Bye bye diet culture

Like a lot of us here, I grew up in the peak of diet culture. From Low Carb to Sugar Free to Keto to Weight Watchers and many many more. In my 31 years of life I feel like I’ve seen a wide spectrum of unhealthy habits and fad diets. As a teenage girl this was pretty damaging to my self image and overall relationship with food. It has taken most of my adult life to re-learn how to view food as fuel rather than a punishment.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to my TedTalk.

Let’s start with the simple statement of “there are no bad foods.”

Yup, I said it. Let that marinate for a second.

I truly believe that there are no bad foods. Now, there are absolutely foods that fuel and nourish your body better than others, I do believe in that. But I also feel that it’s unrealistic to put unnecessary pressure and guilt on yourself to avoid the foods that you love, foods that nourish your soul and maybe serve as reminders of childhood memories and family traditions.

I believe categorizing foods as “bad” can lead to binge eating and unrelenting shame. Thus leading to the development of a negative relationship with food.

This is where I like to insert the 80/20 rule.

If 80 percent of the time we are fueling our bodies with nutrient dense foods, then the remaining 20 percent that we are enjoying the margaritas and chip and queso at lunch should not leave us feeling shameful over our food choices. This is because we have confidence in the fact that majority of the time we are fueling our bodies with high quality nutrients that will help our digestive system absorb what it needs and effectively eliminate what it does not.

Listen, I’m not saying diets don’t work. They absolutely do. But they tend to convince you that these drastic measures are the only way to achieve results, and that’s just not true. A strict diet may provide results, quick results even. But I will say what most won’t, they don’t last. Be real for a second, you don’t stick to those rigid ways of life. You find yourself falling back into your natural patterns and routines and thus begins the never ending roller coaster of loosing the weight and gaining it right back.

This is frustrating! Trust me I get it. So what do I recommend?

Simple and consistent habit formation over time for sustainable results. Let’s break it down.

Simple - keep your habits simple and choose one a time to focus on. What’s your biggest antagonizer? Say it’s lack of hydration. For 1-2 weeks focus ONLY on improving your daily water intake. Once you feel like you’ve reached the point where you don’t have to force yourself to drink water, the point where you feel you’ve made it a conscious habit. Add a new one. We don’t want to overwhelm and discourage ourselves by trying to change all of the things at one time. Stacking habits is proven to be the BEST way to make a long lasting lifestyle change. We don’t want to just lose the weight, we want to keep it off.

Consistent - consistency is key. This is where we lose a lot of people because they want quick and immediate results and they’re not patient enough to ride out the long game. If you took a picture of yourself today and over the course of the next year you made simple and effective lifestyle changes that you consistently stuck to, not only would you see a drastic body composition change, but you will have attained an entirely new routine around health and wellness. One that you don’t have to force. One that comes naturally to you.

What we need to stop doing is stop over complicating our health journey. We have too much on our plate as it is and the last thing we need is another chore. We want our wellness journey to be attainable and sustainable.

So there it is ladies, the cliff notes version of my simple and consistent path to wellness.

If you want to see the full manuscript, shoot me an email, we can grab a coffee and really open the can of worms.

Until then, be sure to download our FREE Habit Tracker in our store. This is a very simple and effective tool you can print out and utilize daily as you begin stacking those habits.

Stay golden,

<3 Taylor