2015 diet tip: Accept and re-create your environment

                                              Accept and re-create your environment

Healthy living is extremely important when it comes to supporting your training/exercise, nutrition and health goals. Everyday, you put yourself into several different types of environments like commuting, traveling, work place, social/volunteer activities, training/working out and most of all, your home so it is obvious that if you want to change something in your life, you need environments that have structure but also accessibility to things that move you closer (not further away) to your goals.

We live in a world where many people blame outside forces (their environment) as the main reason why it's difficult to maintain new lifestyle habits. Oddly, most people have the motivation and drive, at first to create new habits, but it's very easy to let "easy, comfortable, familiar or the norm" bring a person back to square one when it comes to developing and keeping those healthier living habits. 

If your work was within walking distance from your home AND you had a safe walking or biking path for commuting, would you choose feet/legs over car?

If your work allowed you 1 hour of paid workout time per day, would you find yourself working out more?

If you could hire a chef to prepare you and your family a healthy, balanced and delicious dinner built from locally sourced foods, every evening, would you find it easier to eat healthier?

If you could have someone clean your house, fold your laundry, pack your lunch (and the kids), pay the bills, shop for food and clean the dishes every day, would you go to bed earlier and sleep better? 

Just image what life would be like if you could walk/bike to work, workout while you are at work, not worry about what's for dinner at night and have someone take care of all the things that often keep you up late at night.....it would be amazing, right?

Not only would you feel better, but this type of lifestyle presents environments that would be conducive for healthier living. 

Some people already take some of these steps, some consider them impossible to do or to pay for and some people consider them a necessity. So what about you?

Can you live a life like this?

Is this the environment you want but just can't have?

Does this mean you are doomed forever because you will always say you never have enough time, enough money, enough energy, enough motivation to create and maintain healthy habits to reach your goals?

Absolutely not!

If the closest natural food store is close to an hour away, it's going to be very difficult to create an eating environment that includes the foods that are listed on some diet plan. 

If tomorrow happens to be a 10 hour work day, plus 2 hours of commuting, whereas the time for that 90-minute workout on your training plan plus that meal that requires 60 minutes of food prep and cooking?

One of the biggest mistakes you can make in your own personal journey is not accepting the environment that you live in. You can't live with the mindset that your situation needs to be perfect for you to start something or that you wish you had it easier. You must accept what you are given and focus on what you can do with what you have right now. 

Once you make peace with the fact that this is your life, find ways to set yourself up for success.

You have to re-create the environment that you live in so that it is conducive to your health, fitness and body composition goals. 

 Life will change a lot in the next 12 months so understand that some days will present as "easier" days to get things done. But don't throw all your hard work out the window when your environment doesn't feel conducive to change. 

Create an environment that works for you.

No more should you go through life hoping to be better tomorrow.

Create a positive environment no matter where you are at, who you are with or how busy life may be. 

It's your life. 

Accept it and make the most of it. 

Re-create your environment tips

1) Lay out your workout clothes the night before.

2) Have a go-to bag for the gym that is always filled with make-up, shelf-stable bar/recovery drink, underwear, etc so even in a hurry, you won't forget something. 

3) Prepare leftovers at dinner and spend 10-minutes preparing breakfast or lunch for the next day. 

4) Have lots of tupperware containers for storing leftovers. And a few go-to cook books/blogs/websites for cooking inspiration.

5) Keep healthy snacks at your work place for healthy eating. Have go-to places for eating out when traveling or work events so you are prepared. 

6) Prep your dinner in advance for easy cooking and shop every 3-4 days for groceries so you can maintain a varied diet. 

7) Invest in cooking products (ex. crockpot, panini press, waffle maker, variety of pots/pans, blender, etc.) that will help you with the cooking process. 

8) Walk as much as possible throughout your day, especially when you just can't squeeze in a workout. A 10-minute workout still counts as a workout. 

9) Plan ahead in every situation. Write out your day before it happens and then think of your plan A, B or C for situations that often make you feel "off". 

10) Stay on top of things. Do a little of something every day so you don't feel as if you are behind on one thing in your life. This can be for any area in your life from cleaning, organizing, bills, calling/writing your close friends, writing thank you cards or laundry or simply making an effort to eat healthy and workout.

Bonus tip: You need a positive workout environment. If you don't have a treadmill, elliptical, weights, stationary/spin bike/trainer at home, then your options are to workout outside or get a gym membership. Make your investments wisely - if a gym membership is not practical due to location/hours/limited use of equipment or fees, then consider creating your own workout environment at home.

Mashed cauliflower and green pea lentils

Last night, my mom, Karel and I yummed over this meal not only during the meal, but after. It hit the spot. For a meal that tasted so yummy and looked so colorful, there was not a lot of work needed for this meal. 

Green pea lentils - cook according to package and season with herbs/spices of your liking or just a pinch of salt and pepper
Mashed cauliflower - steam cut/cleaned cauliflower in large pot until soft. Drain water and mash with fork or potato masher. Season with caraway seeds, a pinch of salt and pepper and garlic to your liking.
Avocado and pear salad - Romaine lettuce (chopped), chopped pear, diced avocado, sunflower seeds and artichokesHard boiled egg or other protein

As we enter the holiday season and new year, new habits may be born but more so, old habits will be hard to break. It's likely that you have found yourself at a dietary breaking point once or twice in the year in terms of "enough is enough, this has got to end."

So what is it that you want to change?Regardless if you feel you need a change in your eating routine or not, it's likely that you are comfortable in your ways and have gotten accustomed to eating certain foods at certain times and in certain situations. Changing dietary habits is hard. It takes time. This is not comforting for someone who wants quick changes or quick results. Recognize that it is extremely important to slowly adapt new habits over time. Quick fixes rarely last. 

Unlike starting a new exercise routine where you typically feel your efforts before you see the results of them, changing dietary habits does not always come with immediate results that you feel and see. Typically it can take a few days or a month to know that your consistent changes are actually paying off and this is hard for the individual who is changing habits but after 48 hours gives up because results are not being noticed. 

The most popular reasons I come across, in terms of wanting to change dietary  habits, are:
Performance goals
Body composition/weight goals
Health goals

These are great areas to focus on because they all correlate together. We can assume that if an athlete eats a more nutrient dense diet, his/her health will improve but also performance. Furthermore, an athlete may also experience a change in body composition by nourishing the body with appropriate foods, timed correctly. Additionally, if an athlete begins to time nutrition properly before, during and after workouts to improve performance, there may be less cravings/overeating later in the day which may pave the way to a more nutrient dense diet to improve health and support the immune system and ultimately, metabolism is not negatively affected and body composition goals are gradually achieved. 

So when you are considering a change in your eating routine, perhaps for one of the reasons mentioned above, consider the following:

1) What needs to be fixed

2) Why haven't you been able to fix this over the past 6-12 months
3) How will you fix this

Perhaps there is more than one change that is needed in your lifestyle to reach your health, performance or body composition goals but by breaking down things into smaller, meaningful and more realistic parts, it is much easier to identify where you would like to put your energy instead of trying to be perfect all day ever day or change a lot of things at once (especially changing some things that do not need to be changed). 

I have worked with a number of athletes on dietary changes specific to performance, health and body composition. Although my primary focus is making sure athletes fuel properly before, during and after workouts to support training stress, the daily diet is never overlooked. 

Here are a few issues that tend to come up when athletes are seeking dietary changes: 

Body composition/Weight goal concerns:

Hungry all the time
No time to cook/meal prep
Don't like to cook/meal prep
A lot of traveling/eating out
Inconsistent living routine
Always on the go
Always in meetings
Not hungry all day until dinner/evening
Excessive calorie intake in the evening
Overindulging
Lots of sugary cravings
Guilty eating
Unhealthy relationship with food
Unhealthy relationship with the body
Disordered eating habits

Performance goals:
GI upset before/during workouts
Inconsistent energy levels during workouts
Dizziness/fatigue/lightheaded during/after workouts
Poor recovery after workouts
Can't execute properly on race day
Lack of education on nutrient timing/sport nutritionHigh volume training with weight gainUnintentional weight loss
Wanting to gain the competitive edge
Wanting to build lean muscle mass/gain strength and power
Body composition changes


Health goals:GI distress before/during/after workouts
Digestion issues around meals and before races
Dietary intolerances
Past history of dieting
Restrictive diet (for religious, moral, ethical, health reasons)
Reduce risk of disease/illnessHormonal issues (including menstruation issues for athletic women)Significant weight loss for health reasons
Creating a healthier relationship with food