When I first embarked on my weight loss and health journey in college, I tried a lot of different things and quickly realized they weren\u2019t the right fit for me. I\u2019ll never forget drinking a WARM Slim Fast shake after finishing a philanthropy event for school. I went to my car afterwards, where my sad and warm Slim Fast was waiting for me. As I drank it, slightly gagging the entire time, I vowed that I would find a strategy with the freedom to eat real food and things I actually enjoyed.<\/strong><\/p>\n While I could easily write a book on all of the ways different diets burned me and messed up my relationship with food, I choose to focus on the positive and the lessons I took away from trying so many things. One bonus: when I work with clients, there\u2019s a good chance that I\u2019ve also tried many of the strategies and quick-fix mentalities they\u2019ve been through. It helps me relate to their experience and struggles, but also helps me design a sustainable and custom plan for them.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a little recap of some of the things I\u2019ve learned and some of the stepping stones to where I am right now (still learning and evolving over time!):<\/p>\n This is when I actually learned how to balance my plate. Before I tried South Beach, I ate a lot of carbs and fats, but didn\u2019t pay attention to the quality of the food I was eating, and didn\u2019t emphasis proteins or produce. This is when I really learned how to balance a plate, and that each meal should ideally contain a protein, a healthy fat, a smart carb choice, and some type of veggie or fruit. While I don\u2019t *love* all of the things about South Beach (especially the fact that I ate SO much Splenda, for years), I do think that it transformed the way I eat, and it also helped me when I lost around 40 lbs in college.<\/p>\n Originally I was like, \u201cWhy eat like a caveman when we have a Starbucks on every street corner?\u201d It was perplexing to me at the time, because our lifestyle now is so different than our ancestors. At the same time, some aspects of Paleo make sense. You eat food that comes from an animal or the earth in some capacity (minus dairy, grains, and legumes), and that\u2019s pretty much it. While I\u2019ve definitely used Paleo strategies to simplify my eating style, I knew I couldn\u2019t be full Paleo because I like rice and legumes a little too much. I also feel like Paleo eating styles can encourage a high intake of fats (they\u2019re healthy fats, but I like everything in moderation) and didn\u2019t like the idea of eliminating entire food groups.<\/p>\n This is when I started to read food labels and pay attention to the ingredients in my food. I was an on-and-off vegetarian for years – I stopped eating red meat when I was 8 years old and didn\u2019t start eating it again until my 30s, and still don\u2019t eat pork or lamb – and I\u2019ve learned that my body likes meat. Vegetarian makes me feel good for a while, but in the end, I just start to feel depleted.<\/p>\n When I was vegetarian, I started reading the labels to see if they contained any animal products, and in the process, I was shocked to see what was in our foods. There were SO many multi-syllable ingredients that I couldn\u2019t pronounce. It helped me decide what packaged foods I actually wanted to include in my life, and which ones were worth skipping.<\/p>\n OG blogger friends will remember the raw vegan days! (Also we have to talk about Bad Vegan<\/em>. I have so much to say, especially as someone who went to one of Matthew\u2019s raw vegan culinary schools<\/a> and worked in his restaurant, and had a handful of email interactions with Sarma.) I\u2019m only halfway through the documentary, but feel like they absolutely painted Matthew in a bad light, like he\u2019s some kind of irresponsible playboy. For the record, he\u2019s is an incredibly talented chef and is also a very kind and genuine human. He\u2019s also crushing it, which gives you an idea of how her operates his businesses.<\/p>\n For Sarma – we did a giveaway on the blog together<\/a> and I visited her restaurant a couple of times<\/a> – I just feel like she\u2019s a super generous person who had someone horrible take advantage of her, and I don\u2019t think she\u2019s a bad person. However, I feel badly for those who worked for her who obviously suffered for months. I\u2019m just thankful that\u00a0Netflix <\/em>paid her enough to compensate all of her employees for the missing wages.<\/p>\n Anywayyyy back to raw vegan. This style of eating taught me how to pay attention to micronutrients, how to use various cooking tools and styles, and also how to take love and care into the preparation of food. Raw vegan can be a very labor-intensive style of eating (“ok I want a pizza in 2 days. Might as well make the crust and start dehydrating it today”), so it really taught me appreciation for the process. It\u2019s when I truly fell in love with cooking (through un-cooking). I learned knife skills, how to dehydrate, sprout, ferment, make kombucha, and hack open a Thai coconut LIKE A BOSS.<\/p>\n (I only cut myself once.)<\/p>\n I also started to eat the rainbow. So many of my dishes were bold colors and beautiful flavor profiles. While I eventually implemented more cooked foods (easier to digest) and animal proteins, I still absolutely love raw vegan food.<\/p>\n Macro tracking reminded me of what a portion size look like (1 tablespoon of peanut butter is so dang small), and also helped me to ditch a lot of the all-or-nothing mentality that I\u2019ve experienced. As you guys know, I haven\u2019t always had the best relationship with food<\/strong><\/a>. A lot of it stems from perfectionism, the messages I constantly was reading in magazines and women\u2019s diet books, and the desire to do anything to be \u201chealthy.\u201d It lead to extremes that were difficult to break, but having Liv was a significant turning point in my relationship with nutrition.<\/p>\n I think macro tracking can be an awesome tool because ANY food can fit within your macros. It can be very freeing if you\u2019re the type of person who feels like they can never enjoy dessert or a cocktail because it\u2019s \u201cnot on the plan.\u201d While I absolutely think it can turn eating into a math project – I liked food too much to do this for the long term – it can be a helpful tool in certain scenarios. With my current nutrition clients, we use hand-sized portions (a cupped hand is one serving of carbs, a fist is a serving of non-starchy veggies, a palm is a serving of protein, etc), so that no one has to break out a food scale or calculator. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n So tell me friend: what eating styles have you tried over time? Anything that you\u2019ve learned or that was helpful for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n What\u2019s the WORST diet you\u2019ve tried?<\/strong><\/p>\n For me, it was 100% Weight Watchers. I know they\u2019ve changed their program, but when I tried it, a single Subway sandwich used most of my points for the day. Giant fail.<\/p>\n Thanks so much for stopping by the blog today and I\u2019m looking forward to reading your comments about your experiences.<\/p>\n xo<\/p>\n Gina<\/p>\n The post Things I’ve learned from diets I’ve tried<\/a> appeared first on The Fitnessista<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hi friends! How\u2019s the week going so far? I hope you\u2019re having a great morning. I\u2019m excited for an F45 class and some adventures with the crew \u2013 I\u2019m so happy the kids are off school this week! For today\u2019s post, I wanted to look back at some of the eating styles and diets I\u2019ve\u2026![](\"http:\/\/bestratefinders.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/things-ive-learned-from-diets-ive-tried-683x1024-1.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThings I’ve learned from diets I’ve tried<\/h2>\n
South Beach<\/h3>\n
![](\"http:\/\/bestratefinders.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/medterranean-egg-bites-1024x683-1.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nPaleo<\/h3>\n
Vegetarian<\/h3>\n
Raw vegan<\/h3>\n
![](\"http:\/\/bestratefinders.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/thai-coconut-1-of-1-2.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/bestratefinders.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/sakarasalad-768x1024-1.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nMacro tracking<\/h3>\n
\nThe post Things I\u2019ve learned from diets I\u2019ve tried appeared first on The Fitnessista.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2467,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":""},"categories":[20,1,21,22,19],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestratefinders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2465"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestratefinders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestratefinders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestratefinders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestratefinders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2465"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/bestratefinders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2472,"href":"https:\/\/bestratefinders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2465\/revisions\/2472"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestratefinders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestratefinders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestratefinders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestratefinders.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}