A short email today to tell you about a few key things:

But first, a quick story …

Last Saturday night I went out for drinks for one of my best friend’s 40^th birthday party.

In LA, I live in Venice, which is on the west side (beach side) and there’s an ongoing joke that when you live here, you never want to go anywhere else in LA, because then you’d have to actually drive places, the traffic sucks, no beach, etc. BUT, my friend wanted to get out of the ‘hood so we went out in Hollywood (not west side). Ugh. Lol.

So we went early to avoid later traffic (hey, we’re getting older and traffic is a serious consideration, ha!), long story short, I didn’t get to eat much before heading out. We stayed for several hours and by the time I got home it was close to midnight.

Then, I ordered take-out delivery. Mexican food.

Years ago, this choice would have gone one of two ways: a) all the way overboard, like chips and guac, burrito with all the fixins and some churros to finish us off. Besides, if I was going to go “off plan,” I’d be sure to make the most of it. OR, b) I would have been terrified of anything that wasn’t “clean” and I would have gone to bed starving, deprived and miserable, white-knuckling it the whole way, only to completely binge at some later date.

Last Saturday: a Mexican #BAS with extra chicken, avocado, cheese, lots of greens, onions and tomato, plus the side of chips and salsa that came with it. Delicious. I ate most of the salad and then had a handful of chips. Done.

Still satisfying, still satiated, and went to bed (yes, at 1am!) not stuffed and with zero guilt. Classic #moderation365.

Would this meal be considered “perfect” by competition standards (or even just health standards)? No. But I consider it a huge win because being a little less perfect always makes me a little more consistent.

And I also didn’t stuff myself to the point of going to bed bloated, with a stomach ache and a huge heaping of remorse.

Eating #moderation365 helps us even out the ups and downs in our eating. Yes, I ate this meal on Saturday night, but I would have done the same thing on say, a Tuesday. I choose to navigate the middle every time I sit down to eat, no matter what. Not choosing deprivation and not choosing overindulgence. Just … something in the middle.

And choosing something moderate now ensures you’ll make better choices later and on the whole. It’s a preemptive approach. Versus choosing deprivation now, only to eat everything in sight later.

So anyway, I share this example because one of the questions I get asked the most at JillFit is: “Jill, how do I know if I am eating moderately?” And indeed, it can feel overwhelming and confusing to learn what moderate will be to you--but that's why it's a process and a practice, something that takes time.

One of the biggest critiques of moderation is that it’s not measurable. Exactly, and that is why it’s a huge teaching tool and why it's the ultimate solution, because it is so customized. Learning what moderate feels like to you, using mindfulness tools like satisfaction, satiation, hunger, cravings, energy, sleep, stress, mood, etc.—tapping into our sensations—is what makes this process so magic.

Traditional dieting makes us more dependent and frankly, stupider.

That’s not a judgment BTW, as I followed crazy meal plans for years. It’s normal and part of the process, IMO. But what I mean is that when we follow random diets, we’ll do things like start eating according to a clock instead of listening to our body. We’ll start eating foods we hate because some fitness model eats them. We’ll start listening to random coaches and “experts” who don’t know our body even one one-hundredth of the level that we do. We’ll follow rules created by someone else, instead of taking the time to find out what will work for us long-term.

The 3-day training will help you learn how to quit the yo-yo dieting and start to rid your obsession with food. It will give you actual tools,strategies and things to practice in order to learn what moderation feels like for you. And it will also make you LOL since we discuss examples of crazy dieting behavior (mine included!) and kind of calls out just how silly it all is, if you enjoy that kind of thing ;)

Wanna gain a lot of weight later on? Just start a crash diet on January 1^st.

OR, you can settle in for the long-haul by learning tools and techniques that will last you forever—you won’t ever need another meal plan again.

See links BELOW for #moderation365 and the Best of You Education-only enrollment (closes tonight!).

Let me know if you have any questions!

Xo,

Jill