efforts by following a strict paleo diet for a while. On the other hand, I learned which foods made me feel tired, bloated, and blah. When you follow the rules to the tee for a specific diet you can learn a lot of about how foods affect you and keep this information handy to guide you in making food choices in the future. So, there are benefits to being super strict and following the rules for a while.
The eating strategy that works best for most people is a mostly whole food strategy that allows for flexibility to enjoy sourdough bread with butter or your favorite sweet treat or bowl of popcorn. This is considered a trade-off eating style. You’re trading eating a burger with the bun for uncomfortable bloating for a few hours. Or a few glasses of wine for hot flashes. Or your morning coffee ritual with cream and sugar for a little anxiety and blood sugar spike.
The trade-offs go the other way as well. You could trade your weeknight glass of wine for water or a delicious mocktail in exchange for getting a great night’s sleep. Or you could swap your daily lunchtime sandwich for a robust salad with leafy greens, tomatoes, cucumber, olives, chicken, avocado, and olive oil and balsamic dressing to have consistent energy levels the rest of the day.
It’s up to you to decide whether or not a trade-off is worth it. There’s no right or wrong answer in any situation. You get to decide what’s right for you in the moment. You could make a choice one day and a different one another day depending on how you’re feeling.
When it comes down to it, you’re always trading one thing for another. If you choose to follow an eating style with strict rules, you’re trading rules for flexibility and the ability to indulge in foods and beverages that bring you joy. Often times we forget that healthy eating habits isn’t just about physical health. It’s about mental health as well. If you’re constantly stressing yourself out over what to eat when you go out to dinner with your friends, this might be a sign that you want more flexibility but you don’t trust yourself enough not to over do it. Or you have an all-or-nothing mindset and believe that if you “mess up” by eating bread you should just throw in the towel and give up.
Once you find a way to navigate trade offs with food that works for you, you’ll feel empowered to make food choices that are right for you in the moment while feeling confident that you have the ability to maintain what you define as a healthy eating strategy.
Need help learning how to navigate nutrition rules and trade offs? Go here to book a Wellness Strategy Session with me and we’ll talk it out.