Have you ever pulled up Google and searched for nutrition advice?

No doubt you were inundated with ketogenic diets, paleo diets, carbless eating and some other outrageous claims for a wine only diet.

HERE’S THE TRUTH: THERE ARE NO SHORTCUTS

Honestly, if it works for you and it’s safe, then do it!

Besides that, we’ve got 5 nutritional recommendations that you may have read before or been given by someone else that aren’t terribly accurate and could be leading you down the wrong path.

Here are the top 5 things we hear in nutrition that aren’t always great advice and what we recommend to do instead:

ALL OR NOTHING:

You have to go all in and change everything right now or you’ll never be successful.

Even though we do think being dedicated is very important, it can be overwhelming to change everything at once. Instead we believe in changing one simple habit at a time. Pick your biggest glaring issue and work on that task in small chunks over a 2-3 week period. Slowly getting better at it each day.

EXAMPLE: Let’s say you struggle to get enough water. First find out how much water you need to drink in a day (for most folks, half your bodyweight in ounces). Then find a water bottle and figure out how many water bottles you need to drink each day to get you to that goal. Each day check-off if you did that task and over 2-3 weeks and it might just become a habit. Then you build on each little habit for 2-3 weeks and after a few months you’ll have an awesome foundation of nutrition to help change the way you eat.

FRUITS SUCK!:

Don’t eat fruits, there is too much sugar in them. Even though there is sugar in fruit, it is most likely not the reason you are not losing fat. If you are consistently eating candies, white breads, pastas, drinking soda, etc., then there are probably bigger glaring needs. We should start to eliminate those things before we ever look at fruit. For the majority of people, you’ll never have to eliminate fruit unless you are looking to get crazy lean for a photoshoot or competition.

EVERYTHING IN MODERATION:

Moderation is very important when you reach your goal but doesn’t help out as you are chasing your goal. If you are trying to lose 20lbs and you are having a chocolate bar or a glass a wine everyday then you probably don’t want to lose that 20lbs that bad. When you reach your 20 lbs lost, then you can add in a small piece of chocolate each night or a glass of wine if you would like.

You have to remember, moderation is subjective so, more than likely, moderation for you will lead to you doing whatever is comfortable. Change doesn’t take place when we’re comfortable.

FAT MAKES YOU FAT: (THANKS AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION AND “WHAT THE HEALTH”)

This couldn’t be farther from the truth. Fat is essential in your nutrition to be able to keep you full, build up your nails, hair, skin, and many other basic needs. Fat also has a high concentration of energy, so when you are low on carbs your body can burn fat to make up for its lack of energy. Fat soluble vitamins (A,D,E,K) need healthy fats to be absorbed. Because we can get a lot of energy from fat, it can be easy to go crazy and eat too much, have excess calories and stall your fat loss goals. Balance it out throughout the day and get variety. Don’t only lean on eggs or avocados. Have some fish and nuts as well!

COUNTING CALORIES AS KING:

We do believe journaling your food is important, but counting calories is a waste of time for most people. In a perfect world, we could add up all the foods we ate during the day, subtract our activity levels and we would lose weight. Unfortunately our bodies don’t work that way all the time. Nor do we digest food the same and our ability to gauge a serving size isn’t always perfect. So one person could digest an apple at 60 calories, another person at 45 calories. One person could gauge to have a serving of vegetables and another would say 1.5 servings.

Throughout a day you could be 200-500 calories off just based on those concepts above.

That makes even a bigger difference over a week when a pound of fat is the equivalent of 3500 calories. So if you are off 500 calories over each day then you possibly gained a pound of fat even though you watched everything that went in your body.

If you want to learn more about nutrition and how to make nutritional habits a part of your lifestyle then check out our upcoming Sprint To Spring Break Challenge. We will habit based nutrition as the foundation of our nutritional program. If you want more info, feel free to reach out at info@bfpnc.com or click on the link above!

See you soon!