Most of us are eating with a purpose, no matter the lifestyle we live. Whether that purpose is to not care what we eat, eat for weight loss, eat for weight gain, eat for performance, enjoyment, sport, or survival, there is a reason behind how we eat.

In today's world eating to lose weight is more common than any other purposeful eating. We live in a diet-driven society, always looking to lose a few more pounds. The struggle that we run into, however, is that our society is not set up for us to maintain a healthy weight. In fact, our society is set up to fatten us up, thanks to the speed at which we live our lives and the convenience in which we can get hyper-palatable foods. It's easy to eat foods that leave us overweight and unsatisfied. Realizing this makes it easy to understand why most of us are stuck spiraling the drain of weight loss with quick-fix diets, exercise plans, and unsuccessful sustainability.

Even when an athlete declares that they want to eat for performance this 'want' initially starts out very convoluted. They say they want to eat for performance...that's their purpose but more often than not they can't seem to shake what society has cemented into our minds as the only way to lose weight - reduce calories and exercise more. In fact, most athletes start their journey of eating for a purpose still cemented in fear that their weight is going to go up, feeling anxious and insecure about their choices anytime the scale isn't ticking down. We have been programmed to expect the scale to tick down if we are 'following the rules' of quality eating and be an athlete or not, that mindset is hard to grow out of. On the flip side, The idea of 'eat for performance' has been jaded to a point where people think they get to eat freely because they worked out like exercise is the golden ticket to that bagel and cream cheese.

For most, there are two ways of eating: 1) eat for weight gain or 2) eat for weight loss. We've become accustomed to thinking we either get to eat as much of any type of food we want, "because we need fuel to perform" or we need to limit the amount of any type of food we're eating, "because we need to reduce our calorie intake to lean out". The reality is, we need to eat a lot of the right types of food, consistently.
This may sound easy, but the reality is we are all still stuck in that diet-driven mindset, we're supposed to either be very rigid in our calorie intake and food quality or we have the freedom to eat whatever we want, depending on which goal we have in mind.

Instead, what needs to happen is a flip of the cause and effect in our minds. Instead of getting to eat freely because we are training hard and because we're eating for performance we need to flip the script and realize that what we eat and how much we eat is going to be the driving force behind how we perform, recovery, look, and feel from day to day. With this in mind, we commit to eating foods that serve a purpose, serve OUR purpose.

Once a person can accept that not all foods are created equal and that they must commit to filling their calories with foods that serve their purpose, they'll give themselves the space to see success and in turn, a chance to see just how efficient the body is and just how many calories it can process while sustaining an ideal body composition.

The discipline and trust required to allow yourself the chance to see this evolution take place are what most people fail to find, leaving them back circling the drain of 'dieting' to lean out, thinking their performance will improve because they are losing weight and eating celery...sometimes. Being meticulous with tracking our intake and eating a consistent diet is of utmost importance, something that seems to get lost when a person decides to 'eat for performance' again, falling victim to the 'it doesn't matter if I eat this because I need calories' mindset. However, the magic happens when a person sticks with meticulous tracking and lands themselves in a place where tracking their intake is much much easier now that they're eating plenty of food which leaves them satisfied in their days.

Using a coach to help you make the space to allow yourself to see that eating plenty of calories, through the right types of foods, is only going to support your goal of body fat loss, improved performance, self-confidence, and a better relationship with food, is a great way to guide you from that diet-driven mindset to an 'eat with a purpose' mindset. It can be intimidating and challenging to make that shift on your own and not fall back into either eating whatever you want because you exercise or restricting your intake because you want to lean out.

There is a balance there and when a person is vulnerable enough and disciplined enough to find that balance, they will land themselves in a space where everything is working for them and not against them, just like these success stories below.

" It is not lost on me that I wouldn’t be moving 85# thrusters in a workout if I was under eating or preventing myself from getting uncomfortable in workouts. I am really starting to feel like an athlete, which I can’t even begin to tell you, fills my heart right up. I just feel like I am in my element at the gym lately and while I always enjoy being there, it feels like my body is finally breaking past that learning curve and things are clicking."

" I have to admit, it kind of blows my mind how little I care about the scale compared to how much I value performing well. Plus, all of my clothes still fit great, so that is good for the mental side of things. My pants are the same in the waist, just a little tighter in the legs and butt and I am 100% good with that."

"I'm mentally and physically the best I've ever been in my whole life. Things just keep getting better, too. My anxiety only creeps up once in a blue moon and is manageable when it happens. My food relationship is way different than it was when I started. I don't obsess over food all day long. I have even gone some nights without a dessert, and I haven't cried or died as a result. Without thinking about it, I prioritize filling whole foods. It's easy to walk away from fast food because of how it'll make me feel. I can walk past treats in the breakroom at work and/or say no thank you without mentally debating it later. This is all most of the time, obviously. But it was a daily ordeal for a long time!"

"I'd also say that it's been incredibly refreshing to not be so worried about the scale. It's been fluctuating around the same numbers, but I have to say that because this isn't my main focus I have a lot more peace around it and my training has felt pretty good. As you know, the workouts are hard, but my clothes are fitting more comfortably,"