Are you a professional athlete that has a team of nutritionists, chefs, and staff to help you? I’m guessing not, so I’d suggest you not try to eat like one. It’s more likely that you are recovering from an IBD diagnosis/flare and simply trying to feel better?
Trying to eat or train like any professional athlete is a fast way to feel inadequate and overwhelmed. So assess where you are right now (hint, most people are more beginner than they may think).
Level 1 – Basic Nutritional Programming
This level is ideal for nutritional beginners. We can be advanced in movement and athletics and still be nutritional beginners. It’s more ideal for those with more modest goals, such as moderate body composition improvements, or feeling better every day. This level requires simple, basic instructions and steps.
Level 2 – Individualized Nutritional Programming
This level is appropriate for recreational exercisers and high-performance athletes who already have a high-quality basic diet and want to pursue very specific performance and/or body transformation goals. It’s also a good level for those clients who really want and need to know the details of their intake. At this level, you can handle activity and goal-based calorie calculations, body type-specific macronutrient breakdowns and nutrient sensitivity-based timing strategies.
Level 3 – Special Situation Nutritional Programming
Describes people who have a good grasp of Level 2 strategies but their high performance goals demand more specialized strategies and supplementation to precisely address food intolerances/allergies, body fat distribution, gene profiles, and other highly specific nutritional goals. [3]
Try this:
Assess where you are right now. Are your health and nutrition habits matching that situation? If so, great! If not so much, could you do just 1 thing today that would get you back in alignment? What would that look like?
