Thanks for all of your suggestions, everyone! Here are the nominees:
Whole 30
Whole 30 was created by author Melissa Hartwig and is promoted as a “nutritional reset button” in which you eliminate a list of certain foods identified by Whole 30 founders as potential causes of bloating, metabolic upset, and a myriad of other conditions. The Whole 30 website claims that cutting these foods out for 30 days can improve your relationship with food, regulate digestion, and balance your immune system.
28-Day Shrink Your Stomach Challenge
Championed by Dr. Oz, this 28-day challenge focuses on weight loss, reducing bloating, and shrinking your waistline. The plan involves a mild form of intermittent fasting, elimination of dairy, sugar, and alcohol, and includes basic frameworks for each meal and snack. It also includes a daily plank challenge.
Trim Healthy Mama
Trim Healthy Mama is a book written by sisters Pearl Barrett and Serene Allison, promoted as the “easy does it” approach to eating well. The plan focuses on alternating fuel types by avoiding eating carbs and fats in the same meal. It also eliminates added sugar and encourages waiting 3 hours between meals.
Vote for your choice below and let me know how I can help you make informed healthy choices!
Alright, everybody, time to let me know what eating or exercise plan you would like to see reviewed by Dietitian on a Diet next!
Pining to learn about plant-based diets? Itching to try HIIT training? Freaking out about FODMAPs? Or maybe I’ve offended you in some way and you want me to go through 3 weeks of something awful…but hopefully not.
I’ll take your ideas and create a poll where you can vote to decide my next nutrition or exercise plan. Then I’ll read through and summarize the research on the plan and post it for you, then follow it myself for 3 weeks (as long as it’s not dangerous). I’ll share my experiences, comments, suggestions, and opinions throughout so you can decide if a plan (or part of a plan) might work for you.
We LOVE pizza at our house – especially as Super Bowl season draws near! Unfortunately, our Seahawks didn’t make the playoffs this year, but we can still enjoy the spirit of the game with a few slices of pizza pie. Store-bought pizza sauces can sometimes contain added sugar or, more often, high levels of sodium. Not to mention the sodium in everything else that goes on your favorite pizza!
If you’re looking to eat less sodium or simply cook more from scratch, this pizza sauce recipe is a great option! It’s very easy and fast to make – just stir it up in 5 minutes and spread it on your favorite pizza! The tomatoes, herbs, and spices add an antioxidant punch to any pizza-flavored dish.
5-Minute Heart Healthy Pizza Sauce
If you’re looking to cut sodium or simply cook more from scratch, this pizza sauce recipe is a great option! It’s very easy and fast to make – just stir it up in 5 minutes and spread it on your favorite pizza! The tomatoes, herbs, and spices add an antioxidant punch to any pizza-flavored dish.
15 oz. canned tomato sauce ((no salt added))
1/2 tsp oregano
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp dried thyme
1/8 tsp ground red pepper
1/4 tsp garlic salt
1/8 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp basil
Add all ingredients to a small saucepan and heat over medium-low heat for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Contains 4 g carbohydrate, 1 g protein, 0 g fat, 63 mg sodium per 1/8 cup serving.
Floating around social media the last few days I’ve seen several articles on either side of the “diet” coin:
“Why you shouldn’t diet in 2018”
“Top 6 Diets of 2018”
“Don’t diet this January”
You may have a goal to be healthier and take care of yourself this year – many people do, and that’s great! So, should you “diet”?
A lot of nutrition and fitness coaches will tell you that diets never work and that you need only listen to your body, feed it when it wants food, and don’t when it doesn’t (often called intuitive eating). That works really well for people who are in tune with their bodies, have normally established hunger cues, and like to eat healthful foods. Unfortunately, that’s not the case for many of the clients I work with. These habits and hunger cues can be learned, but it takes time and it’s a frustrating road for a lot of people. Everyone is different, which is why I’ve learned to avoid all or nothing statements like “diets never work.”
At some point, this kind of comes down to semantics.
You can call it a diet, you can call it a lifestyle change, you can call it an eating plan, but ultimately what matters is whether or not it works with and for YOU.
I’ve seen people try strict diet plans that don’t fit their lifestyles, fight tooth and nail to stick to them, and feel totally defeated when they can’t seem to make it work. I’ve also seen people try to eat intuitively without any boundaries or guidelines and flounder, frustrated that they don’t seem to be making any progress.
On the other hand, when people find the right balance of structure and freedom to fit their lifestyles – it’s magic. They have a plan that is tailored to work with their unique personalities, budgets, families, and favorite foods. They are achieving their goals and they’re happy and feel great doing it. This is the elusive magical unicorn of healthful eating.
It can be a daunting task to find your own magical unicorn, so I’ve compiled some tips to help you out. Without further ado, here are 5 ways to know if an eating plan is right for you:
1. It’s not miserable/exhausting.
It makes me sad that I even have to say this, but it happens all the time. People put themselves through psychological and physical torture because they think it’s the only way to achieve their health goals – not so! The right plan will not make you sad and miserable, or be so labor intensive that you can barely keep up. If you love all kinds of food, for example, paleo wouldn’t be a good choice – you’ll be miserable saying no to so many things you love. If you have eaten breakfast your entire life and are hungry every few hours, intermittent fasting probably isn’t for you (you can read about my experience with that here). If you hate numbers and don’t like tedious tracking, don’t count calories! You’ll hate it!
Choose or design a plan that works with your individual preferences and quirks.
2. You’re not hungry all the time.
We’re trying to make your body healthy and happy. Constant underlying hunger is not conducive to either of those goals. ‘Nuff said.
3. It doesn’t restrict your social life.
Your eating plan should work beautifully into your social life. You should never skip out on girls’ or guys’ night because you are “on a diet.” You may end up ordering differently than you have in the past (or not!) but your social life is a huge part of a healthy life too. Don’t let an overly restrictive eating plan intended to make you healthier screw up other aspects of your health. You can read about my experiences with a social life-crushing diet here. It’s not worth it, trust me.
4. It includes all the foods you enjoy except legitimate allergies or intolerances, at least some of the time.
There is absolutely no reason to cut out entire categories of foods to lose weight. Certain medical conditions excepted, you should never have a list of foods you’re “not allowed” to eat. First of all, psychologically, you’re setting yourself up for the trap of only wanting what you “can’t” have. Second, why be more restrictive than is necessary? The ideal plan is the least restrictive plan that still heads you toward your goals. You may eat certain things less often and in smaller portions, but avoid plans that label foods as “good/allowed” and “bad/not allowed.”
5. You’re making progress.
Obviously, your plan needs to be making you healthier or what’s the point? Now I need to stress something very, very important here. Very important. Huge. Please don’t skip over this:
Progress comes in many forms, and most of them are not on the scale.
Please, please, please don’t gauge your success or failure only on your weight. A healthful eating plan should improve your health in so many other ways: Are you eating more vegetables? Do you have more energy? Do you sleep better? Is your skin clearer? Do you find yourself snacking less after dinner? Do your clothes fit better? Is your mindset more positive? Do you have less pain?
All of these are potential benefits of improved eating habits, and they’re nothing to sniff at! Be aware of them, because weight can be a fickle mistress, but health is so, so much more than weight.
So before you start a new eating plan this year, make sure it fits these criteria. As always, if you feel overwhelmed or lost at the idea of trying to find an eating plan that works for you, find a dietitian who can help you find a plan that fits your life. If you’re in Washington state, I’d be honored to work with you! Click here if you’re interested.
It’s day two of my goal-setting giveaway challenge! It’s not too late to join in – visit Dietitian on a Diet’s “Giveaway Alert” post on Facebook or Instagram to play! Yesterday we were dreaming big, today is a little less fun but just as important.
Today’s challenge: Assess your current reality. Where is this area of your life at right now? Be honest, but also be fair to yourself. No need to be more critical than is true. Acknowledge the good parts as well as the parts where you’re not where you’d like to be – that’s where we find the best goals.
Yesterday I told you about my dream to have a cookbook. The current reality is shown above…I have a folder of chicken-scratch recipes and recipe ideas. Several of them have been tested and finalized and I am really proud of them! Several others need more work or need to go from ideas to actual recipes. I have a vague idea of how I want to layout the cookbook but I need to “brain dump” some of those ideas onto paper and play with them.
Your turn: head over to Dietitian on a Diet’s Facebook or Instagram and lay out the true current reality of where your goal area is right now. Be kind to yourself, be honest, and lay it out there!
It’s here! The Dietitian on a Diet/i’mPowered Nutrition & Fitness giveaway challenge begins today! To participate for the chance to win a beautiful goal-tracking planner/journal from The Simple Elephant, planner stickers, and a set of Papermate Inkjoy pens, follow Dietitian on a Diet on Instagram or like Dietitian on a Diet on Facebook, and follow the instructions on my giveaway post
Today’s challenge: DREAM BIG! Choose an area of your life (could be wellness, career, family – anything!) you’d like to work on, and dream big for your future! Take some time and be detailed! Don’t let your past fears or failures get in the way today. Imagine if you had absolutely no barriers and could achieve anything you wanted, what would this area of your life look like? As Ellen Johnson Sirleaf once said, “If your dreams do not scare you, they are not big enough.”
For me, I’m dreaming big about the future of my blog and business. I would love to help more people live the healthy lives they dream of! One of the specific ways I want to do that in 2018 is to fill my readers’ requests for a Dietitian on a Diet/i’mPowered Nutrition & Fitness cookbook! My dream big: I would have a fun, user-friendly cookbook with a variety of at least 100 healthful recipes that is available as a physical book or e-book. The cookbook will also help readers learn the thought processes behind eating well – that way they can build the confidence to play with healthful food in their kitchen beyond the recipes in the book itself! If I’m really dreaming big, the cookbook is a hit and (side bonus) becomes a steady source of passive income for my family.
Your turn: pick an area of your life, dream big about your future in that area, and post/comment away! Remember you can double your chances of winning by making two separate goals: one on Facebook and one on Instagram!
Join me for a 2018 goal-setting challenge on Facebook and Instagram – play on both and you’ll DOUBLE your chance of winning! The challenge starts 12/26 and will run until 12/31. I’ll post some goal-setting tips, you’ll set a goal, and someone will win this beautiful goal-tracking planner/journal by The Simple Elephant and a set of Papermate Inkjoy pens!
Like Dietitian on a Diet on Facebook and follow Dietitian on a Diet on Instagram for all the details!
Diet culture is determined to tell you that you have to be miserable to be healthy.
That couldn’t be more wrong.
Subscribe to learn how to go from a frustrated, restricted dieter to a happy, relaxed relationship with food and fitness. Healthy doesn’t have to be hard!