There's another challenge weighing on me this weekend. As I progress through changing my own eating habits, I've got to figure out what I tell my clients.
I mean it's tough when I've got someone telling me they want to drink whole milk and I'm caught between trainer persona and year in persona. For someone trying to lose weight and understand better eating habits, liquid calories are generally a no-no. There's good reason behind this logic. People who have not successfully lost weight yet have very poor understanding of calories, portion size, and the signals the body sends out.
Taking a person who's used to eating every meal out of a bag or a box and trying to drop them into better eating habits is tough. I can't fathom trying to shift them into something like this. Especially when I'm struggling with some of the concepts.
So I end up in a constant mental battle. I'm telling them to eat low cal this, fat free that, and watch the fats etc. At the same time I've got to make sure to keep injecting current research (no eggs really aren't that bad for you, honest, but right now use egg substitute). I do this because it makes keeping track of portion sizes and calorie levels FAR easier. Now some will argue I need to teach people how to eat intuitively. I won't dispute that. But from past experience, if people have never eaten correctly at all they struggle to eat if I don't provide some structure.
Once you start down this path, you can't just go an unlearn things. You've got to figure out how to make them work. There's not an option. Ignoring what you've learned is willful ignorance. For me that is a sin of the highest order. You don't get to ignore things that are inconvenient. That's how you get into crushing debt, fat, and totally out of control.
That doesn't make it easier when I'm trying not to tell a client to stop drinking almond milk because it's got a pile of extra junk in it that's bad for you. I can't lecture someone about eating cottage cheese with several uncool ingredients in it. I've got to work big picture first. In this case, big picture is cleaning up what they are currently doing. It's not turning the world into a bunch of little Clara clones.
Though I do complain that I need to be triplets…
So again, no answers, more questions, and nowhere to go but forward.
Note to any of my clients reading this- you monkey with the nicely designed meal plans I've given you and I'm gonna have you doing wind sprints until you puke. 😉
Clara Showalter 