Why Seasonal Diet Trends Don't Work

There’s a buzz in the air. Do you feel it?

It’s the whisper of detoxes, the hum of the newest bathing suits, and the moan of saying goodbye to all of your favorite comfort foods.

But what if I told you that your body is smarter than you think and doesn’t need the latest fads to feel healthy or get fit?

Society makes it the norm that we must start cranking up the workouts and tightening up our meal plans. Fad diets and workouts may help you lose weight by summer, but the vicious cycle of yo-yo dieting and working out too hard mess with our metabolism and the balance within our bodies, and eventually throw us backward.

*Detoxes have their place when it comes to a jumpstart to diet and lifestyle changes, or to reset your body, but they are not as helpful when they are seen as a "diet plan" to see lasting results. That's because after the detox, many people assume to just go back to old habits that got them to feeling crappy in the first place.

Why dieting doesn’t work

Big drastic changes in diet and exercise are seen as stress or “DANGER!” to our bodies. Our vital systems, like the cardiovascular system and the respiratory system fire up while the secondary systems can start to be compromised. These systems can include our reproductive, endocrine (hormones), and digestion systems—not to mention our mental health.

You don’t need to hit your diet and lifestyle hard to see results. If you approach your body with kind transitions and focus on building habits that will last you not only through summer, but well into the next year, your body will thank you with less inflammation, better sleep and digestion, and yes, even weight loss.

3 Tips to jumpstart your health

Support your body, don’t punish it. Don’t focus on how hard you can push your workouts and nutrition. A better goal is to look at your routines around sleep, food, and movement and build on small changes that will truly impact your health in the long run.

Here are three fundamentals that will kickstart your health no matter what your goal is!

1) Forgo the hard-core detox and get some sleep

Get up earlier, go to bed earlier.

The key is to create a rhythm that supports your gut health, hormones, and other systems in your body. Your sleep and wake cycle is controlled by your circadian rhythm. Your night influences your day, and vice versa. I can’t stress sleep enough when it comes to your health.

If you’re not sleeping, you’re not healing, recovering, or detoxing. Ditch the detox after detox mentality and focus on your sleep instead!

2) Get protein at every meal and snack

Another fundamental of your health is blood sugar balance. One way to immediately improve your blood sugar is to eat protein at every meal AND snack. Aim for 10g or more per snack and 20g or more per meal. But some is always better than none!

Protein helps keep you full, avoid energy crashes, and can stabilize your mood and focus. Think protein, protein, protein. It’s the one thing that I see that quickly and dramatically improves my client’s energy, mood, and satiety (which helps with weight loss).

Contact us to grab your FREE Quick Guide to Protein for meat and veggie eaters. Let us know you want the protein handout and we'll send it over!

3) It’s not only about exercise. MOVE!

Non-exercise activity thermogenesis, or NEAT, helps make up 15-30% of our daily calorie burn. Planned exercise is important, but the movement we do throughout the day, like standing, cooking, walking, shopping (sweet, right?!), and taking stretch breaks are more important than you may think.

The more you move throughout the day also means less risk of metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular events, and many other diseases. Research also shows that being inactive can take away from all of the hard work you put into your exercise.

Movement throughout the day, plus a shorter exercise is better than one intense exercise while sitting all day long.

Bottom line

Non-exercise movement is one of the easiest, most impactful ways to manage weight, and mental and physical health.

Food for thought

Are you looking for a quick fix or are you looking to not just improve the way you look, but also how you feel about yourself, your energy, mood, digestion, etc.? If you just focused on conquering these three things, you will see positive results. They may seem like simple concepts but health really isn’t that complicated. It’s the starting, the doing, and the consistency.

Remember to grab your free Quick Guide to Protein by messaging us and we'll send it over!