Help! I Want To Eat "Healthy" But I Don't Want To Order A Salad!

Now I'm sharing what I know with you fitness , nutrition and all the deeper stuff to help you discover your strongest body . Welcome back to another episode of your strongest body . I will not bore you with the saga of getting this episode done , but just rest assured that I have recorded this several times , so I'm pretty comfortable with the content .

I have maybe had the time to sort of flesh out these concepts enough that it just flies off my tongue . So we'll see how it goes . I had this computer issue and everything that I was recording . I did the whole episode one time . I got through the entire episode before realizing that it didn't upload any of it , that it didn't record at all .

So then I went on to troubleshoot and record another five times , luckily not going all the way into the episode . But we're here . I really believe that this is the magic time and I am looking forward to covering this with you .

Before I get into the meat of the episode , I want to remind you of the giveaway I have going on , so I want to get this podcast out to as many people who need or want to hear it as possible .

I'm taking 13 years of working with clients all that I have learned and that I continue to learn and sharing it on this podcast to help with fitness , nutrition and all the mindset things that come along with building your strongest body .

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If you screenshot it and send it to me , you can email me , betsy , at bfosterstrongcom , or you can send me an Instagram DM at foster underscore strength . Each time you share it , no matter how many times you do it , you're entered to win one of four $15 Starbucks gift cards that I'll be giving away on November 13th .

So I'll be doing a random drawing from all of the entries on the 13th , so you have up until the 12th to share those , and I'm going to show people some examples on Instagram of how you can share , but that would be so helpful to me .

I want to get it out there and I want to reward you for taking the time and energy to help me with that sharing aspect . So thank you in advance . Let's get into this episode .

Before I start talking about this topic , I do want to do a little note and say , as I describe some of these concepts , I think people rush to think that I am encouraging you not to prioritize your health or not to prioritize making healthy choices , and that in no way is what I'm advocating , for .

What I'll be talking about in this episode is how binary thinking limits our ability to make choices that are in our best health , and so I want to encourage you that , whatever your goal is whether it be getting stronger , whether it be losing weight , whether it be getting leaner , whether it be moving without pain I want you to know that I am here for your

goals . I am here for you , choosing whatever means that is safe and supportive of your lifestyle , for you . I just want to give you some questions to ask yourself , and I want to give you real , sustainable techniques and tactics so that you can make decisions that support your health in a variety of ways .

And I think you'll understand what I mean as I get into this , because I'm going to talk today about what I call the healthy eating trap . Now , I am not 100% on what the title of this episode is going to be until I hear it back , but my working title was what to do when you don't want to order a salad .

Because I don't know about you , but for me at least . When I am out with people , most frequently I hear that the choice to get a salad especially if they're voicing that choice is because they want to quote unquote eat healthy .

Or I hear even more the frustration over feeling guilt or feeling disappointed with themselves because they didn't order a salad and now they're not eating healthy .

I have so many quote fingers going up here , and and what I mean is that somewhere along the way , we , as people , learned that some foods are healthy and some foods are not , and when we start thinking in that black and white perspective , in that binary way of thinking , we trap ourselves and we limit our ability to make choices on the spectrum , on the

spectrum of health . This is what I call the healthy eating trap . Now , somewhere along the way , we learned this because it is societally taught to us and I see it with my own daughter , who is five years old .

She's in kindergarten and even in these first few years of school that she's been in , I have seen her learn that there are healthy foods and that there are junk foods . This is not how I would teach it , but I do understand that for young people , particularly little brains , they're trying to organize things into two columns .

They are at the comprehension state for some things where things have to be black and white , and when we teach health we tend to lean into that a lot . So my daughter will have a fruit smoothie and say she told her sister this is healthy . And I wanted to pause and say lots of foods are healthy . There's a lot of aspects to that that are healthy .

What is the alternative ? When we present something as healthy by giving that distinction , we sometimes then automatically create a not healthy or create a junk food . And the truth is food , all foods , are made up of many things . They're made up of macronutrients , they're made up of micronutrients and , in almost all cases , foods .

There are some elements of those foods that do add to the overall health profile of what we're trying to accomplish with our diet . There are also things like texture , to consider temperature , to consider density , to consider filling versus not filling .

We prioritize this one thing number of nutrients over everything else that goes into eating , and when we do that we start to see things a little skewed and it isn't sustainable in most cases because it doesn't take into consideration how food is simply not a pill that we just swallow , that is just flavorless and that isn't used in social situations or familial

situations or relationships . There's so much to food . I know that people in a lot of cases say like , oh , I wish I didn't have to think about food , I wish I didn't have to stress about it . I want to encourage you that you don't have to stress about it and probably some of that stress has come from this limited way of thinking .

But people want that magic pill because it's just easier and , trust me , our lives are tough .

There's so much going on in the world , in your own life , where stress about food and stress about healthy food choices is just another thing that you're taking on A load , that you're an unnecessary load maybe in a lot of cases , if we can expand our thinking and if we can think about making it more flexible and being able to prioritize the things that are

really important to us . If you are housed and you have adequate availability of food , let's limit the stress then , because we don't have the big stresses . The big stresses are those like will I have to go to bed hungry tonight ? Will I know where my next meal is coming from ?

If we know that that's possible , then let's figure out how we can limit that chronic stress we're creating for ourselves around healthy foods and not healthy foods . And let me tell you , there is likely a place and a time for all foods . It's just going to be in different quantities or in different frequencies .

Again , with this I'm not saying that you can't be aiming to eat nutritious foods or aiming to eat foods in a way that supports your goals , supports your performance goals , supports your body , your physique goals .

It's just that when we think about things in a yes column and a no column , we set ourselves up for failure Because automatically , when you don't choose the healthy food quote , unquote healthy food if you've set up that binary , then you have failed .

In the same way that if we say to ourselves we're going to work out seven days a week for two hours a session and you don't do it one day of the week , you have now failed right .

If we set up that as the standard , if we set that up as our bare minimum , when we start to leave room to think about almost like ratios of health or ratios of nutrition A few episodes ago I did sort of a pie chart thing there are some foods where , like , 80% of it is full of dense nutritious value and 20% of it is textural and deliciousness .

There are other foods where that ratio is going to be different . We might benefit from thinking about these things less in black and white and more as sort of a scale of gray , and then we have the flexibility to choose what is right for that day or that position , that sort of like what we're focused on in that given moment for that given goal .

I'm going to use salads as an illustration for this concept , but I want to make a quick note that I don't want to , with this , demonize salads either . I just want to illustrate the point that there is no healthy or unhealthy , or that it is far more a whole picture of lots of pieces versus a clear yes or no .

So when you go to a restaurant , there are likely lots of different kinds of salads , and some salads have more , are more densely nutritious in that they have lots of rich leafy greens . Maybe they have a salad dressing that is made with more nutritious elements . Maybe you have some raw nuts .

Maybe you have some other kinds of vegetables mixed in , maybe you have some seeds , things like that . There are also salads that have less dense nutritious dense nutrient value .

So if we think about a salad that might be packed with a fried source of protein versus a grilled source of protein , or a heavy cream based dressing versus a more oil high omega three fat dressing , maybe you have a salad with a lot of cheese or something like that .

There are going to be lots of ways where that could fit what you need at that given moment .

So , for example , with that cheese , if you're going in with the idea that you want to have your picture of health in this moment or your picture of how food fits in your goals your goal might be to have the highest protein , lowest calorie that salad might not be that option on the menu for you .

Where , in fact , getting a grilled chicken entree with a side of vegetables or a steak or something like that might be lower calorie , overall calorie and higher protein , whereas if you're looking for satiation , if you're looking for higher calcium content , if you're looking for a salad that really fills you up , you might want that salad with the cheese and with the

fried protein . Maybe your goal is actually to have more calories at that meal , because ,

right , there isn't . Low calorie doesn't mean healthy . Low calorie means low calorie , and there are people who are trying to lose weight who might be aiming to have lower calorie content . That might be more appropriate for them , whereas there are other people who are training at a rate where they need to actually increase their calorie consumption .

Or maybe you're trying to build muscle and you want to increase your calorie consumption . See what I'm saying here . It's not healthier , not healthy . How does this fit my goals ?

And when we start to look at nutrients as an aspect of our food versus the only thing that matters , or calorie content as one aspect of food versus all that matters , again , low calorie is not synonymous with healthy . There are lots of low calorie foods that don't have a ton of nutrients or aren't going to particularly add to your fitness or nutrition goal .

So again , I'm not knocking salads . I like both of those kinds of salads too . A like really filling Salad is sometimes exactly what you want . Sometimes you are too hungry for it . Sometimes the options that they have , like this , is not gonna fill me up . I just trained hard .

I need more carbohydrates , right , and maybe some of those salads are lower in carbohydrates . In the same way that low calorie is not synonymous with healthy , low carbohydrate isn't synonymous with healthy . So if we start to really think about that , we actually just expand our thinking of that term .

Healthy and I'm not saying that like a bag of Skittles is quote unquote a healthy food in my definition . I'm saying I don't define things as that and I can't think of a reason why I would want Skittles because I don't like the taste of it , I don't like the texture and I don't . It's not adding to my nutrition goals . Now let's think about something else .

Let's say you know , m&ms work for me . And again , it's hard for me to pick out a food because I feel like , no matter what I do , by picking a food to describe , I'm already giving it a connotation . But let's just say M&Ms . There might be some real reasons where I want to have M&Ms or where I want to have an ice cream .

I wanna have ice cream with my kids when they go pick ice cream . Some days I am too full , or some days I feel like I'm not in the mood , or some days I know that there's gonna be another day where I really want that and so I'm gonna skip it today . Some days it fits into my nutritional picture in a way that I want and some days it doesn't .

But some of the ways foods fit into our life is not just because of the nutritional value they add to our diet . Sometimes it's the relational aspect or the joy , or it's like I don't know . I think I've talked about it on here , but if I haven't , it's like the idea that emotional eating is inherently bad .

No , sometimes actually , emotional eating is something that we need . We are seeking an emotional need and sometimes we get it from food . What you're thinking about , as maybe the quote unquote bad thing , is when that is out of control and the only way you can soothe yourself is with food .

We don't wanna be able to only soothe ourself or only meet our emotional needs with anything . Same thing with exercise If you can't soothe your emotional needs or quiet your anxiety or quiet your stress without excessive exercise . That is also an indicator that we might need to address that or find a different strategy . So there are reasons to eat emotionally .

There are reasons to eat in celebration . There are reasons to eat in a lot of ways , and that is where saying that getting the salad is healthy and that's why you're doing it is problematic or at least just keeps you in this trap of being unable to think about foods in the complex way that they exist in our world .

So , as I said before , I just think it's really important that I say that I don't mean that you never need to think about nutrition when you're eating foods . I'm not saying that you can't prioritize your fitness goals or your physique goals or anything like that with food . I think you can and I think if it's important to you , you should .

It's just going to be more multi-dimensional . There are going to be better ways to think about food to actually help you get there Right . The healthy versus not healthy is not going to do as much as thinking about protein , thinking about textures , thinking about sensations of hunger or fullness , thinking about how you perform after you eat certain foods ?

Or how can I get the most nutrients for the least calorie cost if I am trying to reduce my calorie intake ? How do I do all these things and still eat a lot of the foods that I enjoy ? Where do those foods fit in and in what proportions ? Things like that . So you 100% can think about nutrition when it comes to your fitness and body goals .

There's just a more nuanced way to do it that is 100% going to leave you happier as well as leave you more successful in the long term . So let me give you some mindset tools , some things that I want you to think about as you're thinking about food , rather than thinking about healthy versus not healthy .

That will help you make decisions that best support you emotionally , mentally and physically and help you get to those goals , because we're not talking about just like eating donuts endless amounts of donuts at every meal . First of all , you would get bored . Second of all , you would be tired because you're not getting the nutrients you need .

Yes , you could probably do that for two weeks . There's a point where you're going to get sick of it and there's a point where your performance and your body is going to change in a way that you're not happy with .

So all we're doing is queuing into our bodies better , queuing into our minds better , and then putting that together with better nutritional understanding . So here are some of the mindset tools Asking yourself what do I want to be focusing on with my nutrition ?

Just like I said before some people , I know we make this assumption that somebody's health goal is always going to be lose weight . That isn't everyone's goal . So , for your nutritional goal , what do you want to prioritize ? Is it reduce calories ? Is it get more protein ? Is it increase calories ? Is it have more energy throughout the day ?

Figure out a way to have more energy . Is it I want to eat more fresh vegetables ? Okay , then you might be aiming to get salads when you're out , something like that . Is it I want to make more meals at home ? I want to be more in charge of the ingredients going into my food , whatever it may be .

You have to decide what you're going to be focusing on , and then you have to be okay with letting some of the other things go , because you literally cannot do it all . We know that you can't do it all . So what are the things you're going to focus on ? Like I spoke about in a previous episode about anchor actions .

We can have anchors in our nutrition so we can have things that are non-negotiables for me . I need to hit my protein goal most days of the week . I need to get enough water . I really want to make sure I get some servings of vegetables in the day . Whatever those anchors are , and then again realize that the other stuff may go your way .

You might accomplish all the things you want , but if we have anchors , we make sure those things get done and in most cases , if you pick good anchors , when it comes to feeling your best , feeling your strongest , feeling your most nutritious , they have a lanch . What's that thing called ? Is it avalanche ? You know , when the snow comes down , it rolls .

They sort of spiral into each other and then you get in a good rhythm and you have momentum on your side . Some other things to think about with the mindset are asking yourself what do my next few hours look like and how can that inform my food choices ? Am I going to need some more energy to get through this meeting ?

Am I going to back off on heavy foods right now because I know I'm going to work out and then I'm going to get the bulk of my calories later in the day Do I find that I'm waiting till the end of the day to eat and I'm always starving . Can I find ways to eat more food earlier in the day ?

Then , when you look at a menu or a pantry or a spread of food out , asking yourself what is going to do the most for my goals and still allow me to enjoy myself . So this is great advice , I think , for as we head into the holidays .

Holidays are a time where people usually say screw it and throw caution to the wind and go like I'm going to just have it all now because I'm going to get it all together on January . And you know how I feel about that sort of mentality and it doesn't have to be that way . But it also doesn't have to be .

Doesn't have to be bringing your Tupperware of your chicken and rice or your tilapia and rice to a party .

Now , it's different if you have dietary allergies or real restrictions , but when it comes to making choices for your health , you can look at a party and say I think I'll have a little of this because it looks like it's going to taste good , and then I'll have a little bit of this because this is going to hold me over until we actually go get dinner .

Or when you go to a restaurant , you can look at those salads and go . What kind of salad is working for me tonight ? Or I actually would really like some fresh vegetables . The only options are these salads , and I get a side salad with a meal . That is also going to fill me up a little bit more . See what I'm saying ?

It's not one or the other , it's how do I piece the best possible option for myself ? And when you're at home , you can control these things for yourselves a little bit better , but when you're out and about , you sometimes are at the mercy of whatever is there ?

So asking yourself again what is going to do the most for my goals and still allow me to enjoy myself . Write that down if you need to Put it on a piece of paper or on your phone and take it with you to the Christmas party .

Lastly , last piece of mindset information when I am restricting what I really want , will it come back to bite me in the butt later ? When I am restricting what I really want , will it come back to bite me in the butt later ? Sometimes we can restrict or we can I restrict , is it maybe the right word ?

But sometimes we can pass on something and realize we passed on it because , yeah , it would have been nice , but it doesn't really fit my goals . It's not going to be as amazing as I think it's going to be . I don't actually really want it just because it's there , or I can have a bite of it , and it's not going to rock my world either way .

So I'll have one bite and be done fine . There are other circumstances where you are presented with your dream food at your dream time and restricting that food or that you're restricting pleasure , literally . Eating food that tastes good can be pleasurable and our lives need a little pleasure in them .

So when you restrict that , what are you setting yourself up for later ? Are you setting yourself up for hating your fitness goals because they get in the way of living life , or are you or you're setting yourself up to go home and eat a ton more food , of things that aren't as satisfying as if you just ate that thing two hours ago ? It's a simple like .

As I place it out here , it sounds so simple . I don't want to diminish the fact that there's so much at play in all of these situations .

But I also want to highlight that and say that is why putting foods in a category is healthy and putting other foods in a category is not healthy does not help us with sustainability , with enjoyment and with helping us to reach our goals , because you may end up resenting what you're working toward . You don't want to resent every time you eat food .

So let me go through those mindset tools one more time questions and things to think about and then I'll let you go Asking yourself what do I want to be focusing on with my nutrition ? What are the things ? And we have seasons of life , right ?

So there might be a season where your nutrition goal is really focused on your performance or it's really focused on your physique goals , and then there are times in your life where your nutrition goal or the things that you're focusing on are given yourself a break and enjoying food , cooking more food or eating more . You know a wider variety of foods .

Whatever that might be , there are seasons of life and so you're not making one final decision by choosing what you want to focus on with your nutrition . You just got to give it enough time for it to work before you throw it all out again and try like some fad thing . You're asking yourself what are my anchors when it comes to nutrition ?

So what are the things that are going to ground me in my values , around my fitness goals , my you know happiness goals , my role modeling for others goals , those kinds of things and then have a few anchors that are always achievable and that that may be a little out of reach , but you're going to make sure that they get done .

The other things , yeah , some most days they get done , but maybe they don't always get done . But your anchors keep you tied to your values and your goals . Asking yourself what do my next few hours look like and how can that inform my next food choice .

So thinking a little bit more as we make those food choices , about how it's going to impact the next few things we do . When I look at the menu or the pantry or the spread at the party , asking myself what is going to do most for my goals and still allow me to enjoy myself ?

And , lastly , when I am restricting what I really want , will it come back to bite me in the butt later ? All right , I hope this is as helpful to you as it has been helpful to my own clients and my own way of thinking and how I approach nutrition in a way that really supports my big fitness goals , and I still have a lot of pleasure in eating .

Okay , a reminder about that giveaway share , share away . But , most importantly , thank you for listening . I love doing this and I love getting to share it with you . If you want to talk to me about the podcast or anything , you can email me Betsy at be foster strongcom or send me an Instagram DM at foster underscore strength .

Until next time , go build your strongest body and I'll talk to you later . Bye .