Latest / Cameron's Conversations: The last weight loss podcast you'll ever need. / Episode 52: How to structure your food for weight loss
Transcript
- Cameron Cummings: Welcome to today's episode of the Cameron's Conversations podcast. And in today's episode, I want to talk all about structuring out your day to win with nutrition. So when it comes to weight loss, something that goes a bit wrong for a lot of people is there is absolutely no bloody structure at all with the nutrition. And that's a huge problem. Now, there's a few things I've touched on before that I'm a big advocate of, things like tracking your calories ahead for the day. I cannot stress how much easier this makes it. Like I've got a really, really busy day today. I'm doing lots of filming, ironically, with a face for podcasting. But anyway, I've been doing lots and lots of filming and then I've got a full afternoon of setting up client training plans and lots of messages to reply to and just lots and lots to do, right? It's a jam packed day. The last thing I want to do is have to make 101 decisions around the nutrition side of it. I do not want to be having to figure out what I'm having for lunch, realise there's nothing in the cupboard and then have to make that choice of do a faff about in the middle of the day, go and get something that's probably not ideal anyway, because I have the time to cook it by the time I get back, or I do the cupboard rummage and end up eating, I don't know, bloody dry pasta and I don't know, an oxal cube, right? That's probably not the best source of protein. The point is is that when you don't have things planned out, you tend to make worse choices. It is amazing how our adult human brains can literally say to us that you get to half one in the afternoon, you've not got much for lunch and you're starving, you're not sure what to have, that suddenly a whole packet of biscuits would be a bloody brilliant idea. What an excellent idea for a lunch, right? But that's what happens when we are decision fatigued, we're tired, we've left it too long to eat because you didn't know what you wanted to eat in the first place, it just becomes a bit of a shambles. So one of the things I think to start with is plan ahead for goodness sakes, like. I cannot stress how much of an issue that is and it's something that comes up and sometimes it takes a little while to click. Someone will say to me like, oh yeah, it just didn't go quite to plan on Friday and that then the same thing happens the following week and it's like, hey, that's a trend. Like, why is it not? Well, actually I just didn't have anything left in the fridge. I didn't have this, didn't have that. And it's like, okay, can we see the issue there? The issue isn't willpower per se because you could say, oh, you could just have a more willpower and eat what, right? There's very little to eat there. So you're going to have, it's a difficult decision to make. Whereas if you have something sensible there, well hey, it's not such difficult decision to make. So I would stress that element of it massively, that organisation matters. And something that is a more broad thought about nutrition. If you keep making the same mistakes over and over, it might not be a willpower issue, it might be a structure issue. I see this all the time, when people say, oh really struggle with evening snacking. First week of one-to-one coaching, I look at a food diary, and I say, yes you do, and I can see why. because I would be, because I'd be chewing my arm off and then I'd chew my other arm off and then I'd chew the table. Because you've got a dinner that's not filling at all, you've had no fruit throughout the day, you've had no veggies, your meals just aren't that filling, you're just hungry. There's not like a magical complex solution that's often needed there. It's just like, okay, let's just make you fuller. Like, let's have a play about with this. Rather than you feel like you have more willpower and then a week later they'll say, oh yeah, actually, yeah, I'm managing that much better. And sometimes people say to me like, oh, I feel like I've just got more willpower and I'm like, have a reflection on that. Maybe you do, and maybe because you feel more organised, you're more motivated, and because you're making progress better, but maybe you are. But do you, or are you actually just better structured? So something to think about. So that's the first part. The second part is something that I, and this is by no means a you must do this, or that all my clients do this. I would say only about a third of my clients do this, but it can be useful. Is pushing breakfast back a little bit later, I find to be super helpful. The reason that actually popped into my head, because that's what I'm doing right now, is I'm trying to have breakfast about 10 or 11 because I know full well, because I'm on 1800 calories, which for me is relatively, like relatively low, relatively low, low is what I'm trying to say, can't speak. The day drinking's caught up with me. It's relatively low that for me, having my meals closer together helps because I get up super early, if I have breakfast at five, I'm hungry again at half eight, I'm hungry at 11, I'm hungry at one, I'm hungry, it just doesn't work. Whereas I find that having a bit of caffeine and. and like lots of water and a bit movement in the morning, I can push my breakfast back a good chunk, right? I can push my breakfast back a good chunk. That makes a massive, massive, massive difference. So something that can be really, really helpful is by nudging it back a little, it can just go such a long way in terms of managing things and helping you to have your meals more closely together. And actually you'll find that your hunger is more manageable a lot of the time in the morning because you're quite busy, you're quite distracted. Whereas when you're sat there in the evening, if you're starving and the cupboards are crying out to you, it can be harder. So for a lot of people, moving their meals back an hour can be hugely impactful. The second thing as well that I find tremendously helpful is the sort of element of there's not that much time between meals because I may be going like, you know, if I eat at 10 or 11, let's say 10, then I'm having lunch at two and then I have dinner at six. That works really well. I have six a lot of the time from here, 6.45 roughly. like it's not too big a gap. So that's another thing that can be quite useful. And the third is, is to make sure that your priority in this weight loss phase and actually in maintenance and even in a muscle gain phase to some extent as well, is fullness. Like so many people base their nutrition around what they fancy that day. And I'm sorry, but that won't work. Like it won't. And actually it sounds like a bit of a hard line to take, but it's quite an important one. I think people do this way too bloody often where they just eat based on what they want. all the time. I'm sorry you can't do that every single meal and every single snack. It will not work, right? It just will not work. If you do that, you end up in this really tricky place of always feeling like the diet's really hard, you feel hard done by it, it's always a struggle, it's always a battle. And it's like, yeah, because you're picking things that don't fill you up. Like, it won't work. If you kind of got five, 600 calories for dinner, and then you decide to have three biscuits, and then that reduces it to 300 calories, well, yeah, you're gonna be hungry after dinner and you're gonna have to fight that. hunger all into the evening until you go to bed, and then it might disrupt your sleep, all because you chose to have a couple of biscuits. So I think it can be quite important to just be pragmatic about your choices as well. Like you have to take a little bit of responsibility for that as well and be like, okay, like, yeah, I can have a pizza night on Friday, I'll plan that in. Yeah, I can have this on this day and I'll plan that in. But if you eat very hedonically, you just kind of, as in what you want and for the pleasure of eating. like throughout the day, like don't be surprised if you get to dinner and you're looking at like lettuce and you've got no calories. Like we've all done it. I've eaten overeating calories early in the day and being like, okay, this isn't going to work. Like this is really tricky now. What do I do? And you end up having to go over your calories just to manage your hunger. So try to avoid putting yourself in those situations by being more organised and deliberate in the first place. So those are some thoughts around structuring your nutrition that might be and hopefully are helpful in this very, quick episode that I wanted to do about structuring things out. If you do, have any struggles or challenges right now with weight loss, fat loss, getting into the kind of shape that you would like to be in, then the link in the show notes is for the one-to-one call. So you can book that, have a little bit of a chat with me. I do have a waiting list at the moment, so just to be clear, there's not gonna be any pressure from my end at all. We're obviously gonna have a casual chat, have an understanding of what you're struggling with. Worst case scenario, you come off that call knowing a little bit more about what you need to do and having a bit of clear direction. Best case scenario, you end up jumping into coaching and we absolutely smash it there. And you'll do pretty well with it, because my one-to-one clients I'm bloody smash it. So I'm sure you'll see on my Instagram and YouTube and all the other bits and bobs as well. Now, if you are struggling a little bit and you just want something simple to kind of get you nudged in the right direction, then there's also a link in the show notes for a free fat loss guide talking about how to structure out your nutrition for weight loss too and nail things down. Otherwise, have a great day and speak soon.