Episode 21 - Why You Need to Ditch the Detox this Year

Why You Need to Ditch the Detox this Year

Welcome to 2022! 

To set the scene for the year, I want to give you some tips to help you actually achieve your health and fitness goals. And stay on track in 2022. Instead of smashing it really hard at the start, going too hard, too fast and losing puff by February. 

Diets, detoxes and New Years Resolutions don’t work. Listen in as I give you some practical tips to achieve long term change this year.

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Episode Transcription

Episode 21 - Why You Need to Ditch the Detox this Year

00:00
Welcome to the Triathlon Nutrition Academy podcast, the show designed to serve you up evidence-based sports nutrition advice from the experts. Hi, I'm your host Taryn, Accredited Practicing Dietitian, Advanced Sports Dietitian, and founder of Dietitian Approved. Listen as I break down the latest evidence to give you practical, easy to digest strategies to train hard, recover faster and perform at your best. You have so much potential, and I want to help you unlock that with the power of nutrition. Let's get into it.

00:45
Welcome to 2022! I had such a lovely break. It was so needed. I went off social media, I had no emails, I got to read a book. I'm feeling pretty refreshed actually and ready for an awesome year ahead. I always have lots of really good ideas when I get to take the opportunity to step away for a bit. So I've got some pretty exciting things planned. Doors to the Triathlon Nutrition Academy open again soon as well, at the end of January. So I'm just getting back into the groove of things to get that happening again.

01:20
The email out of office is still on. I'm not ready to face that just yet. But doors to the clinic open again next week. January in the Dietitian Approved clinic always goes nuts. Everyone is super motivated after the break, because maybe you've had a debaucherous Christmas or New Year's. And January's always the line in the sand right where you kind of jump headfirst into New Year's resolutions, ready to hit your fitness and health goals. But generally people go hard, too fast and run out of puff after a couple of weeks. And I don't want that for you. I want you to experience long term change and setting realistic goals that you can slowly chip away at rather than having this massive all or none approach that I see so commonly with triathletes. What is it about our personalities that we are all or none?!

02:14
So today to set the scene for the year, I just wanted to give you some tips to help you actually achieve your health and fitness goals and stay on track. Instead of smashing it really hard at the start, going too fast, and then just losing puff by February.

02:31
1. Ditch the detoxes

So my first tip. Now, I don't think any of you will do this. But just in case, I feel like I have to say it. But you need to ditch the detoxes. From colon cleanses to juice fasts to taking vitamins and minerals like vegetables in capsules. Please don't do any of that stuff. So many people think you need to detox the body to get rid of toxins, to lose weight, to kick start something. But there is absolutely no evidence to support detoxes. Our body's pretty well equipped with two kidneys, and a liver that know how to filter our blood and that gets rid of the toxins out of it.

03:11
If you can just simply eat well, and exercise regularly, it'll help you to get yourself back on track, get that balance back in your life and maintain that long term without needing to detox, whatever the heck that means. So just in case, please don't try and go too hard with a detox when you don't need anything that drastic. And there's way easier and more helpful methods to getting your health goals back on track. Okay, I'm done. I've said it.

03:43
2. Set SMART goals

The next thing. Okay, when we're trying to set goals for the year, I want you to try and choose SMART goals. So SMART stands for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely. I've heard a few other iterations of what they stand for. But that's basically it. So if you set some SMART goals, you'll actually have a better chance of keeping them through the year, write them down and hold yourself accountable to them. It could be getting a certain time in a race. And whatever steps you need to break that down to achieve that. It could be adding strength to programming each week to try and improve your speed when you're riding or running. It could be trying to make sure you're doing some stretching and body maintenance every day or every second day so that you can touch your toes.

04:36
There's no point in saying hey, I want to lose 10 kilos. That's not that useful. It needs to be SMART. So make it specific. I want to lose 10 kilos by X amount of time, but it also needs to be achievable and realistic too. So don't try and set out to achieve a 10kg weight loss in the next two months. Stretch that out so it's more much more achievable and realistic for say, like 6 to 12 months. And that'll actually fit better in your lifestyle too. And you're not stressing about trying to do that, cutting calories too hard, underperforming at training, you're just going to fall into a hole. And then how are we going to measure that change as well? We know that the scales aren't a great measure of body composition. They fluctuate a lot. So you might want to measure it with something like skinfolds, or a DEXA. So set goals that are SMART and try breaking that one big goal, down into small manageable chunks.

05:35

3. Tell your accountabilabuddy your goals

Make sure you tell your accountabilabuddy, yeah, that's a real word, what your goals are, so that you can keep each other on track too, and that will set yourself up for success and not failure. We try and go too hard, too fast, and then only set ourselves up for failure, which is not that useful.

05:54
4. Break your goal up

So I want you to map out your ultimate goal. And then break this up into smaller bite-sized little goals. It'll be way easier to achieve it if you can imagine the outcome occurring in the not-so-distant future with smaller little chunks to help you keep working more consistently and steadily on the way to your ultimate goal. So the end goal, break it down into small little chunks. And then to meet that first chunk that little break. And to get to that first little, small chunk of a goal is not that far away. You can visualize yourself getting there and doing that. Whereas if you're trying to visualise the end goal, it's much harder to get there and you're more likely to set yourself up for failure.

06:37
5. Celebrate when you reach your goals – no matter the size

And when you reach your little goals, the small ones, and the big ones, I want you to celebrate and reward yourself, but ideally, not with food. So choose an activity that is something special to you, like going to maybe a Gold Class movie, some time with your favourite people, you might want to book in for an indulgent massage or beauty treatment or spa day, a new outfit or set of wheels or new Garmin or glasses, whatever it is. I like to treat myself to a beach day and swim in the ocean, it's completely up to you. As long as it's not food, because that doesn't actually create a healthy relationship long term.

07:14
And also just on that, don't do this with your kids. Food should not be a reward. So things like treating them with ice cream after they've played a hard game of netball is not something you want to set them up with. And they will take that into adulthood. So bit of a side note but try not to use food as a reward for your kids as well.

07:35
6. Slow and steady wins the race

Now slow and steady always wins the race. If something like say weight loss is your goal, the steadier the loss, the more likely it is that that weight will stay off. A healthy weight loss is around 0.5-1kg/week. It may sound small, but it can quickly add up to a considerable change. Slow and steady while it's not particularly sexy, is more achievable and can be maintained, longer-term. And that's obviously going to increase your overall chance of success too.

08:08
The same goes for diving headfirst into exercise. If you overdo it, the more likely it is you'll overdo it and wreck yourself or get injured. Consistency is key. One huge torture session that induces so much pain you can't walk for a week is not going to make you fitter. Whereas regular exercise that builds up on the previous session and you adapt and get fitter, will actually help you with long term change. So start easy rather than going guns blazing and build as your fitness increases.

08:39
7. Get back on the horse

Now get back on the horse. If you planned to go running every day and today, you sat on the couch and ate a block of chocolate instead. Pick yourself up and get back out there tomorrow. Don't wait for Monday to roll around. I don't understand why people always wait for Monday. If you feel like you've broken your diet that day, then get yourself back on track that afternoon. Don't go oh well. I've just eaten a whole block of chocolate now. So there goes the whole day. I'll just wait till tomorrow or wait till Monday. Just pick yourself up, dust yourself off and get straight back into it that afternoon.

09:19
Remind yourself that consistency is the key. Every day is a new day. Don't feel guilty for it. Which brings me to my next point.

09:27
8. Make every day your New Year's Resolution Day

Make every day your New Year's Resolution Day. I'm actually not a fan of New Year's resolutions at all. I never set them because I want you to get away from all or none mentality. I want you to start to incorporate healthy behaviour into your everyday lifestyle. Start to think like a Dietitian. It's those small, daily habits that we consistently repeat over time that will become entrenched. Make the choice and then stick to it. Yeah, it'll be hard to start with, but it's only going to get easier and then soon you'll have a completely different life. Remember, practice makes perfect. Keep practicing those little healthy habits because it takes a fair bit of time to entrench new ones. There was a study from the University College of London, and they showed that it took 66 days for a new habit to become the norm. I always thought it was around 30. But this study showed 66. So don't give up. Recognise that it takes time to turn new behaviours into habits so that you can keep going and soon they'll just become second nature.

10:29
Whew, okay, we're done. I hope that sets the scene for you for this year, just to help you stay on track and not go guns blazing at the start only to run out of puff in a couple of weeks. Whatever your intentions, or your resolutions or goals or whatever you want to call them are, write them down, make them SMART, and tell someone about them because they're more likely to happen if you have an accountabilabuddy. And yes, that's a real word. It's not actually.

10:55
If you're looking to get a sports dietitian in your corner. Our clinic opens next week. January is generally pretty heavily booked. So we may not be starting till February now anyway but jump on over to the website if you are looking to get some help with your nutrition this year. Go to www.dietitianapproved.com/services, to see all the ways that you can work with me.

11:17
I'm really looking forward to an awesome 2022. It's got to be better than the last two years. So here's to 2022, whoo!

11:25
Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Triathlon Nutrition Academy podcast. I would love to hear from you. If you have any questions or want to share with me what you've learned. Email me at [email protected]. You could also spread the word by leaving me a review and taking a screenshot of you listening to the show. Don't forget to tag me on social media at @dietitian.approved so I can give you a shout out too. If you want to learn more about what we do, head to dietitianapproved.com. And if you want to learn more about the Triathlon Nutrition Academy program, head to www.dietitianapproved.com/academy. Thanks for joining me and I look forward to helping you smash it in the fourth leg - nutrition!