To truly change your relationship with food and finally achieve your health and body size goals, you need to ditch the restrictive diet mindset.

Believing that you must cut foods or food groups out, or that you need to follow a specific diet to lose weight and feel good, will lead you to resenting the process and eventually giving up on your goals altogether because it feels way too hard to sustain.

Yes, there is a place for eliminating foods and following a nutrition protocol when you are working on resolving a chronic health issue such as chronic fatigue, GI issues, inflammation, blood sugar dysregulation, autoimmune and others.

But for most who are just wanting to feel better, think better, sleep better, move better and fit their clothes better, restrictive eating isn’t necessary.

When I shifted my thinking from all or not eating (and stopped moving from diet to diet) and started looking at food as nourishment that would create a healthy internal system, nutrition started to feel fun, easy, and sustainable.

Here are 3 strategies to ditch the restrictive diet mindset:

1 - Focus on Nutrients vs Calories

Not all calories are created equal.

Calories are energy but they don’t measure the presence or quantity of minerals, vitamins, or protein building blocks.

When we just focus on calories, we miss paying attention to the nutrition we are getting (or not getting).

In the example below, the calories are roughly the same but you can see that the cashews offer so much more in terms of vitamins, minerals and building blocks your body needs to work well so that you FEEL well.

Nutrient dense foods help your body function better, giving you better energy.  When you have the nutrients and energy your body needs, you experience fewer cravings.  Cravings are your body’s way of telling you that you are lacking needed nutrients.  If you experience a craving, find the most nutrient dense food in your home and snack on that!

Nutrient dense foods are more filling and generally lower in sugars and processed carbohydrates (which are more inflammatory and make you feel sluggish).

My clients worry that when they take the focus off of calories and measuring their foods, that they won’t lose weight or worse will gain weight.

The reality is that nutrient dense foods are hard to over eat.

And because your body is getting what it needs nutritionally, you experience fewer cravings and energy dips.

Your mood is better so you have fewer emotional eating binges.

And most importantly, you learn to listen to your body’s cues as to when you are full. This is the missing link for so many.

Btw, when did we stop trusting our own instincts and start listening to the media and social influencers about how we should fuel our body?  We know our bodies best, we just need to learn how to tune into them.

So instead of wasting energy on counting calories, just focus on foods that are nutrient dense like veggies, fruits, animal protein, beneficial fats (nuts, seeds, avocado, coconut and olive oil, butter) and herbs!

2 - Focus on what to add in vs. what to exclude

When I start working with a client, we review their current eating patterns and foods and assess their symptoms for potential nutrient deficiencies.

We begin by adding in the nutrient dense foods that they are missing as well as the foods that will support their nutrient deficiencies.

This naturally crowds out the junkier processed foods.  As your body gets filled with more nutrients, it works better.  As a result, you experience fewer cravings, fewer energy dips, and more fat loss.

Many of my clients have told me that they were afraid to work with a nutritionist because they believed that they’d have to give up foods they love.

Because of that, I specifically don’t start with having my clients cut out foods. Instead, we start with adding in the foods and nutrients they are missing, and things start to fall in place!

3 - Focus on creating a healthy body vs losing weight (to create a healthy body)

Somewhere along the way we’ve been told that if we lose weight, we will automatically be healthy.

News flash!!

Not all normal weight people are healthy.  Simply being a normal weight doesn’t automatically fix your health issues.  It can help, but it depends on what else is going on underneath the surface.

I’ve certainly done my own fair share of unhealthy practices in the name of losing weight.

Restrictive eating, diet pills, excessive exercise.

All of these can backfire on us and create an unhealthy internal environment with damaging side effects.

What works better is creating a healthy internal environment so that our body naturally loses weight.

We do this by eating nutrient dense foods and reducing stressors (emotional, environmental, lifestyle, etc)

When you eat whole, clean nutrient dense foods you reduce inflammation, balance blood sugar, fix metabolic dysfunction, and create a healthy microbiome. This creates an environment where your body effectively utilizes energy and stored fat.

Reducing inflammation alone decreases weight, and more importantly, reduces the “puffy” look we have from our inflamed cells, tissues, and water/toxin retention.

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Ready to ditch the restrictive diet mindset and want to learn which foods your body needs to rebalance, work better and thrive?

It’s time to book that discovery session with me so that we can talk about your health and where you want to go in the coming months.  I’ll share more about the Nutritional Therapy approach to eating and how we can not only help you fit your clothes better but help you feel more energized, sleep better, poop better, move better, and think better!