When Eating By Design Isn't "Working"

If you feel like eating By Design is restrictive, listen up...

If you have gained weight or felt worse since starting to eat real food, this is for you...

If you feel like every day is a struggled effort to plan, prep and cook, and frankly, it is not enjoyable or simple anymore, then I want you to read this...

It is not that eating By Design is not “working.”

If eating whole, nutrient dense food did not make you look or feel healthier I would be quite surprised. It was more likely that there were some aspects of eating By Design that were not being met or were just challenging for you.

Maybe you felt as if you were being pulled in fifty different directions at once… helping your kids with homework, dropping your husband off at work, trying to squeeze in a few workouts, making time to visit your mother-in-law more often, get more quality YOU time…

Or maybe you found it difficult to prioritize the absolute highest quality foods based on your current budget or resources.

Or maybe you did not feel you had the support, tools or accountability necessary to jump in with two feet.

Whatever the reason, here are the questions I want you to ask yourself if you feel like what you are doing is not working for you.

But first, I want to make this very clear: you do not HAVE to Eat By Design. 

Eating By Design is a STRATEGY. And there are others… 

What you do NEED is to meet your nutritional requirements: fat, protein, micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) and carbohydrates.

Eating By Design is a strategy to fulfill these nutritional requirements. There are others. You may know them as "diets." The Paleo diet is a strategy, vegetarianism is a strategy, the Whole30 is a strategy, and following Canada's Food Guide is a strategy. You get the point...

The challenge with some of these strategies (I will use Canada's Food Guide as an example) is that yes, it is possible that you are meeting SOME of your nutrient requirements (vegetables, fruit, healthy pasture raised meat, eggs, wild fish, nuts and seeds), but you are also including foods that we KNOW provide a toxic load on the body (grains, legumes, sugar, low fat dairy.)

I choose to Eat By Design because it is the BEST STRATEGY I know of to meet my nutrient requirements.

If you have felt that eating real food is restrictive, time consuming, challenging or not moving you towards your body composition goals, then listen up. I want to share with you six powerful questions to help make mealtime more enjoyable, simpler and stress-free.

Ask yourself…

1. "Am I doing my absolute best to eat real food?" Do your meals consist of local, seasonal vegetables and fruit, grass fed beef and lamb, pasture raised pork, free-range chicken and eggs, organ meats, wild game, healthy fats (avocados, grass fed butter, ghee, coconut oil, olive oil, pastured bacon), fermented foods (kombucha, bone broth, sauerkraut, kim chi), and nuts and seeds? Are you taking the essential supplements (fish oil, vitamin D, probiotic) daily? Are you preparing and cooking your own food at home? If not, start there.
2. "Am I trying to prioritize the highest quality foods that my budget and resources allow?" Quality absolutely counts. If you are choosing lesser quality meats (for example grocery store ground beef over grass fed pasture raised ground beef) you are eating foods that are naturally higher in omega 6 fatty acids and other inflammatory agents, which affect your stress adaptability, hormone function and how easy it is to lose weight. If higher quality meat is not within reach, choose leaner cuts of meat or trim the excess fat before cooking.
3. "How am I doing with my other requirements?" Moving, Thinking and Power By Design are all vital to your body's ability to handle stress and balance hormones. Lifting weights does not replace a poor diet and a chiropractic adjustment does not replace being sedentary.
4. "Am I sleeping enough?" Lack of sleep raises your stress hormones, affects your mood (makes you more irritable and grumpy and less productive) and makes you crave sugar. When was the last time you made GREAT food choices on a day you were running on a couple of hours of sleep?
5. "Am I replacing my old favourites with healthier options?” Think “Paleo” desserts here. If you find yourself craving grain-free or gluten free desserts consistently it is very possible that you have a serious sugar addiction. And I hate to be the bearer of bad news but the only way to kick a sugar addiction is to eliminate it completely for a period of time and get back to eating REAL FOOD. If your habits are reflecting a dependence on it perhaps a hiatus from it will serve you best. 
6. "Am I allowing myself to be the final arbiter of what foods are and are not healthy?" You do not get to decide what your physiological requirements are for health. Those have already been researched and defined (remember your nutrient requirements I listed above.) Yes, maybe ice cream or a grilled cheese sandwich makes you feel happy and great in the moment and even afterwards too (maybe you do not feel bloated, or get cramps, diarrhea, acne or a headache) but that does not mean it is real food. If it is something you absolutely cannot live without it is up to you to decide how much of a role that food will play in your life, and to understand the consequences that come from consuming it which can range from just a lost opportunity to get even more nutrients to increased inflammation to damage to your body.

You might be thinking, "Easy for you to say… you have it all figured out." But I have had my challenges too. I have experienced obsessive behaviour with food (I used be vegan as a cover up for my eating disorder) and never once have I thought that eating real food was restrictive.

But maybe you do… maybe you are short on time to find exciting replacements for your old favourites, maybe you are struggling to find the time to food prep, cook dinner or pack your lunch, or maybe you just feel like you are giving up all your favourite foods.

And that is ok, because we are here to help.

Imagine loving every single meal you eat because it consists of real delicious food. Imagine feeling healthy and happy to be eating it. Imagine using something other than the number on the scale as a measurement of health.

If you are not there yet… email me to see how working with an Eat By Design Nutrition Consultant can help you kick your sugar cravings, design new meal time habits, create a better relationship with food, and start moving you towards your body composition goals.

For simple By Design recipes why not pick up your copy of the Eat By Design Cookbook. I’ve created it in the form of a 28-day meal plan (plus grocery lists!) so you don’t need to think about what’s for breakfast, lunch or dinner for the next month. Or you can grab the first 7 days FREE by clicking here.