Diet Tips from a Personal Trainer

As summer approaches and bathing suit season looms large, inquiring minds what to know: what are some great diet tips from a personal trainer?

The best diet tip: nutrition is really a conversation about how you can harness the power of your own biochemistry given your immediate goals.  If your goal is sport performance, your nutrition strategy will be wildly different than it will be if your goal is fat loss, weight loss, healing from chemotherapy, healing from illness or injury, or something else…you get the idea. Each individual and his or her goal determines what diet is best. I know this is totally NOT the answer anyone wants to hear, right?  We all would love to know “the diet tip from a personal trainer” that will allow us to look great, feel great, perform better, have a great microbiome, have thick shiny hair and smooth skin, etc. As a personal trainer and coach, I can tell you first hand that “the diet” that works for everyone in every situation is the diet that you will stick to and that you choose with your coach.   

That said, here are my diet and nutritional tips that happen to be universal:

1. Know your goals and your WHY! Intention matters and your psyche knows it—you will give up on something that you are not doing for the right reasons.
2. Sleep 8-10 hours every night, uninterrupted, in a dark, cool room. (yep, sleep is KING)
3. If your poop is not perfect, your nutrition probably isn’t either.
4. Always avoid food that you could not kill, yank from a tree/bush or rip from the earth. NO PACKAGED FOOD! NO FAST FOOD!
5. Avoid sugar. That does not mean avoid fruit—it means sugar. You all know what sugar is; stop eating it.
6. Avoid inflammatory foods: wheat, corn, and dairy to name the top three.
7. Eat at least 5 colors of fruits and veggies every day.  Radishes, beets, peppers, blueberries, mango, sweet potato, broccoli, lettuce, kale, celery, carrot, cucumber, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, avocado, blackberries, fennel…get the picture?
8. Eat anti-inflammatory foods: turmeric root, ginger root, and lemon.
9. Cook your own food. Period.
10. Check in with yourself everyday—HOW do you feel? If its not great and full of energy, adjust.
11. Avoid caffeine after 11 AM.  The half life of 1 cup of coffee (approximately 200mg caffeine) is 12 hours—that means that 12 hours after your last cup of coffee, 100mg caffeine is still bathing your brain.  Not a recipe for good sleep or for healthy hormone function.
12. The best diet tip from a personal trainer is this one: hire a coach.  Create accountability with a trusted advisor who is knowledgeable and kind.

We all need help finding our way sometimes.