Why Most Nutrition Advice Sucks

Now I'm sharing what I know with you fitness , nutrition and all the deeper stuff to help you discover your strongest body . Hello , hello , Welcome back to another episode of your strongest body . We are jumping in right now because I am a little fired up . We're talking about why most nutrition advice sucks , and I kind of spoke about this to my email list .

I wrote an email to them and they'll get that , but I was so fired up about it I thought we needed to have this conversation , and it comes down to the fact that we teach nutrition in terms of facts and data and numbers and science and we never really teach nutrition in terms of habit change and implementation and real life , applicable information , strategies ,

strategies and real life tools . Go with me here . You and I both know and I'm betting most people in your life know I use this example in my email list . You know that broccoli has more nutrients in it per serving than a bowl of ice cream .

You understand that if you were to eat nothing but cookies all day long , you would likely get to a point where you would be missing key nutrients to meet your health needs . But the option of eating only cookies would likely not be a great choice for most of your health markers . You understand that .

We understand that lean meats tend to be high in protein and that is going to help us with satiation . I think most people understand that . We understand that there are some foods that contribute to high cholesterol or the . You know first , we have , we have a genetic predisposition maybe for that but there's also certain foods that can contribute .

We understand that there are foods that are going to give us more energy , foods that are going to give us less energy . We have foods that are going to simply be like , enjoyable because of taste , but not necessarily add much to the nutrients in our food .

We understand that some foods are higher in calorie per serving and some are lower in calorie per serving , and so if we eat a lot of high calorie foods and want to equal the same amount of calories as the low calorie foods , we're going to be able to eat a lot less , Whereas if we eat a lot of the low calorie foods , we might be able to eat more of

them . Now do we have enough stomach volume to make space for that ? We probably know that a balanced diet is going to be as close to optimal unless we have some sort of allergy where we need to nix a total food group out or something .

But mostly we understand the concept that eating fruits and vegetables , sources of protein , sources of calcium , sources of carbohydrates , grains , are good for us All of those kinds of things .

If we get a balance of those , if we can try to eat some foods that don't come in a wrapper , but realize that our life sometimes requires the convenience or the supplementation of foods that come in a processed wrapper and that it's not going to end our life if we eat some of those things .

We kind of want to figure out how we can make room for both and we realize probably I'm guessing that for some folks who have more financial access , they'll be able to eat more of those foods that don't come in wrappers or aren't easily accessible , Whereas individuals who may be limited with their finances might have to depend on some more convenience foods , but

that there are convenience foods that are nutrient-dense and that we probably understand that frozen vegetables have the same nutrients in them as fresh vegetables . They just end up lasting longer for us . You get the point here like these things are helpful to know , but we most likely know them Once I've told them to you today . What are you changing ?

You might be changing one or two things , but if you're trying to make some big , consistent changes to the way you eat , you are actually going to need help to know how to do it . You're going to need help with the strategy of what am I shopping for ? How am I shopping ?

What are the decisions I'm making when I'm grocery shopping that are going to allow me to include that ? You're going to need help with determining what are good sources of protein that you like .

Yeah , you can see what things are good sources of protein , which ones are available to you , which ones do you have easily accessible where you live and that you like the taste of and that are easy enough for you to prepare with the time that you have .

You understand we're applying all of these big concepts to who you are and your life , and that's really important . You are probably going to need help with determining your pre and post workout foods . What things can you have pre-workout and what can you have post-workout ?

You're probably going to need help strategizing around testing those out , because it might not be easy to figure out on the first time . You might be doing a little testing with any of these things and any kind of change we're making with our nutrition . We flip a switch and it's all done . A lot of this is trial and error .

A lot of this is integrating these habits into our life and doing them as much as we can to make it so that they become a part of our life . You probably are going to need help determining when eating works for you and when you need certain kinds of energy versus when you need certain kinds of satiation things like that .

Looking at your schedule , you might need help strategizing around your family's needs versus your needs . Are they the same ? How can you figure them all in ? How can you learn ?

You're going to need help learning how to tune into your hunger and fullness cues because , if you're like most people , you have worked hard to tune them out , whether it be because you've been doing a lot of fad diets , or maybe those fad diets have burned you out and now you don't eat with your body .

You eat with entirely emotional decisions , and emotional eating is not a bad thing . I want to mention that . It's simply a kind of eating we choose , but if it's the only reason that we eat , we want to take a look at that .

You're going to want to learn more about your hunger and fullness cues and how to tune into them and how to fine tune them so they can work to help you reach your goals . You're going to need help unlearning all the crappy stuff you've learned about food .

My daughter came home from school the other day and she was told that she should eat her peanut butter sandwich first , because her chips are unhealthy . I have worked so hard for the first six years of her life to instill the idea that we don't label foods as healthy or unhealthy . We think about the nutrients in our foods .

What things are going to give us energy . Some foods have a little more . Some foods have a little less . How do we build our meal in a way that we get the things that we need ? Chips , potato chips still have potatoes in them . That's an important note . Of course , I would love it if my daughter didn't eat entirely a diet of simply potato chips .

What I'm instilling at an early age is less of a fear about food , a curiosity about food , some information about the nuance as it relates to food , and then she was told it's healthy versus unhealthy . We got a lot of unlearning to do . I bet you have it too .

I bet we all have blind spots in terms of what we've come to believe and maybe those long-held beliefs are holding us back from finding the ways we can eat to really truly support our fitness goals . Because I'm not saying you can't have physique goals and eat like this . You can change how your body looks and still eat foods you like .

Some of these changes might be hard and some of them might not feel great at first . If you've gone from expecting one thing all the time the example I have is caffeine .

If you want to cut back on caffeine and you're making that as a choice and that feels authentic to who you are and what you want to do because I'm not passing judgment , but let's say you want to cut back on caffeine when you take it out your body is still anticipating when it was there , so it doesn't feel great and that is because it's an addictive

substance . But that's also the same way .

If you are eating a lot of food that's highly palatable , meaning that they put a lot of salt and fat and sugar in to make it taste better If you're trying to cut back on those not eliminate them , but cut back on them your body's going to be craving them a little while you've taken them out and it's not going to feel awesome . I say this .

The other part of this is when somebody says all that stuff they're like eat healthier and move more , when they say that they haven't given you any help as far as implementing it and they haven't prepared you for the actual mental and emotional challenges that are going to be coming with changing your diet , because it's not going to feel good and you're going to

be asking yourself if I cut this out and this doesn't feel good and I'm not seeing any change quick , why don't I just go back to the way I was ? And that's where we need the guidance on shifting these behaviors and we need someone to help us manage those expectations .

And that's why we can't do it all necessarily in one fell swoop and that's why we're not cutting anything out unless it is medically necessary , because there is room for these foods .

We're just probably going to have less of one thing and more of another thing , but we got to be prepared for how we're going to do it , and it's not always going to be fun and some of it is going to feel like a challenge . I talk a lot about reaching your physique goals and not giving up foods you love , and I 100% agree with that .

It just also sometimes means sometimes you're going to be a little hungrier Because your body adjusts if you're trying to be in a deficit . I'm not saying starve yourself , I'm just saying it might be harder .

In that time your body might actually be in need of pulling some back , eating a little less , but it's not going to feel great right away , Just like the taking the caffeine away . And we have to make decisions based on what is important for us and what we need , and so I'm not advocating any particular thing .

I'm just saying that any kind of change we make , we're going to be met with resistance , Because the only way that we're not met with resistance is if we keep doing the same thing , Same thing with exercising . We actually need that resistance , that increase in resistance , to be able to change , and so that is why we feel that way .

You know , if you're a little hungry at night , we have to determine whether or not we're so hungry that we need to eat or that we didn't get enough food in the day , or maybe we just need a little more sleep , something like that .

But all of these are about tools and strategies , and you actually need to be taught the tools and strategies so you can use them on your own . I can sit here and I can teach you all the things about the science , but what you need are the tools and strategies . Now what I will say is I do teach those .

This is how I do nutrition and it's how I'm doing it in my Fit Fuel five day free nutrition challenge . Now this episode is coming out on March 14th . The challenge starts on March 18th . The challenge registration closes on Sunday , March 17th , at 8pm Eastern time . So if you're listening to this before then , you can go and register .

It's at bfosterstrongcom slash fit fuel totally free , or you can use the link in the show notes . This is what I'm teaching . I'm teaching the skills . I'm teaching the skills because you need to know how to do it with on your own and that kind of autonomy and that ability to make those decisions is what's going to give you your life back .

You're going to be able to eat for your goals , but also not be spending your entire time thinking about what you're going to eat all the time , because you're going to know how to make those decisions .

I'm not handing you a meal plan because that doesn't help you develop the autonomy to make these decisions , the confidence to go somewhere and make decisions that work for you .

I have the confidence to go on vacation and make decisions that both help me reach my goals or and or prioritize the rest from my goals or the foods I'm not going to get to have , or any of that . I have the skills to focus on my nutrition at some points , because I know that I need to dial in a few things to get where I want to go for this goal .

I know that there are times where I'm going to let up and not focus on it as much . I have the skills to oscillate between prioritizing certain things and letting the chips fall where they may . Food doesn't cause me stress because I have these skills . The decisions are sometimes hard . It's still hard to decide what you're in the mood for sometimes .

That I can't take away from you . Sometimes you don't know what you're in the mood for and you have that argument about where you're going to eat again .

But what to eat and how to eat to fuel your workouts and to fuel your active life and to be in your strongest body , to build your strongest body , to change your physique and then also to enjoy life and get pleasure out of food . I can help you with that . My free five-day challenge fit fuel .

Just like I said , you can register in the link Five days of these 10-minute or less coaching sessions . Most of them are closer to five minutes and they are going to help you with these skills . There are chances , if you complete all of them , to win a $200 Lululemon gift card .

On top of all this , I'm doing a free class for everybody in there , A one-hour live masterclass on macros that will help you with some of this information , as well as the implementation . As you know , I'm going to take the info and I'm going to help you apply it . We're going to do all of that in this challenge .

It's going to transform the way that you think about food , your own nutrition choices , and help you actually see real results . I'm so excited about it . I hope you're listening to this before it starts , Okay , Because I need you in there , All right ? Other than that , I'm going to go live life .

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