My approach to nutrition has a few different sides to it. The first is education, as knowing a bit more about nutrition can really help each individual person work out what is best to put in their bodies. The next part of my approach is habits – if you restrict and cut things out, then it’s a diet. Food shouldn’t make you miserable; it’s connected to our emotions and should be satisfying and enjoyable. Changing the systems around you and incorporating simple habits into your lifestyle paves the way for long-lasting sustainable change.
I think that good nutrition for the vast majority of people should be simple to achieve. It’s based on whole foods in the right proportions. There are a lot of fads, and popularity around things such as supplements and nutrient timing, but they just aren’t particularly relevant to the vast majority of the population. Demonising certain foods, punishing yourself for eating, earning food, categorising food as ‘good’, ‘bad’, ‘clean’ or ‘cheat’ are also not the healthiest approaches in my opinion.
Unlike a lot of people in my profession, I’m also not a massive advocate for counting calories. YES, you need to be in a calorie deficit to lose weight - there is absolutely no denying that. But using tracking calories as a method comes with a large amount of flaws that make it not necessarily a good long-term solution to managing weight. That is not to say they are completely useless. Indeed, counting calories can be very effective short term in weight loss, and longer term, a basic understanding of calories is a good tool to have in your nutrition education belt.
I love that there is so much to learn about nutrition, and being a scientist, I can quite happily geek out researching something relevant to my individual clients or that has just piqued my interest (check out some of my previous posts to see more). I LOVE coaching nutrition and empowering my clients to make positive change in their lives. If you’d like to learn more about how I do it, let me know!