My Experiments with Food. Beginning.

Here I will be sharing my experiments with foods, before and after I became full-time trainer in 2016 and a Precision Nutrition Certified Coach a year later. I still consider this course the best on the market and can’t recommend it enough.

And for now, let’s dive into a history.

What is your goal for 6 months? For a year? 5 years? 10 years?

Who do you want to be when you are 80 years old?

It was in 2012 when I started to think for the first time that eating McDonalds 3 times a week might not be the best food. I was always skinny and struggled to gain weight. Yeah, I know, everyone wishes for this problem... But it was, until the magic stopped. I used to eat everything. I was never a big fan of sweets though, just never liked it much.

And then one day, suddenly, I saw my picture from the club - my arm looked huge. Yes I wasn’t fat, but I was very jiggly-looking. I was definitely not a fan of it. Plus I was going through a tough time in life and decided to make a big shift - I signed up for a gym and actually started to be consistent. I loved it. I hated all the group classes and was afraid to go to the gym on my own. It was very intimidating.

But I found a solution - headphones in the ears and I was in my own world. I used to reward myself with a big piece of my favorite cake. No wonder I was from from my abs-goal. And here it makes sense to repeat myself for a thousand times:

You can never overtrain a bad diet.

But we all try, don’t we?:) 6 months from the start I had no visible changes, at least I was happy with my increased confidence and actually following through on my commitments for the first time.

Then I decided to finally commit to a diet-plan - very restrictive. It was only two weeks, but they jeopardized my weight for another 1.5 years. I was absolutely miserable for those 2 weeks. So I honestly had no idea how so many people can suffer with restrictions for so many months and seeing it as the only option. I was done after one time. No way, I would go through that awful 2 weeks again.

It was 2 weeks of no sweets, no bread, no fried food and no life:) I saw my abs. Finally!

I was proud! I was arrogant... I thought I would be able to repeat the same effort and be right there again with abs. But no. My mind didn’t want to go through the pain again. One more reason why willpower doesn’t work with food. You can push through for awhile, but not forever. And nothing is wrong with you, you are not weak. It's just your mind makes you a favor - to figure out a less painful way. Luckily - it exists.

I paid the price for my fast success. I guess this was the only short success that I have ever done in my life. The low was way too low for me after the high.

For the next 6 months after 2 misearble weeks, I ate all the food I could see, and for the 1st time in my life I crossed the 60kg number.

It was quite shocking for always skinny-me.

From 56kg which I considered “not good enough” I became 52 kg with abs.

And then became 62kg in 6 months. Ooops.

One day I found myself buying sweets and inhaling hundreds of calories in seconds.

I kept going to the gym and getting more frustrated, going into guilt-reward cycle. I was eating healthy the whole day and than overeating cakes. Strawberry cheesecake officially destroyed my figure. It became my enemy for many years to come.

I used to train consistently for 3 times a week and I have gained 10 kg and I was not able to lose even 1kg for 18 months! Imagine what would have happened if I didn’t go to the gym...

I was done. One day I decided to quit. I had enough. I gave up on weight loss and started to train because I liked it, it made me feel good and result no longer mattered. And oh miracle! I lost 2kg in few weeks! I started to influence the process and stopped expecting results. That is a secret. Result is never good enough, consistent improvement, on the other side - is very satisfying.

Choosing health was a right solution. Diet culture causes too many problems to our mental health. It hooks you in the loop of instant gratification. The only thing to remember in this case - shortcuts never work in any area, and weight loss is not an exception.

You want to lose 20kg in a month, that’s your choice. I can’t stop anyone here, only inform about the consequences. Lower self-esteem and disappointment are accompanying regained kilos.

Fast result is always a short-lasting one.

If there is one thing that you can do today to start working on improving your food - simply start a journal, notice what you eat, when you overeat, when you stress-eat.

What is amount of nutrient-dense foods you consume and how much fast foods, that don’t have any minerals, vitamins, only empty calories. The ones that add to your belly body fat and cellulite on thighs.

Over the 6 years of coaching clients, I have discovered - everyone knows that chips, fries and sweets is not the best choice for our “health plan".

Most of us know what to eat to feel better. Now we need to act on it.

Taking action on what you have learned is more important than learning new information. Application over information.

Knowing what to do and not doing it is the same as not knowing what to do.

P.S. Will continue sharing more on my and clients’ experiments with food.

Theory is good, but practice is always more valuable. Time to experiment :)

with Love and Blessings,

Irina Al Daker