It’s a common misconception that in order to achieve your dream body and significant weight loss results you must also completely rid your diet of foods that you enjoy. Processed foods naturally do provide less nutritional value than their whole food counterparts, but understanding that enjoyment in moderation is the best way to actually stick to a healthy eating plan is essential for long term results that don’t end in a back slide.
We spoke with registered dietitian Trista Best who provided her best tips for continuing to eat the foods you love while working towards losing weight, so mealtime doesn’t become something you dread.
Intuitive Eating
You may have heard of intuitive eating before and simply cast it aside as eating whatever you want, whenever you want, but the concept runs a little bit deeper than that and can help to heal an imbalanced relationship with food while allowing you to become more intune with what your body needs.
“The process of intuitive eating requires the individual to rate their hunger on a scale of 1-10 prior to eating at any point,” explains Best. “As they eat they are also encouraged to use a similar scale to determine their fullness as a way to know when to stop eating.”
Staying attuned to your hunger levels while listening to your body for what it needs to feel satisfied will allow you to eat foods you love without going overboard and consuming an excess of calories that you don’t need. Of course it’s still important to be intentional about filling your plate with fruits and vegetables and balancing your macronutrients to adequately fuel your body, but listening to your body’s desire to eat foods it enjoys in moderation can make the ‘dieting’ process that much easier.
“This [process] allows people to get back into touch with their true hunger and fullness. This means that intuitive eating prevents eating outside of periods of true hunger and can stop overeating during mealtimes or snacking,” notes Best.
Another key for thriving while intuitive eating is focusing more on what your body is telling you than your preconceived notions about calories and the amount that you ‘should’ be eating in order to see results. Oftentimes it’s easy to eat in excess when you’re dieting if you feel like it’s the last time you’ll be able to have a certain food you enjoy, but allowing yourself to have it when the craving hits will diminish the all or nothing response you may otherwise have around certain foods.
“Intuitive eating allows the individual to focus more on the act of eating when their body actually needs food rather than cutting out foods, even favorite foods,” says Best. Your body knows what it needs in order to thrive and have enough energy, and allowing it the space to tell you can make all the difference, using the knowledge you have of healthy eating as well.
Eating for weight loss doesn’t have to mean removing the joy from food and so long as you’re balancing your diet with fruits, vegetables, lean protein and whole grains you will also be able to eat your favorite foods and see positive changes in your body. The best way to approach weight loss for long term results is not with a reduction mindset, but with the idea that nothing is truly off limits.
Once you believe you can never eat a certain food again it will become that much more tempting, so listening to your hunger cues and cravings in moderation will make for the easiest way to nourish your body without ever feeling deprived.
