What you eat is none of anyone else’s business! One of the BIGGEST pet peeves of mine is when people who “think” they understand nutrition and eating healthy decide to push that way of thinking onto you. You might think you are helping someone out by offering good nutritional advice, but until you fully understand the full foundation of nutrition as well as how it responds to your body in training, you should allow that person to seek someone with more experience.
Here is why you should keep YOUR diet and what you eat to yourself because it may come off as ignorant to others who may not understand nutrition.
-We all have a different physiology. You do not know their internal body functions such as hormones, metabolic rate, age, genetics and activity levels. ALL of these things play into your nutrition. That is why what works for one will not necessarily work for someone else. First ask yourself this: Do you know how your body reacts to carbohydrates? Increased training? Do you look better with more fats in your diet or less? What is your caloric intake? If you can’t answer that for yourself, don’t preach it to others!!
-Goal. Point blank.. do you know your goals? Do you want to build muscle? Lose weight? Be more metabolically fit? Does your nutrition match your goals? Do you even know this for yourself? To meet different aspirations for fitness, body composition and competition, you have to eat according to your goals. Their are a mix of domains from powerlifters, weightlifters, bodybuilders and CrossFitters who train together in the same facility. How do you know what “look” or goal they are trying to obtain? Each and every fitness domain has a way of eating to support goals in the gym. If you are eating for a powerlifitng meet or bodybuilding competition, you will NOT be eating in excess. Most of the time you will be in a deficit! So remember that you might not know what someone is trying to achieve !
-Values. Believe it or not there are people out there who train to have fun and just don’t have a desire to compete for anything. For all the focused competitors with year-long plans to meet specific goals, such as doing a bodybuilding show, powerlifting or qualifying for regionals, there is a specific outcome they are trying to reach. However, there are people who turn up just to relax, have fun, and work out. Those people will not need to have a strict meal plan or even care what they look like. The way they live and eat wouldn’t work for you and the likelihood is the way you live and eat wouldn’t work for them, either.
For those of you willing to take on the challenge, dieting is still hard. No one wants to put themselves through it without an endorsed guarantee that they will get the results they’re looking for. That’s where qualified nutritional coaches come in or wellness / lifestyle coaches such as myself can help you reach those goals. But understand this does not mean your revelation will hold true for your unsuspecting victim. People ask for help, and can only be helped if they want it. Discovering what works for them with their own agency is fundamental to individual empowerment and the success that follows.