Snacks #027: The 3 things you need to be doing BEFORE you start a diet phase

Most people dive straight into a diet, of restricting their calories & food intake, without setting themselves up for success first.

This is like pouring petrol on a flame, as it compounds bad habits of restricting, bingeing, poor food quality and poor patterns - with the idea that the 'diet' will fix everything.

BEFORE you make the same mistake, do these 3 things first to set yourself up for an easy diet phase where the only thing you have to change, is the amount of calories you're eating. 

1: Follow consistent meal times

Eating at a similar time for each meal will help you regulate your hunger hormones, become more in tune with your appetite, prime your digestion, and create a consistent intake of nutrients.

This sets you up to become comfortable with a little bit of hunger (without becoming ravenous), and to eat more earlier in the day to prevent late afternoon sugar cravings and nighttime bingeing. 

In a deficit phase, you’ll be planning your meals in advance, experiencing some small level of hunger before meals and managing cravings - so getting used to eating at the same time daily will help with all of this, 

I recommend:

Choosing meal times and allowing about 30-45m leeway each way so that you have a range, eg: 
Breakfast at 8am ( = eating between 7.30-8.30am)
Dinner at 7pm (= eating between 6.15-7.45pm)
Lunch at 1.30pm - halfway between BF & D (= eating between 12.45-2.15)

• Set an alarm (silently if you work in an office ) on your phone to remind you at the start of the time range
• Plan ahead, have backup options for lunch & dinner (microwave meals and pre-made rice/tuna meals come in very handy here)
• Use a habit tracker app to tick off the days you manage to do this for most meals to reinforce the good habits!

2: Incorporate high-fibre, lower-calorie foods as a bare minimum in your day

Fibre is a dieter's best friend during a deficit phase, as it helps to increase feelings of fullness, improve digestion, and independently* improve fat loss results. (*independently means that increased fibre intake has an effect above and beyond the level of calorie restriction you are in)

The best foods for this?

Veggies, fruit and legumes!

This is a straightforward one for you: I want you to aim to eat 2 serves of fruit, and 5 serves of veg each day.

1 serve of fruit = 150g (1 serve = 1 medium piece such as apple, banana, or orange, OR 2 small pieces such as mandarins or kiwi fruits, or 1 cup of berries, grapes or chopped fruit).

1 serve of vegetables = 1/2 cup of cooked or chopped vegetables (carrot, broccoli, beans, snow peas, zucchini, cucumber, tomato, celery) OR 1 cup of leafy greens (spinach, rocket, lettuce).

Legumes: bonus, these are high in protein too. Easy wasy to incorporate these is by adding them to any dishes you make with mince eg spaghetti bolognese or taco meat for mexi bowls, and adding them to cooked vegetables, salads and soups. 

3: Eat at maintenance calories & get used to following a plan.  

You need to learn to follow a plan while your hunger and energy are at comfortable levels. You also need to work out exactly WHAT your maintenance calories are, or you won't know how many calories to diet at.

Head to https://tdeecalculator.net/ and key in your details to see what your average daily calorie intake should be.

Plan a few full days of eating (breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks) around the calories you've been given and then trial following this plan for a few weeks.

I recommend:

• keeping breakfast, lunch and snacks pretty similar day to day to make tracking and following it easy, and reserving a certain amount of calories for dinner eg 500-800
• Mixing up the dinner meals to keep flavours more interesting and flexible with your social life
• Allocate most of your calories to main meals and don't hoard calories towards snacks or the end of the day- you need energy for the morning and afternoon too!

90% of my fat-loss coaching clients start with a custom maintenance phase, during which we tailor calories to their needs and work on solidifying healthy habits before moving into a deficit.

This sets them up for success, and they lose weight faster over a shorter diet time instead of battling uphill trying to slap a bandaid on poor habits.