5 Skills to Long-Term Nutrition Success
Understand that I’ve done quite a few different ‘Diets.’ If you’re reading this, I wouldn’t be surprised you have too.
Probably had some mainstream “6-pack Abs in 6 weeks” or “ 21-day Shred” diet plan.
The diet that had the biggest impact on me was “Metabolic Advantage” which was a book that I read around 18-years-old.
Why do we do this?
Because our environment growing up, mainly school and family, didn’t prepare us to have truly complete nutrition.
With all due respect to the efforts put forth in Canada’s Healthy Food Guide, it’s still only broadly capturing the valuable points that we should know as people if we want to have our best nutrition.
And we must give gratitude to our parents for trying to send us on our way, making sure we had breakfast, lunch, and dinner, using what knowledge they had at the time to keep us growing and what seemed to them to be healthy.
I simply want you to appreciate this is normal and we’ve all been there. The system doesn’t set you up for optimal success, so you search for alternative diets that could have “the secret”.
Now I’m not going to be so arrogant and say that these 5 steps are guaranteed to help every single dietary problem out there, but I do believe it will cover 90% or more of them, because it’s covering the basis for what you need your food to do for you and developing it as a skill.
I call these skills, so you see it as something you can develop to the point it becomes a habit. You eventually don’t need much if any cognitive effort to do it. This should be motivating, so you generally feel like you can be skilled in your own nutrition.
Skill 1: Protein and Planning
Protein is the most essential nutrient to a diet. The modern diet has too many energy sources (carbs or fats) and not enough protein or micro-nutrients.
You need to plan for protein because it’s harder to find prepared. For the exception of protein shakes and beef jerky, there isn’t easy access to protein that readily available like most energy sources.
If you prefer animal-based proteins, you need to have it thawed and cooked or know how you’re going to cook!
Plan out your week in advance, and have 4-6 protein sources that you know you could routinely eat and enjoy.
In this stage, don’t worry specifically about perfect calories but ballpark what you need to get to 0.7-1 gram of protein per pound of body weight every day.
Palm method is to assume your palm is 20-25g of protein, so use that to estimate what you need. Most people literally just need to double their expectation.
Skill 2: Weighing and Tracking Protein
A food scale was such a game changer for me, and it will be for you. It’s like knowing what weight is on the dumbbell you’re using.
Track your protein routinely until you’ve memorized the serving size.
You may even come back to this skill if you’re needing a calibration of your assumptions. I do it all the time for deficits. I don’t want to guess my deficits, I want to KNOW my deficit so I don’t waste my time.
During this phase, you still eat other whole foods but use your best perception on feeling appropriately full.
Skill 3: Know your calories, make your meal plan or get someone else’s
Most of your concern is Protein, Fat and Carb sources. When you think of low-calorie veggies (carrots, broccoli, spinach), don’t worry about these for the calorie intake.
Remembering to find out your calories is tricky – but check out my last blog for how to narrow it down.
Simple premise for making YOUR Meal plan.
If you have a fatty meat (30-40% Protein : 60-70% Fat) – Just add low calorie micronutrients.
If you have a leaner cut of meat (70-90% Protein) – add carbs to this. Weigh the carbs to know it’s the right amount.
This IS a good time to have a calorie tracker to figure it out. You want to know the probability of this being the right food. You need to train your eyes and perception of the appropriate sizes, because you won’t likely know intuitively.
Make a list of meals you enjoy with the 4-6 protein types. Then weigh them and eat them consistently. Eventually you find 2 different ways you can cook them. Then more and more. You have a ton of variety but start SIMPLE.
I used to not recommend people use “meal plans”. But now I see the value in it. It’s a skill of structure and consistency. Don’t be afraid to try it but make it relative to you (meaning 5-6 meals a day may not be sustainable for you).
Skill 4: Micronutrients
Now this skill could have always been there but for sure prioritize it after you’ve laid out the Protein, Fat and Carb sources.
Simple approach is recognizing the micronutrient sources you like:
Raw or Cooked veggies
Don’t hesitate to cook in some little oil and salt. Make these enjoyable.
Change the oil and you can change the flavour, too!
Aim for veggies that don’t have high calories, but they have good flavour to you and good vitamins.
Leafy Greens
I encourage you to always mix through these. It doesn’t always have to be kale and spinach.
Make sure you have a salad dressing you enjoy but you DO track your salad dressing for calories.
Fruits
Best thing about fruits is they are not dense, and they give you carbs. You do want to consider these calories but You can eat soooooo much more fruit than you think before you’re actually adding a lot of calories in.
Make fruits your dessert routinely.
Organ meats
Underrated source of micronutrients and bioavailable
Vitamin A in liver is significantly denser than carrots and you’ll receive more of it.
This isn’t for everyone, but maybe try grinding some of the liver or organ meats into ground beef, and I’ve found with good seasoning you don’t even taste a difference!
Skill 5: Enjoyment of Variety
This is the true skill of making it a long-lasting skill. After a few months of consistently doing the others, find new recipes and try them!
When I decided to start making new recipes for my social media, I found sooooo many new ways to enjoy food that it became a hobby and it excited me more than going out!
I recommend this is something you try once a month.
Pick a new recipe that fits your food preferences, it’s simple and repeatable but you’re curious how it would be.
Think about how we started with 4-6 protein sources. When you have 2 different ways to prepare each source, now you have 8-12 different meals. Then you do one more way to prepare each, that’s 16-24 different meal combinations.
Doesn’t that sound like a TON of variety?
But it’s variety within structure.
These are the tools I train my clients in. I specifically say train because I do think you need to TRAIN your nutritional skills like any other.
Each of those skills could take 1 week all the way to 3 months, but keep focused on making it a habit through reps and reps.
Imagine one day you know dozens of recipes, that require little to no prep time, and nutrition no longer stresses you but rather it excites you.
This is how I look at it and I get my clients too as well.
Looking for more support on the meal plan suggestions?
Don’t hesitate to reach out – Book a call in the link below and I can show you how my program gives you these exact skills.