Eat very little.
I betcha didn’t want to hear that, did you?! Well, from someone who has tried it all, eating less is what works and since that’s still unpracticed by so many, it might as well be some secret. We are very good at creating our own realities. We employ selective hearing, selective memory, we seek out the answers that we want to hear, we retain information that supports our case, and we are just very very clever at deceiving ourselves.
As a woman, as a trainer, and as an actress, I exist in a cross-section of society that can wreak havoc one’s body image. I have also had the opportunity to hear it all in matters of the body. And let me confirm what you are already suspicious of. Everyone is trying to change their shape: pinch it in, flatten it out, elongate it, bulk it up, keep it up, take it away, you name it, it’s been scrutinized over.
In the midst of this seemingly never-ending strive for the perfect form, however, I, thank God, received a refreshing perspective on it all! A recent visit to a nutritionist gave me a simple, reasonable, and no monkey-business assessment and game plan! Going in, I was the typical frustrated diet-er, armed with excuses and baggage: I believed my metabolism was on the downspiral that everyone says accompanies aging; I believed that as a fitness instructor that teaches 4 times a week, I had leeway to eat without counting; I believed that I had truly uncontrollable snacking urges that sometimes erupted in binges and that I shouldn’t subjected to the repercussions; I believed that disciplining myself from all sweeteners and sodium and eating organic should count for something and that I should have been reaping the rewards! Boy did I get a wake up call!
Right off the bat, Lisa rejected the proverbial metabolism excuse, citing the reality that our decrease in metabolism is minute and almost negligible. She later proved it with a test. She taught me that my calorie burn needn’t be added back into my diet. The few hundred calories shed during a workout is better off left as a bonus and my body is not going to miss that extra energy. She left me with a simple number: 1100. That’s how many calories my body burns at rest and that’s all I really need. Out the window with the “never eat less than 1200 calorie” rule.
Most refreshing from my visit with Lisa was the realization that this is not rocket science. There are no bizarre rules regarding carbs, snacks, eating times, etc. Common sense and calorie-tracking is all that was asked of me. And a change in body is everything that was promised to me! It’s so simple that I almost believe we make things more complicated just to have an excuse to wag our finger at later. If everyone committed to the reality of how much they needed to eat, didn’t add in undeserving calories, saw through the outlandish gimmicks, and just kept it real, they would undoubtedly experience a slimmer existence. I’ll keep you posted…hopefully with pictures soon!
