The “diet du jour” that clients cycle through don’t work for me. This did. How to lose weight and keep it off as a Personal Chef.
ERMAGERD are you dying from having the kids home for a couple weeks? I tell you once we get out of that school routine of up and out and home and chores and dinner and bed….none of us want to get back into it. It felt a lot longer than two weeks that’s for sure!
Today I’m talking about weight loss and food, whether it’s something you’re interested in or you have a client request trying to do it.
A million years ago I worked at 24-Hour Fitness which was a hoot because let’s just say exercise is not my jam. But I learned a lot of really interesting things there about nutrition, exercise, weight loss, fat, and muscle.
One of the biggest things I learned is that your weight, whether you want to lose fat or gain muscle, is 80% nutrition.
Think about that. 80 percent. That’s not even half exercise and half nutrition, that’s almost all of your weight comes down to what you eat.
You’ve probably heard that muscle weighs more than fat, and other things like that. That can be hard for women because we can get very attached to the number on the scale. But at the gym I saw women who didn’t weigh very much, and who did cardio all the time, but didn’t look as good as they wanted to. Do you know why? They were skinny fat. They had low weight but what they had wasn’t in good shape.
As far as nutrition, I’ve had clients do every diet on the planet. Atkins, South Beach, Mediterranean, Paleo, Keto, vegetarian, and a bunch of crazy things that don’t have names.
As a matter of fact, there’s nothing I hate more than getting a call from someone whose doctor has told them to lose weight and call me to make their food. Do you know why?
They go from eating McDonald’s three times a day or whatever the hell they’re doing to eating some crazy restrictive diet and they hate it. It doesn’t matter how good the food is, your palate changes over time and when you’re used to eating crap, then healthy food tastes bad. When you’re used to eating healthy food, processed foods taste like crap.
So these clients try a service or two and then quit. It drives me crazy.
Have you done any specific dieting? Which one and what did you love or hate about it? Put it in the comments for me.
Another ‘diet’, although it’s not really a diet, that I cook for clients is Weight Watchers. It’s more of a ‘you can eat whatever you want, but stay under this goal, not calories but a weird amalgam of calories/carbs/protein into a proprietary number’ kinds of deal. It was ‘points’, then ‘smart points’, then ‘points plus’, I think it’s like ‘super intelligent point marks’ or something now.
Anyway, their whole deal is to guide you toward more healthy choices and physical activity but at the end of the day, you can do it however you want.
So on one end you can eat all lean protein, whole grains, fruits, and vegetables, etc and stay at your point level and at the other, you could eat your daily points worth in Snickers bars. And in theory, you’d be getting about the same calories etc so your weight loss should be the same, right?
But in reality, the body is an amazing thing and it responds to the healthy food and drops weight like a ride at Six Flags, whereas even if you’re staying within your points with unhealthy foods, it’s a lot longer process to lose weight.
I really prefer this approach of learning how to eat well as it guides you to a more longer lasting lifestyle change in thinking about food and what you choose to eat etc. Especially when I have to be tasting client food all the time, and when I just love food in general!
As a matter of fact, I lost a bunch of weight last year; over 25 pounds. Even as a Personal Chef loving food and cooking all the time.
So if you’re interested in hearing about that, you can go to this link and listen to the podcast episode I was a guest on with Fit Armadillo about how to lose weight and keep it off as a Personal Chef.
The Fit Fifteen Podcast Episode 104
And here are a couple of my fav ‘eating later’ when coming off the holidays recipes:
The Most Interesting Smoothie in the World
Want to see what it’s like to cook like a Personal Chef? Click here to get my free guide How to Cook Like a Personal Chef.
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