The Seasons of Nutrition
Just like fall, winter, and spring, nutrition also brings about seasons based on pace, goals, situations, and circumstances of life.
There are seasons when tracking consistently is realistic and attainable, but there are other seasons where focusing on three servings of vegetables per day and getting in movement 2x per week is the realistic and attainable goal that aligns with the season of life you are in.
There is a difference between coasting and maintaining. Coasting means you are waiting until things slow down. Waiting until the kids go back to school, work slows down, the big project is finished, your spouse gets back from a trip, or the holidays are over. But keep in mind that if you are waiting for something to get done, once it’s over another thing will come up and two weeks turns into a month, turns into 3-4 months and you’ve been coasting while you could’ve been maintaining. Maintaining is setting realistic goals based on your circumstances and finding consistency and discipline that is attainable right now.
What does maintaining look like?
Maintaining in a specific season is going to look different for everyone and will depend on what you and your coach decide are realistic for your capacity and lifestyle.
A couple of examples may look like this:
Choose three goals this week that you can hit with 100% accuracy everyday:
-Eating 3 servings (or 100g in each meal) of vegetables per day
-Getting in 30 minutes of movement 2x per week
-Prepping one bulk protein and one bulk carb once a week
-Prepping one staple meal to eat consistently every day, without fail.
-Setting aside 7-10 minutes per night to pre-log your next day’s intake.
-Hitting protein goal + calorie goal every day.
There is a wide range of goals above because maintaining is different based on circumstances, but setting specific and attainable goals is key. There is a big difference between having three things to work towards that challenge and push you but are realistic to reach (maintaining) vs. not working towards anything and waiting until ‘the right time’ (coasting).
If you have the all or nothing mentality, whether you like it or not you’ll be sending the same check-in every week to your coach quoting the same exact words because your expectations of yourself were not aligned properly with your current reality. If you think tracking, weighing, and logging with 100% accuracy is realistic while you are traveling every other weekend, dining out at least once a week, taking care of an extended family member in your home and working part time is an attainable goal, you may want to re-evaluate what is actually realistic in this season of life.
AIM is successful because it’s lifestyle oriented. We want you to go on those trips with your kids and spend a weekend away celebrating your anniversary, but those things don’t mean you are putting your nutrition on the back burner, it simply means you are working to find ways for them to intertwine. How can you show your kids how to pack healthy meals for camping? How can you incorporate your kids in prepping those food items teaching them about hard work, food quality, and the positives of planning ahead? How can you create healthy boundaries around your intake while away for your anniversary that creates balance but still requires discipline? Life and nutrition can coexist, it’s just a matter of figuring out what that looks like for you personally.
We all go through seasons, and not every season allows us to give 100% to tracking and weighing food. BUT every season does allow us to give 100% to our nutrition, that 100% simply may look different based on the season.
