Paleo – Vegan – No Carb- Oh my!

Would you agree that there are so many diets out there that your mind gets blown just trying to list them off, much less when choosing which diet to actually try! There is so much expert advice that we aren’t sure WHAT to eat, HOW much to eat, WHEN to eat and realyjust don’t know where to start.

So, what’s the perfect ‘diet’?
(Psst, I put that in quotes because I wanted to remind you that the word ‘diet’ is just what we habitually eat. So you might have a diet of fast food if you eat it all the time.)

The perfect diet is different from person to person. What works for me might not work for you for whatever reason.
Think of all the diets out there. I mean seriously, there’s a million out there. They all have testimonies that they REALLY WORK! Each one of them have worked for at least one but probably loads of people but that doesn’t mean it’s the best choice for you.

Thankfully most of us can at least narrow it down. For example, I know that my body loves protein and visually responds very well to a rather high protein diet. However, my body gets very sleepy when my carbs are too low. So I have to be careful to have a good balance of the 2 macro-nutrions.
All the rage right now is intermittent fasting. There are many ways that it can be done. You can fast for a large chunk of hours a day, you can fast for a couple days a week or honestly who knows all the other ways to apply this dieting technique.

My sister messaged me the other day and I think she was pretty sure I was going to tell her she was off her rocker. She decided to try intermittent fasting by dropping her calories down 2 days a week. So 5 days a week she would eat healthy portion sizes but not counting calories. The other 2 days she would eat 500 calories for the day. Yep, only 500 calories the whole day.

My thoughts…
I like that there isn’t a bunch of supplements, actually none in my sister’s case.
I like that she still plans to eat 80% clean.

My suggestion is…
When considering a new diet, think about if you could do this long term. Consider the quality of what you will be eating or drinking. If my sister had said she was going to eat junk, preservatives and go out to eat for the 5 regular days then for sure it’s a big fat hairy DON’T DO IT!
I think it’s healthy to try something new out for a couple weeks. See how your body responds and if you think you could do it long term. Just please be sure you are listening to your body. If you are in tune with your body then you probably don’t need to ‘follow’ someone else’s diet plan.

“Wait, wait, wait”, you say, “but Jackie, don’t you provide meal plans to follow?” My answer is YES! Yes, I have meal plans, menu guides, food lists and more to provide but they are totally a guideline. They are something to get you going. Somewhere to start. It’s a roadmap to follow so you aren’t driving blind. Once you start to learn your body and see what is working and what is not, then by all means, please find your own path. But really, most of us find food to be a place of conflict and confusion instead of a place of nourishment for our bodies.

Pitiful plug here: I am so excited to start a new challenge where we can figure out our real relationship with food, how our emotions, environment and more play a factor in why we are doing to our bodies what we are doing to them! If you are interested in joining this challenge that will kick off May 4th please send me an e-mail ([email protected]) letting me know you want in on the Change Your Mind, Change Your Body group.