Why You Can’t Copy Someone Else’s Diet
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SERIOUS QUESTION: Do you copy and paste other women's diets? What do I mean by that? Do you see see what’s working for another woman and do you copy it perfectly believing that if you do, you will see the same exact results?
Well I have news for you! You will never see the results you want, especially long-term, if this is your approach to building the body you want. Why? In this episode of Embrace Your Real, I explain WHY. Not only do I give you a deep explanation as to why one diet doesn't work for everyone, but also how to successfully build a diet that is personalized to you and your body's needs.
If you loved this episode, I highly suggest tuning into…
Episode 18: What Happens When You Don't Eat Enough
Episode 59: How to Know Which Foods Work for You and Against You
Links mentioned in this episode:
Free E-Book: www.juliealedbetter.com/free-ebook
Macro Counting Made Simple: www.macrocountingmadesimple.com
TRANSCRIPT:
Hey, there, beautiful human. You're listening to Embrace Your Real with me, Julie Ledbetter, a podcast where I empower you to just be you. With each episode, I dish you a dose of real talk and actionable advice for building your confidence, honoring your body, and unconditionally loving your authentic self. Stay tuned if you're ready to embrace your real. Let's get it, let's go. Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Embrace Your Real podcast. Today's episode is very important because in the social media world that we live in, I know so many women, and you guys, this was me included for years of my college life, who just copy and paste diets. They see what's working for someone else, or they follow What I Eat In A Day, YouTube, or TikTok, or Real, and they copy it to a tee, believing that if they do that then they'll see the same exact results as the person that they saw doing it.
Or they follow a cookie-cutter diet or diet plan, those diets that tell you exactly how much to eat, when to eat, without taking any consideration about you into the actual diet. I have news for you, you will never see the results that you want, especially long-term if this is the approach that you take to building the body that you want. And in this episode of Embrace Your Real, I'm going to explain the why behind that. But before I do, I wanted to share this super sweet review. It comes from Fit Murmur. She says, "Most favorite podcast. Love waking up and listening to Embrace Your Real. Julie's podcast is so easy to listen to, and every topic is always very relatable. Please keep the topics coming because they always make my day better." Thank you so much for the review. I appreciate every single one of your reviews.
If you haven't already rated and reviewed the podcast, or if you haven't in a while, I just ask that you scooch over to Apple Podcasts and leave a review. It takes less than 30 seconds and it helps the growth of the podcast out so incredibly much. Thank you in advance. Okay, so let's dive into the why behind why we should not follow someone else's diet. First of all, I wanted to share something interesting. There have been multiple studies that have shown that even identical twins can respond differently when eating the same foods or following the same diets. Do you know what that means? Regardless of how healthy the diet is that you have copy and pasted, it might work for one person, but not for another person. But here's a few reasons why. Number one, everyone burns a different amount of calories daily.
Everyone's activity level is different. How active you are weekly, plays a huge role in how much you should be eating and not everyone has the same activity level, which means not everyone should be even eating the same amount of food. If you're active 15 hours a week, you shouldn't be eating the same amount of calories as someone who is active only three hours per week. Someone less active will need less calories. If you have an extremely high activity level and this not just including workouts, this is including what you do outside of your workouts. What is your job? What is all of the other roles that you play? Are you outputting a lot of activity throughout the week? So, if you have an extremely high activity level and you're eating the same amount of calories as they are, you'll likely cause your body to go into starvation mode, for lack of a better term.
Essentially, when this happens, your body will cling to fat instead of burning it. Even though you're so active, you won't see the results you want because you have caused your body to switch from fat burning mode to fat storing mode. On the other hand, if you're a person who is only active three hours a week, you likely do not need to be eating as much food as the person who is active 15 hours per week, simply because your body won't need as many calories to function properly, it won't need as much protein to rebuild muscles, and it won't need as many carbs to keep you energized. If you regularly consume more food than your body's actually using, it can cause you to store excess fat. Everyone also has a different resting metabolic rate, or also known as RMR. This is the amount of calories that your body burns just to survive.
For example, it's the amount of calories your body would burn, literally, if you're sitting on a couch all day long with zero movement. So, someone who has lots of muscle will have a higher RMR, maybe around 1,700, 1,800, 1,900 calories daily. But the average RMR for women is somewhere around 12 to 1,400 calories daily. Yes, this means that this is the amount of calories you will burn if you didn't move one muscle all day long. So, if you're someone who has a lot of muscle and is extremely active, your body may need 1,700 calories just for basic functioning and more on top of that to keep up with your activity level, while someone else may need 1,700 calories total per day.
So, if you're following someone else's diet and they have a lower RMR and also a lower activity level, you'll end up under-nourishing your body. And when you don't give your body the amount of food that it needs, again, you can trigger fat to store, not burn. I talk a lot more about this in episode 18, what happens when you don't eat enough? So, I will go ahead and link that in the show notes for you to easily go listen to next. Number two, everyone's metabolism, digestion, and gut health is different. Guess what? These three things play a huge role in how our body responds to food. The meal prep chicken, broccoli, and rice sounds extremely healthy. Or how about that handful of almonds for a snack, or that bowl of oatmeal topped with bananas? Regardless of how nutrient dense those foods are, your body may respond well or not so well to them.
Let me give you an example. Foods like eggs, dairy, grains, nuts, and seeds are perfectly healthy and can help someone see results. However, for other people, they may have a negative reaction to them and they might have constipation, bloating, or a food allergy to any of them. It is common to see people's bodies reacting differently to different foods. For example, reacting to foods like beans, cruciferous, vegetables, which is like broccoli, kale, cabbage, cauliflower, and brussels sprouts, and some other types of fruits, and when they eat these foods, it will easily cause them to get bloated or constipated. So, as you can see, it's totally up to a person's body. There's so many factors involved.
And I know, for me, I can't eat foods like broccoli, kale, cabbage, cauliflower, or brussels sprouts, and any time that I do, I'm reminded, oh, my gosh, my stomach hurts so bad for the next few days. I'm so bloated, I get very constipated, but those foods work for many other people. So, just remember that all of our bodies are very, very different, and that's why following someone else's diet isn't going to set you up for success. Another example, going vegan requires you to eat a lot of beans. So, for someone who doesn't respond well to beans, they're really going to struggle to succeed. Another example would be someone going gluten-free who doesn't actually have an intolerance to gluten. If they aren't intolerant, they will likely not see any changes in their body.
If you want to see the results that you're after, you need to pay attention to how certain foods make you feel and find your own nutritional plan that allows you to eat the foods that make you feel your best, rather than following a diet that tells you what's "best" without knowing anything about you, especially the positive and negative reactions to food. And I really encourage you to create, if you haven't already, a food diary, and this could even be a note section on your phone. And this is really how I found my intolerance to broccoli, kale, cabbage, cauliflower, and brussels sprouts, because for a few years into my lifestyle, I've really learning to honor my body with nutrition. I would try all the different ways. And I thought, "Oh, well, maybe it was just cooked in a way that my body didn't like."
It wasn't until I actually really started writing things down in my food diary that I realized, "Oh, my gosh, I actually do have an intolerance to these foods." And once I cut them out and I no longer had those and I found other options, other types of vegetables that I could have, like spinach I can have, I can have a romaine lettuce. I can have carrots and peppers, and I can have tons of other vegetables that don't make me constipated or bloated. It really helped. So, just really pay attention to this and actually dive deeper into this topic in episode 59, how to know which foods work for you and against you. I also link that in the show notes so that you can easily go listen to that episode after this as well.
Okay, so if you shouldn't be following someone else's diet, how do you customize your diet? So, let's chat about that. Step number one, you have to calculate your macros. You have to figure out how many macros your body needs. Calculating your macros helps you determine how many grams of each one of protein, carbs, and fats that your body needs per day to see the results that you want. And remember that this is going to be different for each person, as you weigh differently, you have a different activity level, you have different preferences when it comes to your calculation of macros. So, if you are confused or you just want to learn more about macros, you can calculate your maintenance macros by downloading my free ebook. I will link it in the show notes below.
Or if you need help calculating them, you can always sign up for my Macro Counting Made Simple Online Academy, where we personally calculate them for you. We teach you step-by-step how we do it. I will link those two things in the show notes as well, so that you can get instant access. Just a note for the free ebook, make sure that you click it, make sure you enter your email address correctly, and then you have to check your email and you have to confirm your email. It will not send the free ebook until you confirm your email. So, just make sure that once you sign up, you confirm your email, and then right after that, within 10 to 15 minutes you should get the free ebook in your inbox.
Step number two is, listening to your body. Your body is so much smarter than you give it credit for. I think we have a tendency to allow our brains to tell us what we need, rather than directly listening to our body. You have to stop letting people tell you that a food is good or bad. Instead, determine what foods work best for you and your body. Most people, like a nutritionist doctor or health guru will tell you that cauliflower is super healthy. But through listening to my body, I've learned, like I mentioned earlier, that cauliflower is not good for my body and it does not work well for my body. Or keto or paleo enthusiasts would say that a bagel is completely off limits, but let me tell you, I personally feel energized if I have a bagel in the morning, or if I have oatmeal in the morning.
You never figure out what foods are best for you if you don't pay attention to what your body is telling you. The key here is to actually listen to your body. So, after you eat something, some questions that you can ask yourself to put in your food diary is, a few hours later after you eat, are you hungry still? Do you feel satiated? Do you feel energized or tired or bloated? And from there, you can create your own guidelines of foods to eat based on how you know that they make you feel, rather than letting somebody else tell you what's good or bad. Step three, trial and error, but without trial and error, you'll never really figure out what works best for you. And that's one reason why I love macro counting because it gives me the liberty to make adjustments as needed to completely customize it to me and my needs, so especially, as my macro sets change or my goals change.
For example, if you're staying consistent and hitting your macros daily in a body fat loss, you'll move through macro sets every six to eight weeks, depending on how you're progressing or stalling. Or in a reverse diet, if you're staying consistent with hitting your daily macro numbers, you move macro sets to increase your caloric intake, depending on if you're maintaining your weight to help you continue to increase your metabolic capacity. So, for me, I'm able to take a step back and evaluate if the meals and snacks that I'm fitting into my new macro sets are giving me the sustained energy throughout the day, they're making me feel satiated, aka, not making me still feel hungry and overall balanced.
Having that mixture of nutrient dense for the vitamins and minerals, having a mixture of nutrient dense foods for the vitamin and minerals they provide, and non-nutrient dense, those sweets and treats that satisfy my cravings. Also, as the seasons change, my cravings change, which is why I'm constantly switching up my meals and snacks to allow me to eat a variety of foods so that I don't get bored. And a side note here as well, in the trial and error. I want to say that in some seasons, I'm very dialed into hitting my protein, carb, and fat allotments. And in other seasons like summer, for example, where I know I will be doing a lot more things, going out to eat more, going on vacation, I instead will take a step back. And I've learned this from trial and error, but I will take a step back and I will focus on hitting my protein goal and overall caloric goal, and then use my remaining calories to interchange carbs and fats.
It's just a lot less stressful for me, especially if I'm on the go a lot, if I'm trying to fit Sonic or Chick-fil-A or a bunch of food out at a barbecue into my macros, I'm not stressing as much trying to hit my protein, carb, and fat allotments. I'm allowing my carbs and fats to interchange depending on what I'm doing that day or week. And I have to say that, that, again, has come from trial and error. I am nine years into this and there's some days where I just eat very similar to the day before, so I don't track it in my macro tracker. It all comes with trial and error and just finding what works best for you, finding what you see to be sustainable for you. And that's going to look different for every person.
One person might love to have everything planned out in their macro tracker, and that's how they run. They're very type A personality, they like to have it check, check, check. They feel less stressed when everything is planned out, versus another person. For me, for example, I am not a type A personality, however, I do like to have a grasp on things. All in all, please remember that following someone else's diet isn't going to bring you the results that you want. You have to figure out what is right for you, and that comes with self-awareness, that comes with being okay with some trial and error. And actually, paying attention and listening to what your body needs, it's the absolute best way to be sustainable and to create a lifestyle that both you enjoy and you're successful in.
Again, I highly suggest tuning into episode 18, what happens when you don't eat enough, and episode 59, how to know which foods work for you and which foods work against you, as well as that free ebook and the Macro Counting Made Simple Online Academy, all things that I mentioned in this episode. I hope that you found this episode helpful. I hope that you got something from it. Please, just remember that every person is so different when it comes to the foods that they love, the foods that work best for them, and the overall lifestyle that they can see themselves sustaining. And so, if you can take a few things from this episode and apply it to your journey, that is all I really care about.
I believe that we are all individual people, we all have individual needs, and that's the beautiful thing about us is that we are all individuals. If you have somebody in your life that you feel like would really benefit from this episode, I just ask that you share it out with them. You can copy the link, send it to them in a text message. You can screenshot this, post it up on your story. Be sure to tag me, Julie A. Ledbetter and tag Embrace Your Real account so we can see it, we can celebrate with you, and connect with you. Thank you so much again for tuning in, and I'll talk to you guys in the next episode.
All right, sister. That's all I got for you today, but I have two things that I need you to do. First thing, if you're not already following me on the gram, be sure to do so, Julie A Ledbetter, Yes, it's with an A name in middle, for that daily post-workout real talk, healthy tips and tricks, and honest accountability to keep your mind and heart in check. The second thing, be sure to subscribe to Apple Podcasts, to never miss an episode. Thank you so much for joining me. It means the absolute world, and I'm going to leave you with one last thought. The most beautiful women that I have met in my life are the ones who are completely confident and secure in being authentically themselves. Remember that beauty goes so much deeper than the surface. So, go out there and embrace your real because you're worth it.