I am a firm believer that your thoughts become things. I went through a few phases to get to this point now, where I feel there is a balance that I am happy with. The balance starts with your thoughts and expectations, that turns into a plan that you can follow for the rest of your life. We are after long term success. This is not going to happen if you think you will be perfect and then beat yourself up when you make a mistake.

People often think about Bulimia Nervosa  and Anorexia Nervosa when they think of eating disorders. They don't think about Orthorexia Nervosa.  

Orthorexia Nervosa - eating disorder in which an individual has an excessive and ultimately unhealthy obsession about maintaining a diet that is totally "healthy" and "pure"

    Generic diet plans without coaching the individual lead to eating disorders. It's the reason why we like to start things off with consultation before just jumping in to the diet (or exercise). I had to go through a few phases to get to the point that I am happy with where I am at. Maybe some of you will notice yourself in one of these phases and realize your relationship with food, and ultimately with yourself, has to change before any plan can work. Thoughts lead to action, so I will break them down into my thought process during each phase.

Phase One: There was no real thought at all about food. I was young, enjoyed exercising and did it often. I obsessed over exercise and this along with being 20ish allowed me to get away with anything. I was in the field, so of course I had some basic knowledge about nutrition that helped me. I had no real structure though, and no solid habits. Towards the end of this phase when I entered the real world and got crazy busy, I adopted some bad habits. Mainly eating out, a lot. Some people love sweets, some snacks, but my thing was fast food. So you can put two and two together and realize I gained weight, a lot of it - like 30lbs. When you hear me say you can't out train a bad diet I am saying this from experience. When you hear me say results take time, but time flies, this also goes in the opposite direction.

Phase Two: Obsessive thought about food. I worked with a contest prep bodybuilding coach and this was both a blessing and a curse. I learned more from the experience than from any of the PHDs who were only talking in theory. The positive was that I dropped about 25 lbs in the first 12 weeks. A lot of these habits stuck which is a very good thing. I realized I was eating foods that were bad for me, that I did not even like. These were the foods that were easy to get rid of forever. So, if I ate out I was not the guy who craved fries or a soda, but that burger - oh that thick burger was. a. problem!

    There were some serious negatives that went along with phase two. I adopted what I would call "bro eating" habits that did not fit with my lifestyle. I was eating like a contest bodybuilder even though there was no contest in site. Think eating 6 times per day, Tupperware, boring meals, and a grocery list of about 10 things (water was one of them). I started to take supplements, that I now know did nothing. I was that dude sprinting faster than Usain Bolt, to my car, just to get the post workout shake in during the "magical window". The mindset and lifestyle does not allow you to enjoy going out with friends, holidays, and it damages your relationship with food. You see, food became what I thought about 24/7 and this is not good. You become what you think about, so this phase led me to going back and forth with weight fluctuations. I was "perfect" and this led to a damaging mindset when I made a "mistake."

Phase Three: I am happy to be in phase three right now. I call this balance and its starts with my mindset. I don't have names for my diets anymore.  My weight is stable and stays in a healthy range. Sometimes in life you have to go through unbalanced periods in order to achieve balance later. You will make mistakes, so learn from them and view this thing called life as a process. I eat high quality food 90% of the time, and the other 10% of the time is where that burger comes in.