Nutrition: Think outside the Box

Let's face it, trying to eat right, exercise for results can be very difficult. This is in part due to the fact that you hear so many conflicting positions on: exercise, food choices, and food amounts. One of the largest areas of confusion is nutrition or diet.

Now I could give you a list of foods that are very healthy and will help you lose weight. But what I'm going to do instead is give you two strategies to help shift your thinking that will help you in the long run for success.

1. Think outside the box: Look at your grocery list. Now count how many foods on your list actually come in a box or have nutrition labels on them. If you have very few, then you are doing great. If most of your list contains items with nutrition labels, this might be an area that needs improvement. Items such as fruit, vegetables, meats, fish, poultry will not have food labels on them (the less healthy selections of these will have nutrition labels). Foods without labels should be the foundation of your grocery list.

2. Take it a week at a time: Rather than stressing every single day on what you eat and worrying about being clean the entire day, lets change some perspective. If you eat five meals per day for seven days (which is a very good idea), then that totals to 35 meals per week. If you are clean 35 out of 35 meals, that is superb, but realistically that probably won't last long. So to take on a more realistic approach, 30 out of 35 meals is still a job well done. What I'm saying is you have some leeway as far as slipping goes, but over all you are clean.

So get eating, and keep track of your good vs. bad meals and see where you land and bring that ratio up to where you can be successful.

In health,
Ben Warstler