Reducing Diet Worries
By: Michael Beiter
One of my old clients started again this morning.
We stopped last time because she got pregnant, and then Covid hit.
She's a couple years postpartum and struggling with information overwhelm that prevents her from taking action. She finds contradictory diet suggestions daily.
Finally, after enough confusion and frustration, she texted me.
A local boot camp gym texted her immediately after that and asked her to come back.
"Is my phone listening, or was that just weird timing? My husband and I laughed because we would never go back there but seriously, right after I texted you!" she said as we finished today.
We got all of her questions sorted. To make this relatable, she was worried about
- Weighing food before or after cooking - everything weighs more before you cook the moisture out of it; choose a way to weigh it and stay consistent with it. Trivial.
- Go over carbs or fats and how to adjust - it's helpful to think of them as interchangeable; if you go over carbs, pull calories from fat and vice versa. Keep protein the same, and never take from that calorie pool. You can change carb and fat allotments daily, and as long as calories and protein aren't affected, you're good to go. Valuable.
- Saying NO to eating at a boy's sports pizza party - Kids don't care what their parents eat, and neither do the parents of other kids. For the most part, everyone is too worried about their own shit for them to care about whether you have a slice or not. Practice saying no with unarguable positions like "No thanks, I'm not hungry." Eye-opening.
- What other people would think of her eating - This is something entirely out of her control that doesn't matter one iota. Therefore, she won't devote any energy to thoughts of what others think of her. There is little to no benefit and plenty of cost to such thinking. Scrap it and be happier.
