Why Fall is the Best Time to Work with a Nutrition Coach
As kids go back to school and we settle back into routine after busy summer schedules, this is an optimal time to turn inward and consider your personal goals and how your routine supports them. Seasonally, in spring and summer, we tend to engage more in community and busy social calendars filled with vacations, weddings, and late-night ice cream dates. Fall and winter, on the other hand, bring a much-needed shift inward to focus on our personal lives and immediate family. Yes, there are holidays and social events that come up throughout this season, but this can support our overall nourishment and well-being, if we allow it, rather than turning into a cascade of excuses.
Consistency is Key
A more consistent schedule this fall is your opportunity to build habits from the start of this season. When you have the right habits in place, you don’t have to spend much time thinking about your nutrition. Making good choices at the start of each week sets you up for success and takes any stress of cooking or lack of time off of your plate during this week.
Tips for a Successful Week
Meal prep for the week
Eat meals and snacks at similar times each day
Keep meals simple
Find your staple foods and keep your pantry stocked
Navigating Holidays
Holidays are a time to nourish ourselves in a variety of ways. It’s a time to connect with family and friends, honor traditions, and build new ones. It’s possible to enjoy the holiday and step away from tracking your food without throwing all of your goals out the window. One day away from tracking is not going to make or break your progress it can be a helpful support to implement lifestyle balance and focus on the basics.
Tips to Navigate the Holidays
Take the day away from logging your food
Prioritize protein and enjoy dishes that you only get once a year
Socialize outside of the kitchen
Keep protein leftovers and send home desserts with others
Embrace holiday traditions outside of food
Commit to tracking the day before and the day after a holiday
Building Confidence
Taking a day off and then returning to your process is an excellent way to build confidence and integrity in yourself. Your ability to find balance in the process and navigate obstacles through the journey now puts your “everyday habits” into practice and builds a lifestyle worth sustaining. The goal is not to be perfect with food all of the time. The goal is to make better choices throughout the process and live in alignment with your health and wellness goals. Tracking food intake is a temporary tool that helps understand what you currently eat and how you can optimize your food intake to meet your goals. This knowledge allows you to build balanced meals moving forward without always weighing and measuring your food. This approach is meant to provide knowledge and confidence, and finally ditch the “all in or all out mentality.”
Give Yourself a Head Start
While everyone else is waiting to start another diet cycle on January 1, you’ll be well on your way to long-term changes with the habits you’ve built throughout this season. You will have made noticeable progress toward your goals, gained the confidence to navigate obstacles and holidays, and built a lifestyle that you can maintain year-round. This is not another diet cycle. Working with a coach is about finding an individualized process that meets your lifestyle needs in pursuit of your goals. Start now. You deserve to feel good in your body and end the restriction/binge cycle.
