My Current “Diet”

Hi friends!

Gosh it has been a minute since I promised this post for y’all. I apologize for the delay, BUT wanted to wait for my rebrand.. hope you understand 😉

*DISCLAIMER* I am not a nutritionist of any kind, so this blog post is just me speaking from experience. 

The most frequently asked questions I get in my Instagram DMs are something along the lines of:

“What diet do you follow?” “Are you vegan? paleo? keto?” “What do you eat in a day?” etc.

So it’s about time I dive into my thoughts on “dieting” and the philosophy I follow when it comes to FUELING my body with FOOD.

Which is where we’ll start.. I look at food as FUEL. Your body needs nutrients from food to function properly and get energy to sustain your brain power and actions throughout the day. Understanding this has really helped shift my mindset around food!

That being said, I do not follow any sort of “diet” and I do not identify as vegan, paleo, keto, or anything like that.

For the most part, I eat intuitively and follow the 80/20 rule. This means when I am hungry, I honor that and EAT. When I’m full, I try to be mindful of that and stop eating (although there are some days where I just keep eating lol). 80% of the time when I go to grab something to eat, I have some sort of whole food that is minimally processed/nutrient dense (i.e. an apple and nut butter, cucumbers and hummus, a smoothie made with nut milk and frozen fruit). The other 20% of the time I’m reaching for a glass of rosé and a bag of chocolate chips (or whatever salty snack I’m craving).

Sometimes that 80/20 turns into 50/50.. or 30/70.. but I know I feel BEST when I eat whole foods 80ish percent of the time, so that’s what I end up doing for the most part!

I don’t have much room for restricting when it comes to my ~diet~ because restriction for me always leads to bingeing and I’m just not about that these days.

Questions I ask myself when making meals/grocery shopping:

Is this food nutrient dense? Will I feel any negative side effects after eating this (head/stomach ache)? Do I have enough veggies to add into my meals? Will I feel energized or sluggish after eating this? Do I understand everything listed in the ingredients? Is this food overly processed?

Other things to note:

I eat a pretty well rounded diet – my meals consist of protein, carbs, veggies, fruits, etc. oh and spiked seltzers (lol kidding…..). Something I like to emphasize is making my meals extra voluminous by packing in lots of vegetables. For example, if I am making pasta sauce with ground turkey to put on top of noodles, I also dice up onion, tomatoes, zucchini, broccoli, etc. to make the meal even more nutrient dense and satiating.

If I am going to eat something that’s processed, I try to be mindful of what is listed in the ingredients – my rule of thumb is if I don’t understand something in the list OR if the list is more than a handful of ingredients, I’ll try and keep eating that to a minimum.

For some examples of “What I Eat In a Day” you can check out my full days of eating over on IGTV!

Of course, I encourage you to fuel yourself with mostly nutrient dense foods (rather than supplements or processed snacks) but at the end of the day.. what you choose to eat and put in your body is up to YOU. Focus on eating what makes you feel GOOOD + supports your body and that’s all that matters!

Xx Nicole