Meaningful diet and lifestyle adjustments for better fitness
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There are so many diets and wellness trends that exist in the world, and learning how to pick the ones that are right for your goals can be like trying to pull a specific needle out of a stack of other needles: painful and impossible.
Before we get much further, I want to be very clear that I am not a dietitian. Creating meal plans is very much outside of my scope (and the scope of anyone who is not specifically a dietician). That said, what is firmly inside of my scope is sharing accepted approaches and assist in synthesizing information that may be a little too science-y for the average person.
If you have a specific allergy or illness or are on certain medications, make sure you’re in touch with your doctor or care team. Stuff below should be safe for most, but read with a keen awareness of what might not be appropriate/safe for you as an individual.
I’m gong to attack this list from a general wellness/health standpoint… but these items could also be helpful and relevant for those seeking body recomposition.
Why should I trust your advice?
You shouldn’t blindly trust anyone. I mean, I think I’m a trustworthy and honest source, but I sincerely cannot advise blindly accepting advice from anyone who isn’t working with you very closely on your individual goals and with your individual needs/considerations.
When deciding if I want to take nutrition advice from someone I always consider: are they trying to make me fear something? Are they trying to sell me something? Are they offering nuance? I keep a level of skepticism and have an awareness of my own needs.
Meaningful Lifestyle Changes
Challenge: Sleep
I’m putting this up top because to me, this is THE ONE. If you don’t have the capacity to change anything else on this list, let sleep be the one thing you try to improve. Sleep is probably the single most important thing to get under control if you’re seeking any fitness/wellness outcomes.
A little story: I received a Whoop for Christmas and I learned very quickly that I was really underestimating my own sleep needs. The Whoop has a “Sleep Planner” that I started using right away. The sleep planner allows you to tell it when you need to get up and then it will calculate a time you should be in bed to meet your sleep needs (you can choose to be at “peak” and get 100% of your sleep needs, “perform” at 85% sleep, and “get by” at 70%).
My first few recoveries were atrocious until I started following my sleep planner and going to bed, on average, 45 minutes earlier than I had been for the previous few years. My recovery score improved, but more than that — my recovery time between workouts got quicker which meant that I was able to workout more often because my body felt a whole lot better.
Try this: You don’t need a Whoop to get your sleep under control. Pick a 4 day span where you commit to going to bed 60 minutes earlier than you normally would. The changes will be more subtle if you’re not someone who currently works out, but the changes will be there.
Take it a step further: Try to not eat 2 hours before bed. If you’re one to get up to pee in the night, and you can reduce your fluid intake a bit, that is also advisable. Imagine the difference between sleep in a quiet, dark room versus trying to sleep with the lights on and the tv on… you may be able to fall asleep initially, but your body and brain’s ability to stay asleep and slip into deeper states of sleep will be hindered.
Make it hard to fail
That sounds overly simplistic, but that’s kinda the point. Slow progress IS progress, but it can feel like trudging through thick mud. We have to pick small enough changes that not doing them would be silly.
A perfect example would be: add one more piece of fruit to each day. Or even: every time I eat chips, I also eat carrots.
These smaller moves compound over time because you’re not making a huge, sweeping change to your life that’s hard to stick to. All you’re doing is eating one extra banana every day. Or needing to remembering to pick up some baby carrots.
Small incremental changes does something else pretty neat……..
Let’s try to break the shame cycles
Shame can be motivating…. I guess? More often than not, once you hop into a shame spiral, it can be really hard to pull out of… and when we’re in those spirals, we frequently don’t act in the best interest of our goals and desires.
When we make small changes, they tend to be simple and easy to integrate into our lives. This gives us the small wins we need to keep pushing forward and adding more small changes to creep towards out goals.
BUT on the flip of that, let’s say we fumble the little goals a few times along the way as we’re integrating in these new habits and behaviors. Messing up a small change is way less likely to throw us into a a shame spiral… so when (not if….. we are human and we’ll mess up) you screw up, it’ll be easier to get back on track.
Meaningful dietary changes
Add (you don’t always have to subtract) + Portions Matter
Many people find that they struggle with the traditional diet models because they feel like they’re missing out or too restrictive or they’re missing foods that they truly love. This has potential to create a few different issues. In the short-term, its possible that removing all of your favorites could make you more likely to go wildly off the rials nest time you’re in the presence of that beloved food item.
Although I don’t advocate to remove your favorites altogether, I’m also not trying to enable mass consumption of foods we already kinda know should be “sometimes” foods and not “every week” kinda foods.
I eat pizza and chips and grilled cheese and these little pastries I call cinnamon bullshit (because its absolute bullshit how delicious they are) and drink margaritas. I generally try to weave them into my week to keep myself from feeling super restricted. If I’m getting pizza, its probably going to be a slice or two, and I’ll have a portion of baby carrots with the dinner and maybe throw some strawberries and mango into the blender with a little flax meal. I’ve taken my beloved pizza, but bulked up the meal twofold: I get MORE FOOD and I’m adding a few portions of fruits/veg and probably some additional fiber.
I’m not perfect in this practice, but if I do it more often than not, it can make a pretty big difference in making sure I’m getting nutrients, not overdosing on salt, and keeping my energy (calorie) balance in an appropriate range for my current needs.
Be aware of fat
You need fat. Point blank. Scientifically necessary. BUT fat is more “energetically expensive” than carbs or protein. Functionally, this means that you’ll get more food volume out of carbs (fruit, veg, grain, legumes, etc…) and protein (meat, cheese, yogurt, seafood, etc…).
By weight 1 gram or fat has 9 calories and 1 gram of carb or protein has 4 calories (this is a rough guideline).
Challenge: Get more protein
The recommended daily value of protein is criminally low at 50 grams for an adult.
A better guideline might be .7-1g per pound of body weight. This would mean a 150 pound adult would shoot for a window of 105-150g of protein per day.
You might be at the low end of that window if you’re generally inactive. You might be towards the top end of that window if you’re highly active.
If you’re carrying around some excess body fat, your calculation might look a little different. For this example, we’ll say you’re 5’7 and 220 pounds. If, upon research, you see that your ideal weight zone is 125-155, we would probably pick 140 as our target (since it sits in the middle of that range) and calculate from there.
In this example, I would recommend sitting at the high end of the estimate (so 140-ish grams of protein). What this does is it helps you pack in a good a amount of protein which helps with satiety (and helps mitigate muscle loss while losing weight).
Last protein point. If you’re new to the protein game and you’re realizing that you’ve been chronically under-protein-ing, seeing the total goal might make you bug out. If that’s happening we set up a tapered approach! We don’t go from 70g to 120g over night! We might pop up to a goal of 90 for 2 weeks… then 100 for 2 weeks…. then shoot to get you between 110 and 120 on average.
If you’re feeling like you need a little more guidance on protein:
Should you be supplementing with protein powder?
Which protein powder should you choose?
Challenge: Fruit and Veggies
Get more of them. If you haven’t seen this Tiktok, you need to.
Now, regardless of whether you’re someone who has fruit every day or only once per week, we can all use a little self-reflection on how often we’re getting in portions of fruit and veg.
It can take a bit of effort and planning to make sure you’re getting at (or near) the recommended 5 servings per day. If you were to do little honest tracking for the next week, you may be surprised at how few servings you’re actually getting.
Here’s how I generally split up my day to make sure I’m getting between 4 and 5 servings per day, most days:
1 serving with breakfast OR as my first snack
2 servings with lunch (OR one with lunch and one with my afternoon snack)
2 with dinner
My top tricks for getting the servings in:
Getting the first serving early in the day
Buying INTERESTING cut fruit from grocery store. Yes, I understand that cut fruit is both more expensive and has the plastic implications, BUT with the ADHD having something easy and interesting means the difference between having fruit and not having fruit. And as our friend Gabe said, I feel better on days I eat fruit.
Baby carrots are out (for me), carrot chips are in. Even better if they’re crinkle cut. I’ll have a fistful of carrot chips with potato chips and a sandwich. Similar story with baby or Persian cucumbers. If its crunchy or can easily be dipped into hummus, I’m interested.
Soups with vegetables.
Pasta with vegetables.
Chopped salads (textures!!) or some kind of mixed veg topping for a sandwich/wrap/pita (I grab the cans of roasted peppers and artichokes, grab cucumbers, maybe olives, tomato (sundried or raw), and then chop them up together, add some olive oil and its a little side salad or can be plopped atop a sandwich!
Bananas are a staple for me and I keep my interesting cut fruit at work, so when I’m grocery shopping for the week, I also plan out 5 pieces of fruit for the week - this may be an orange, a couple kiwi, a carton of berries I’ll split up, etc… No matter what I’m getting, I try to make sure I have enough to get me through 4-5 days.
Challenge: Fiber
Like the fruit and vegetables, most Americans are chronically under-fibered. Here’s what we need:
Women: under 50 - between 25-28g // over 50 - around 21g
Men: under 50 - between 31-34g // over 50 - around 30g
If you can manage to meet your 5 servings of fruit and veg per day, you’ll definitely be making a good dent in your fiber needs. Other things like beans, buts, breads, and whole grain pastas are things that can be fairly easy to add into your daily/weekly diet.
Maybe you noticed I didn’t say brown rice… that’s because its a little gross and doesn’t give a meaningful fiber or nutrient boost. That’s the name of the game here - finding ways to eat well most of the time, and it’s easier to so that when we enjoy the foods we eat. I can add black beans or spinach or broccoli to white rice to get a good portion of fiber, AND I’m going to enjoy that meal a hell of a lot more than I would if I tried to force feed myself the brown rice.
Challenge: Water
I cannot understate how important being well hydrated is—especially if you exercise and/or you have a fat loss goal. Upping your water isn’t going to give you abs overnight, but in deeply simplistic terms, our muscles need protein and water to do their jobs well. Our bodies need to be hydrated to keep our largest organ, the skin, operating a full-capacity. We need water to—and this is precisely as scary as it sounds—keep our blood and digestive fluids able to flow the way we need them to.
I recommend a glass of water first thing in the morning. If you feel like you need to throw a little lemon or flavoring in there, that’s fine… just get the water.
When I’m working, I’m talking a lot so replenishing my water cup isn’t an issue. However, when I’m at home, I fill a 64oz jug and use that to refill my water cup throughout the day. I’ll usually get through a full jug plus a little more.
Some of the links in this post may be affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission or reward if you click on the link and make a purchase. This comes at no additional cost to you. I only recommend products or services that I personally use and believe will add value to my readers.
