Is thanksgiving your cheat day? Should it be? How many cheat days should you have a week? Well first of all, if you are cheating this is seen as doing something wrong. We have already brought negativity to a cheat day. You are already thinking about a bad day of eating bad. Sounds pretty negative all around.

If you have developed healthy habits as we have given you to take action on (see more in our blog) and eat well eighty percent of the time, then you can get away with insults the other twenty percent of the time. This is not “cheating” it is balance. It is life. If you are planning a cheat day, then chances are you are “dieting” or following a plan that is not maintainable long term and is not developing lifelong habits. Our goal at RAM is to help you develop a healthy relationship with food and to help you build habits that will last a lifetime.

If you have been exercising regularly and eating well you should have nothing to worry about when it comes to having a feast. Enjoy some extra stuffing, have an extra glass of wine. You’ve done the work all week your body can handle a few extra calories and some gravy.

On the other hand, if you have poor nutritional habits and you are inactive then you have some work to do. Nutrition is simple but it’s not easy! The foods that are put in front of us every day make it harder to choose nutritious foods. Media and marketing has made nutrition complicated but it’s really not if you go back to the basics!

At races, I often see a lot of cyclists or triathletes at Ironman that are amazing cyclist but they have almost beer bellies. How is it that athletes who are training 20 to 30 hours a week still have his type of fat on them? Well since they are doing so much activity they think they can eat what they want, when they want. This is far from the truth and it shows!

The key to having a healthy nutrition plan is action! The foundation of most peoples health and fitness is fitness. When it should be nutrition. You can work out all you want but if you eat poorly you will not see the results you want and you will increase inflammation in your body that will eventually lead to further health issues.

Ninety five percent of people put nutrition to the side when they start a fitness routine. What we hear the most is “I know what I should be doing when it comes to nutrition, I just have to do it so I will just do workouts” Ok that’s a great start. But the reason you need nutrition coaching is not for education, not for us to tell you exactly what to do or what to eat but to keep you accountable to taken action every day! A coach is a leader and a leader helps you take action on the things you need to do.

Today’s Action: Make sure your nutrition supports your fitness (more on this next week). Are you eating properly before and after your workouts? Then get your strength training in at minimum twice per week. Then supplement with cardio as needed based on your goals. Not sure where to start? Book a call with us to make a plan!

Happy Thanksgiving!

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