(including those health habits that will help you shed fat and keep it off)
A personal need of mine is to understand the grand scheme of things. The big why! I am not one to follow formulas blindly. And even in school, I was able to do fairly well and easily once I understood the underlying concepts and could comfortably apply them to solve problems, no matter how complicated as I had the “Big Picture” as my guide. And so biology, physiology and psychology required some work to wrap my head around the lesson’s “big picture” but once there, there was no way you could ‘un-do’ that in the connections that my brain had made of the underlying principles. Now, anatomy on the other hand required rote memorization, and without any connecting points or ‘concepts’, I found it seriously challenging. And although I memorized for tests and exams (which I passed just fine), I to this day, struggle with remembering the rote bits. And don’t worry, it does not make me any less capable of a Naturopath. I just have to occasionally look up names of muscles when charting…ahaha 😀
What does this have to do with you and your health goals? Everything, I believe! You will understand me better if you’ve tried various recommendations for health from time to time. Or maybe even tried combining various tactics from each hoping you’d have the best of both worlds. But then, not only not succeeded but ended up far worse than before you initiated. If this sounds familiar, it may be time for you to put aside the tactics and dig a little deeper. The depth or the big picture regarding for example, dietary habits requires you to understand the why?! Now, let’s say you’re following a keto-diet. Without getting the full picture you may be eating bacon and eggs for breakfast, lots of cheese and meat for dinner and since you heard intermittent fasting is good for you, you choose to skip lunch.
I do actually recommend you follow some concepts from the Keto diet and to combine it with fasting but not in this form or order.
Or, you’ve heard gluten-free is the way to go and so you get a book and follow recipes for a week. And when out for dinner one night, you’re stumped as you’re not sure what you can order unless it’s marked ‘gluten-free’. And the week after you give-up completely because the recipes are not satisfying to your taste. This happens frequently when you’re just following tactics.
Now, if you fully understood the big picture of the keto-diet for example, you’d know to limit your carbohydrate intake, monitor your proteins and ensure you’re getting sufficient fats. You’d also have the necessary information to know what foods are considered high carbohydrate and which are high fats and proteins. Who has heard that quinoa is a high protein food? Right? Wrong! Quinoa is a grain and although relatively higher protein content than rice, it does not qualify for a high protein food. The other part of this problem arises when we diet and eat according to meal plans, recipes and prepared meals. This can be helpful initially to give you ideas but if there’s no learning that occurs as a result, then no knowledge is carried forward. So, as soon as you stop this “diet” –because we all have only a certain reserve of will power– you’re back to square one!
So if you tend to be the type who likes being told what to eat day to day, meal to meal, with recipes to follow, be mindful that if there’s no real learning that occurs as a result (i.e. you don’t understand why you’re making the meal choices and using the recipe ingredients that you are), you will not be able to carry this habit forward no matter how strong your will-power!
My suggestion: invest some time, effort, resources to understanding the big picture. Hire help. I’d of course recommend a Naturopath and at the minimum a Nutritionist with a knowledge of the basic sciences (not someone who took a 6 month online course). So, beware who you’re consulting. Ensure they have the expertise to give you advice. And most importantly, learn to know yourself and listen to your body. That may be your best teacher!