Any long term plan will only be sustained if taste and satisfaction is high. This is affected not just by the food itself but also how you are feeling. When it is 35c you find very few people carving a warm bowl of porridge and likewise we don’t usually grab ice cream the moment we come in the house on a freezing winter’s day.
I am always surveying my clients to see how much taste is in their current diet, I simply ask “on a 0-10 scale how much taste and satisfaction is there in your overall nutrition? (This could be for one day, a week or just an individual meal)
10 – Sensational & fully satisfied🙂 🙂 🙂
8 – Yummy & very satisfied
6 – Ok / Quite nice & fairly satisfied
4 – Not nice & not satisfied
2 – Horrible & totally unsatisfied
0 – Disgusting – somebody shoot me!
For me, I would want my clients to be eating with at least a 7.5/10, ideally an 8/10. This is the threshold that allows you to enjoy your meals enough to follow your plan even on lower motivation days. So, how do you raise the level of taste in your diet? There are four main ways to do this.
Eat More of the Foods You Like – The simplest way to raise taste is to pick foods that you like eating. It sounds easy to do yet time and again in the name of health we do not choose the very foods that we like. You should choose and emphasise the healthy, sensible foods that you really like and enjoy.
Eat Less Of The Foods You Do Not Like – The other side of the coin of picking your favourite healthy foods is stopping the foods you do not overly love. There are no foods that have to be eaten to get results so dropping any particular food, however healthy it may be, will not affect your results yet can really improve the taste of your meal.
Add Extra Elements Of Taste – For many, the typical healthy plan is ok to eat but just a bit boring. To increase satisfaction, you can make use of various options to increase taste such adding sauces, condiments, herbs or spices etc.
Use “Bad” Foods / Take Off Days etc – The final way people raise their overall taste of the plan is by adding in “bad” foods or taking off days. For some they are happy with their healthy diet if they add a bit of chocolate each day. For others, they prefer to take meals or days off to eat whatever foods they want. This allows you to be more content with your nutrition strategy with greatly enhanced long term adherence.
What Does This Mean For You
You cannot get around the need to feel satisfied with your food. You need to work with where your base plan to ensure you meet your minimum threshold of taste and satisfaction. Over time, you can change what foods you enjoy and what you crave so that you seek out ‘healthy’ options naturally. It is common for your tastes to change in both ‘good’ or ‘bad’ directions.
Most people who are trying to change their body shape worry that by adding in taste they will dramatically eat more food. I do not usually find this to be the case, it is more the other way round. By not giving yourself enough freedom you continually end up not sticking to your plan and end up eating too much as a result. The same applies for people just trying to eat healthily, a lack of taste usually ends up causing you to seek out more variety which almost always is a less healthy choice.
There are many ways to add taste without dramatically increasing the energy content of food itself. What is ideal for you is a personal thing as taste desires vary so much. Almost everyone shudders at the bodybuilding diet I used to use when I competed. I ate tuna and mashed potato with sea salt for 75% of my meals. It may have been boring but I used this to lose 40kg+ in preparation for my five bodybuilding shows. I found my food to be 8/10 satisfying which with the addition of one off day every Sunday I easily could stick to it.
How would you rate your overall taste and satisfaction when following a plan to be healthier or change body shape?
Photo – Some shots from my bodybuilding with shows in 2014, 2019 and 2021.
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