Pt. 1
Where did my relationship with food fall apart? I grew up a competitive gymnast and although I was fortunate enough to be at a gym that did not stress body image or anything like that, I did still spend the ages of 5-18 in a skintight leotard, so it was hard not to notice body changes. During college I started to get more involved in working out, lifting weights, etc. After I graduated, I started going to a bootcamp style gym where I was introduced to counting macros. I participated in a 6-week challenge where I went from eating probably somewhere around 2000-2200 calories per day, to 1000-1100 calories per day. Granted, I was not tracking before the challenge, just trying to ‘eat clean’ and enjoy myself on the weekends so I don’t know the exact numbers. Obviously, being in such a major deficit I saw HUGE results. I lost roughly 20lbs in those 6 weeks, in both fat and muscle since I went from more heavy lifting to cardio-style training.
Looking back, post-challenge I could have easily gone back to the way I was eating before and been perfectly fine and kept a similar body composition. What I did not realize going into the challenge is that counting macros would completely change my perspective on food. I no longer saw food as meat, potatoes, fruit, peanut butter; instead, I saw protein, carb, carb, fat. This was both helpful and destructive. It became destructive because during my challenge I only ate carbs one time per day and now, I was afraid to eat carbs. My weekly ‘cheat meals’ would leave me feeling extremely sick and guilty. During the challenge I remember being very hungry and my energy became increasingly lower. This only got worse with the more time I spent restricting. Soon, my thoughts become solely focused on food, what my next meal was going to be, what foods I wanted to eat but ‘couldn’t’ and when I did eat those ‘off limit’ foods I went way overboard.
After months of cutting, yo-yo eating, binging on cereal or whatever craving I pushed off for so long, and just overall being a disaster, I eventually started CrossFit where I learned about this diet template that many CrossFit athletes seemed to have success following. I jumped on the train and started following those macros, which helped for about a month. You see, my main issue was I needed someone (or something) to tell me it was okay to eat more. This template was actually an increase in my weekly intake of food so for about a month I felt MUCH better. Eventually though, my body adapted, and my hunger started coming back and my energy started dropping back down again. Even after switching to a ‘maintenance’ phase, I still remember feeling constantly hungry and I was always thinking about food. Not to mention the stress I still felt any time I went on vacation, went out to eat, went to visit family, or basically any situation where I could not weigh and measure my food.
Pt. 2
A few months after starting CrossFit, my energy was garbage, I was overtraining, and exercising way too much, and still had certain foods I could not keep around because I’d go way overboard. Meanwhile, I kept seeing posts from all these athlete eating hundreds of more calories than I was, and they were strong, shredded, and looked fantastic. This reignited my curiosity about nutrition, and I went on to get my Precision Nutrition 1 certification. I wanted to learn more about nutrition and the premise of fueling your body vs. living in the constant state of starvation I seemed to be living in. I hired a nutrition coach who worked with me and helped me understand it was okay to fuel my body and okay to eat more on a consistent basis. I went from eating ~1800 calories per day to ~2100 over the course of 6 months. I put on 8lbs of muscle (and some fat, which was needed) over those 6 months. My mood improved, my energy drastically increased, I could eat out without stressing over my numbers too much, and just overall felt much more at peace with food. Having a coach sitting in my corner and encouraging me to make these changes helped so much. At this point, I had several people reach out and start asking for nutrition help. I began coaching some people on the side but still felt like I wanted to learn more to not only help myself but help my growing list of clients. After refusing to go back to school, I ended up getting my master’s degree in Nutrition and Exercise Science.
Between the knowledge I had gained from school and several other certifications, I began Dedicate Nutrition. I strongly believe that to reach your goals, you must dedicate the time to make lifestyle changes, improve your relationship with food, and trust the process; these changes don’t just happen overnight. The more time I spend coaching others, the more I’ve been able to learn about myself as well. It has been 6 years, but I can now go months without tracking and without any stress or guilt. I can listen to normal hunger cues, have the cereal, eat the ice cream, and enjoy pizza on a weekly basis, etc.
Pt. 3
To wrap it all up, if you are someone who needs to work on your relationship with food, here are my take-aways:
1. Hire a coach – find someone who can sit in your corner and be the advocate on your shoulder to help encourage you to continue making changes
2. Stop weighing yourself – if seeing the number on the scale is something that causes you stress, makes you not want to eat, etc. then get rid of it
3. Stop weighing your food – eyeball your meals, focus on something other than the numbers, eat a meal that is going to satisfy you and not leave you still feeling hungry or wanting more
4. Set goals that are not body image related – for me, these goals included getting stronger, improving technique on my lifts, and improving my gymnastics movements in CrossFit. Some other goals could be trying new recipes each week, planning out a variety of meals, eating out once per week, etc.
If you have questions or just want to talk to someone, please reach out!
- Jess Kuhlman
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