Last night I ran into a couple of friends I haven’t seen in a few months. One of them commented, “You’re looking fit.” I replied, “Why, yes, I am,” because, you know, why deny it?
Anyway, we started talking about how to go about achieving the level of fitness I’ve achieved — which still has a way to go, I might add — and the first thing I told my friends was, “You have to get your diet right.”
I am not telling you that you need to go vegan, as I recently did — you don’t — but I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: “You can’t out-exercise a bad diet.” People seem to know this intuitively, but, still we try, oh how we try.
Our body composition is 75-80% determined by what we eat, so why do we try to find ways to continue to eat our cheese and candy, our burgers and ice cream, our french fries and donuts? The answer is plain and simple: We are addicted to those things.
Oh, sure, when we start running or lifting or aerobicizing, we may go on some kind of short-term eating plan, but that quickly gets kicked to the curb, because, hey, we are working it out, so we can eat whatever we want, right?
WRONG!
Maybe we realize we should eat right, but have a problem determining what “right” is. There is, after all, a lot of conflicting information out there.
While that may be true, if you need to lose 20+ pounds of fat, there are a lot of proven ways to do it: Low Carb, Plant-Based, Low-Fat, Low-Calorie.
(I would caution you — as we’ll discuss below — that working out and eating a low-calorie diet don’t mesh. When you are working out, your body needs more calories, so be sure to adjust your idea of “low-calorie” to include extra food to allow your body to get the proper nutrition. Here’s a cool little calorie needs calculator.)
All you have to do is choose whichever way of eating works best for you and is sustainable.
Sustainable? What’s that about?
Sustainable in this case just means that you can continue eating that way for … the rest of your life!
Diet and fitness are not short-term goals. We’ve all been there, done that, right? We get on a low-calorie diet. If we are determined enough, we hang with it for a couple weeks. We may even think, “Hey, this isn’t so bad. I could keep eating like this.”
Then the trigger events show up — birthdays, holidays — and we reason, “I’ve been so good, it’s okay to let myself go today.” Slowly we see the trigger events become more general — Tuesdays, Saturdays. There’s always some reason to celebrate. Eventually, we give up on [insert your chosen diet here], because life just keeps getting in the way.
If you look at any diet and think to yourself, “I can’t do that forever,” then forget it, because all you will see is short-term weight loss. As soon as you return to your normal diet, you’ll gain it all back — and more.
I remember when I tackled low-carb, I thought, “I can do this forever.” And I could have, until I learned about the health benefits of a plant-based diet. But that’s a subject for another post.
Let’s go back to last night again, when I was talking with another group of friends. Of course, the conversation turned to fitness — without prodding from me, I might add — and we discussed the addictive effects of sugar and cheese, and the convenience factor of fast food.
While I often claim my fitnessquest began in 2007, it really started many years before that with a desire to break my fast food habit. I became a vegetarian just so I could do it — can’t stop for a quick nosh at MacBurgerBell if you’re a vegetarian, right? And it worked!
Fast forward to many years later, when I finally decided to break my sugar addiction. How? I just refused to eat anything that was created to satisfy a sweet tooth. Donut? No thanks. Cinnabon? Keep it. Birthday cake? Happy birthday to you, but get the cake out of my face.
Is that rude? Too bad. This is my health and fitness we are talking about, and I control that, not you.
Eventually, people got the idea, and they saw my results over time.
Let’s say, then, that you buy into this notion of getting your diet in line. Admittedly, this is not an easy task. How can you get it done?
HOW TO BREAK YOUR FOOD ADDICTIONS – TIP #1
When I tell people I’m eating vegan, the first response is almost always: “No cheese?!?!? I couldn’t live without cheese.” If you think that’s true, you are addicted to cheese.
Maybe cheese is not your poison. Maybe it’s sugar that always derails you — 3 or 4 Cokes a day? Maybe it’s too much convenience food — burgers every day for lunch?
Take a good look at how often you eat those foods, and make a plan to scale back.
For example, if you drink 3 or 4 Cokes a day, tell yourself, “I’m not going to drink Coke on Tuesdays and Fridays.” Every couple of weeks, add another day, until you are only drinking Coke 1 day a week. Then cut it back to 2 Cokes on that 1 day. Then 1 Coke. Then none.
If you eat burgers and fries every day for lunch, follow that same kind of plan. It would be nice if you would get yourself a salad on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Or find some decent burger-like patties in your grocer’s freezer and see how you like them. Don’t reject those after 1 bite, by the way. You are accustomed / addicted to beef burgers. Eat 3 or 4 of the non-meat burgers (not all at once) before you decide, “I don’t like these,” then try another brand. Or, better yet, lose the burgers altogether, get  a good cookbook, like Melissa Costello’s Karma Chow Cookbook, and make meals to take with you.
Eventually, and you’ll have to trust me on this, you will break the bad habits.
As anyone who’s quit smoking can tell you, it takes a while. I’ve found that 18 months is about right for me. You may never totally lose the craving, but your body will feel so much better, the cravings become very easy to resist.
HOW TO BREAK YOUR FOOD ADDICTIONS – TIP #2
Understand tip #1? Great. But I know that’s not so easy to implement, if you are battling multiple food addictions, so tip #2 is to work with only 1 addiction at a time.
If you are, as many of us are, addicted to fast food, cheese, and sugar, don’t get all crazy and try to quit all those at once! Are you kidding me? Talk about a recipe for disaster.
I will repeat: Fitness is a life-long journey. You — hopefully — have plenty of time, many years ahead of you. Take it slowly.
Using Technique #1 above, quit fast food.
18 months later — more or less, depending on how you feel — quit cheese (and all dairy, I would recommend).
18 months after that, quit desserts. Then sodas. Then cookies. Then birthday cakes. Then ice cream. (Actually, you may want to add ice cream to the top of the list — that’s what actors always eat when they want to gain weight for a role.) You can add all that sugary stuff to your “I’m not eating it” list in rather rapid order, depending on how determined you are. Don’t rush it, but don’t make excuses to delay it, either.
Okay, that’s it. Easy? No. Worth it? Yes.
HOW TO BREAK YOU FOOD ADDICTIONS – TIP #3 (ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE WORKING OUT)
Of course, some of you will be working out during the entire time you are breaking your food addictions. I highly recommend that — click on any of the fitness program links on this page to see some great ways to get it done — but keep a few things in mind.
When you work out, you are expending more energy, so your body requires more food. Be prepared for that sensation. It’s somewhat counter-intuitive to us to eat more food when we are trying to lose weight, but when we move more, we have to keep our body fueled. (Here’s that link to the calorie needs calculator again.)
If you are going to eat more food, but less of your addictive foods, you need to find alternative fuel sources. Sure, you can buy protein shakes and other meal replacements, but I would recommend you try to get accustomed to consuming less processed foods and more vegetables and fruits. Not only will this add fiber to your diet, but it will get you on the road to a level of wellness you never thought possible.
Instead of that burger for lunch, have a baked sweet potato with some sriracha sauce and broccoli. Instead of pie for dessert, have a bowl of berries. Sounds weird, right? You’ll be surprised how quickly this becomes second nature.
IN THE FINAL ANALYSIS…
Look, there are several reasons to get fit. One is to simply look better. As we age, though, we find ourselves in touch with just how mortal we are, and getting fit translates into getting healthy. “Looking better” becomes a side effect.
Whatever your fitness goals, whatever your age, you have to realize that fitness is not something you achieve and then have forever. It is a way of life. That is why fad diets are doomed to fail. They are short-term fixes.
To achieve true fitness, you have to be in it for the long haul, and the first step is to get your diet in line by breaking your food addictions.