Let me tell you a short story about a client of mine who feared eating carbohydrates; mostly bread and "junk food"
I got a call one day from a very special client of mine who wanted to lose weight. We were on the phone for a good 20 minutes going over her goals and how I can hopefully help her achieve them.
Immediately I knew just by talking to her that she had a bad relationship with food because she kept calling carbohydrates bad, toxic, unhealthy and very fattening. Right away, I knew I had to get her as a client to not only help her lose weight but to over come her fear of food.
I laid it out straight with her on the phone that she clearly had a bad relationship with food and I would love to help her. The best thing about this situation was that she was happy to be open minded and learn from me. A lot of people love to stick to their biases, which is fine, but if it's damaging your health it's not. And that's what the case was with my client, in fact, it was damaging her mental health too.
We scheduled a video consultation for the next day to meet each other and go through her goals, habits and lifestyle. This is where I was able to educate her on why she shouldn't fear foods and what we can do to work on that.
Her fear of foods came from following the wrong people on social media, the type of people who demonize carbohydrates and "junk food" as the enemy; it's disgusting.
I told her - "Unless you consume more calories in a day than you burn, you will not automatically store carbohydrates or "junk food" as fat. It all boils down to the amount that you consume vs the amount that you expend that will determine your overall body weight. It's your overall diet as a whole that will also determine your health outcome. Consuming carbohydrates daily as part of a healthy diet and incorporating "junk foods" once or twice a week is completely fine."
She continued to ask me questions about fruit, vegetables, potatoes and different types of pastas and would they make her fat. I said, you would have to be eating about 600-1000g per day for that to happen. That's about 5-9 loafs of bread everyday; now that's a lot!
I use terminology like: Treat meal instead of cheat meal, high calorie foods instead of bad or junk foods, high nutrient dense foods instead of healthy foods. You've no idea how much this helps.
I continued to show her all my clients progress photos and that they all ate at least 200g of carbs everyday and enjoyed their favorite treat meal on the weekends when dieting. I could see a sense of relief in her as the consultation went on.
We started the diet off on low carb and slowly incorporated more and more carbs as the weeks went on. The same with treat meals on the weekend. She picked one day to eat a pizza with her boyfriend and she couldn't believe she was losing weight.
My client now eats 275g of carbs a day and has take outs with her boyfriend on the weekends, but this is maintaining her weight. She lost over 14 pounds and is truly delighted. She understands now that calories are what matters and has unfollowed all the low carb "nut jobs" (as she put it haha).
Here is what she said to me, honestly, I almost cried.
Wayne!! I sleep better, I eat better, I have more energy, my stress around food is completely gone, my relationship with food AND my boyfriend is better and I have so much more energy for workouts. I just can't thank you enough for helping me identify and overcome something I never knew I had. Thank you, thank you!!!
Now that's a message I could read every day!
If this blog related to you in anyway, please feel free to reach out. hopefully, I can help you have a better relationship with food too.
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