Hi ,

A couple months ago, I sent out an email to the JillFit readers entitled "what I actually eat," and I got a lot of mixed responses. Granted, my current dietary approach is admittedly divergent from the typical "rules" of nutrition, but it is also what I've come to after 3 years of investigating, honed to the point that I'm able to maintain my weight effortlessly, have low hunger and cravings and hardly think about food anymore.

In short, I follow a lower-carb plan. Not because I feel it's necessarily superior for fat loss, but because it works FOR ME. The way I eat takes little mental effort and very little time. It balances my hormones naturally so that I am satisfied and satiated.

It's my fat loss formula--created as a result of 3 years of learning about my own metabolism, understanding my personal preferences and psychological sensitivities and then finally deciding I didn't want to be obsessed with "the rules" anymore :)

But the human brain likes certainty. Which is why we like dietary "rules"--they make us feel more in control of our results. We like to think: If I just do X, I will get Y result. We want our results to be linear and predictable. We think that if we just look hard and long enough, well stumble upon the perfect diet for us. But deep down we know that's not the way it works.

Metabolic Effect's message is one I share:

The truth is that there's no perfect diet "out there," there is only the perfect diet FOR YOU, which is CREATED with time, introspection, trial and error and consistent awareness.

Educating yourself on nutrition is great. But it's important to always look at things through the lens of what will work FOR YOU. The idea that how you should eat is related in any way to how someone else eats is misguided (even though we think, If I eat that, I will look like that person). Doesn't work that way. Which is why I was even hesitant to send out my typical eating schedule. Because I didn't want people assuming they should eat what I eat. But in the end, I believed explaining MY PROCESS of how I arrived at where I'm at would be instructive.

And so, the responses.

I got a lot of responses from women saying, "Thank you, this makes me feel like I finally have permission to do things my way." And, "This gives me hope that I can find my solution too." Loved that so much.

But I did get a few people who worried about my approach. I always love any and all responses because it provides great insight for me to see where you gals are. I love getting glimpses into your struggles, your challenges and your mindset around nutrition, so I am so grateful for these as well! :)

There were 3 main concerns:

1) "Jill, the way you eat puts you in a chronic caloric deficit." This was then followed up by a series of math equations based on my height and weight, and it was then concluded that I am not eating enough food.

I can understand why, in the way most people think about weight loss, we'd think that calories in versus calories out is all that matters. Unfortunately the metabolism doesn't work that way. And after many years of crash dieting up and down 20 lbs, my metabolism is not as responsive as it once was. So, it compensated and in order for me to maintain my weight, I had to adjust. I am not in a caloric deficit because if I were, I would be losing weight constantly and I am not. How I eat is about maintenance (my goal), and it took me 3 years to level off and not gain and lose constantly.

2) "Jill, I can't believe you would advocate this!"

The only diet I advocate is the one that will work for you, and that will be the one you create on your own via introspection, consistency, time and getting to know your body. Metabolic Effect says: You don't find a diet, you create the perfect diet for you. I agree. In addition to listing the foods I ate on a typical day, I went through the "why" and the process of how I got there, including dealing with a damaged metabolism and the unsustainability of the exercise I was doing for years (2-3 hours!)

So, the message is not, "Do this." The message I do advocate is this, "Take the time and put in the work it's going to take to figure out what will work FOR YOU long term."

3) "I know you said you feel great on this, but don't you think you'd feel even better if you increased your carbs?"

Again, an interesting insight, but that's precisely the point: The plan at which you feel your best will be the one that will be sustainable. If I feel good, I can do it forever. For me, adding more carbs makes me feel worse (I tried!), increased hunger and cravings and lethargic energy. But for someone else, they may need starch at every single meal to feel their best. That's the beautiful thing about this PROCESS: You are uniquely different from anyone else, and in order to find your perfect approach, it takes some work.

So how do you begin that work?

Well, we know that we need to get enough lean protein to balance energy and stay fuller for longer, and we know that we can and should eat fibrous veggies liberally. So that leaves mainly two moving parts: starchy carbs and dietary fat.

Carbs are a great example of a food that needs investigating. Each person will have a unique amount and type that will serve them best-where they have balanced energy for hard workouts, feel great throughout the day, but experience spillover into fat storage.

JillFit Ambassador Lauren Hight is an former D1 collegiate athlete and a certified Metabolic Effect Nutrition Consultant--and if anyone knows carbs, it's this gal! After her sports career ended and she wasn't able to EAT ALL THE CARBS, she dove headfirst into the process of finding the perfect amount for her, what would work for fat loss while she was a working gal, and not training 3-4 hours a day anymore.

Lauren has done a ton of personal experimentation and has helped her plenty of her own clients find their carb formula too, via her Carb Rehab program. Carb Rehab IS AVAILABLE TODAY AND TOMORROW ONLY, and I wanted to make sure you got a chance to read up on it and access it through Lauren if you feel like you're struggling with this too. It's the perfect place to begin your process.

=======> All the details for CARB REHAB here.

Let me know how you do, and as always, I'd love to hear from you! How's it going? Are you working to find balance? Are you still caught up in the rules and "black-and-white" dieting? Drop me a line :)

Love,
Jill