Diet vs Lifestyle Change: Which One Actually Lasts?

Nikkiey: A lifestyle change is a long-term commitment to living a healthy, sustainable, realistic, balanced lifestyle.

What's up, you guys? Welcome back to The WarriorBabe Show with Nikkiey Stott, co-founder and brand personality of WarriorBabe, where we talk about mindset, methodologies, and tactics that will help you lose body fat, build muscle, be strong, and feel insanely confident. I am your host, Nikkiey Stott, and welcome to episode number 24, all about the difference between a diet, following a diet or being on a diet, versus an actual lifestyle change.

So that's what I'm going to discuss with you guys today, the difference between the two. First of all, when it comes to health and fitness and health and wellness and that space, a lot of people often use these terms, diet and lifestyle change, interchangeably. And while they may seem similar, there are some important differences between the two. So I just want to distinguish those important differences. And obviously, you guys know I'm all about the lifestyle change. I ain't about the diet phase. But just for the sake of the podcast, allowing it to be discussed in full detail, that's what we're going to do today. Okay.

So firstly, a diet is a temporary approach. You guys know that. It's a temporary approach to food that's usually focused on achieving a couple of things, like the physical aesthetics: I want to lose 10 pounds in two months, so I go on this low carb keto diet to lose all of this weight in X amount of time. Or someone has a specific health goal, like fixing a particular health issue. For instance, some people may adopt a low carb diet because their doctor tells them to go on it, or a gluten free diet to manage their celiac disease. Right. So the doctor says go on this diet because it's going to get to the root problem, which will help alleviate the symptoms, which will then fix the problem.

So diets can be helpful in the short term for those things. But when it comes to "I want to lose X amount of weight in X amount of time, so let me cut out a whole nutritional group," that requires a lot of willpower. It can often be difficult to sustain, to maintain, right? Let's just say what it is. People lose 10 pounds and then, the majority of the time, they usually gain it all back.

And also, diets just don't provide the necessary nutrients that your body needs for optimal health, because typically, like I said, you're cutting out a whole nutritional group. You think about low carb diets or the keto diet. They're like, no to this type of food. And not to mention, diets are very restrictive. It's like, low carb diet, I can't eat bread. Keto diet, let's just eliminate an entire food group.

I remember when I was at a business event a couple years ago, I was sitting next to this woman and she complimented me on my figure. And I was like, how about you? What are you trying to do? She was overweight. And she naturally brought up that she was doing her best trying to follow the keto diet. And I was like, oh, really? How long have you been in ketosis? And this is what I mean, guys. It's just so hard to maintain. She was like, well, I broke that last night because I ate carbs. I'm like, okay. I love the people that try, that want to try it. But find something.

And that's where I'm going to talk about lifestyle change. That is a long-term commitment to living a healthy, balanced lifestyle. That's what a lifestyle change is. This involves a holistic approach to health that encompasses a variety of areas, not just your diet, not just what you're following, and not just "I'm going to hop on this bandwagon." It encompasses diet, exercise, stress management, proper sleep, sleep hygiene, staying hydrated, all of the things that are just so important. So it's not just about what you eat, but also how you guys live your lives on a day-to-day basis.

Lifestyle changes are so much more sustainable because they involve developing new habits, like I talked about in the last episode and in previous episodes. You're developing new supporting habits, new routines that are integrated into your daily life. That's a lifestyle change.

That is why I love macronutrients so much. Macronutrients are not another diet, right? It's not like I'm jumping on the macronutrient train today. Macronutrients are a lifestyle change that will serve you for the rest of your life. It is a skill set that will serve you for the rest of your life. You are understanding food. You are understanding what is being placed on your plate. You are understanding portion sizes. You do this long enough, you're going to know what three ounces of chicken looks like, what a half a cup of rice looks like. I guarantee it. I'm telling you this because I'm living proof eight years later. I can look at a plate of food and be like, that's a protein, that's a carb, that's a fat, and probably give a ballpark estimate of how much it is in ounces and grams. So you're developing these habits, these routines, this understanding of food that encompasses an entire lifestyle change. Okay.

So let me talk about some examples of diets. There are so many different diets out there, and they have their own set of rules and restrictions. So you guys know a low carb diet involves reducing the amount of carbohydrates that you consume. And typically, people know this diet to be eliminating bread and pasta and rice. It's like, why do you have to eliminate that? You don't have to. You just need to understand what portion sizes you should have of this specific food group in your day, right?

And keto, this is another very popular diet. It's a very low carb, high fat diet that's designed to put your body in the state of ketosis, where it burns more fat for energy instead of glucose. But why? You can have carbohydrates. You can have these fuel sources used interchangeably throughout your day and still get the results that you want.

Keto, guys, is not sustainable. Cool if you want to do it for a couple of months, no hate towards it in that sense. If you want to do it and you can sustain it, you can maintain it, you're not going in and out of ketosis, which is just elongating and delaying you from getting to where you want to be and defeats the whole point of a keto diet, then do it, whatever. But for the long term, really, let me just ask you guys, do you really think you're going to eliminate carbs for the rest of your life? I mean, no. I'm thinking somebody may say, yeah, Nikkiey, I totally could. Really? Okay. That just may be a lie, to be like, I can totally do it. But be realistic with yourself and have some type of self-awareness, common sense, that you are not going to be able to eliminate carbs for the rest of your life.

Why would you want to do that? First of all, carbs are great. Hashtag make carbs great again, please. Carbs are great for you, and especially, the keto diet can make it really hard for you to gain muscle. And if that's what you're here listening to this podcast to be able to do, you need carbs in your routine. You need carbs in your everyday nutritional plan. All right.

And then there's the gluten free diet, too. This involves cutting out gluten, such as wheat, barley, rye, all those things. And it's mainly recommended for people with celiac disease or gluten intolerances. Cool. That has a purpose. But like the other two, and there are so many other diets out there, I'm totally missing a ton of them. There's Whole30. There's Beachbody. There's Shakeology, where you're just drinking shakes. There's a ton out there. They have their own rules. They have their own restrictions.

And that's the thing. When it comes to a quote unquote diet, you're doing something to eliminate something. It's just some type of temporary approach to food. Right. And like I mentioned, diets may be helpful for some people in achieving health goals, but they're often not sustainable in the long term and can lead to feelings of deprivation and restriction. People want to diet for two months to lose 10 pounds. Then they eliminate specific things and they feel deprived from eliminating those things. So they put all of those things back into the routine and then they gain back those 10 pounds. Nobody wants to live that way, guys. Nobody wants to freaking live that way. Okay. And if you've been on that train, now it stops, because I want you guys to develop lifestyle changes. Okay.

So let's look at some examples of a lifestyle change. These are changes that you make in your daily life that will have a positive impact on your health and, most importantly, your well-being. I mentioned that it's not just eating and what you eat. It's not just having a balanced diet. It's incorporating regular exercise, because some people do go on diets, yet they don't exercise. They just eliminate specific things in their diet to lose 10 pounds in two months, and they're not doing any type of physical exercise. They're just slashing their calories in half and calling it a day. Right?

So a lifestyle change is not just what you eat. It's how you exercise. It's stress management. It's sleep hygiene. It's making sure you're getting enough water in your day. It's so many things. It's all of the habits, all of the routines, the new things that you're putting into your life that are supporting you and the outcome that you want, not just the physical attributes of yourself, but also the well-being of your state of mind. Okay? Your mental well-being.

So eating a balanced diet involves consuming a variety, providing your body all of the necessary nutrients for your body to function properly. It's about making healthy choices most of the time rather than following strict rules and strict restrictions. So it's having protein, fats, and carbs, AKA following macronutrients. Again, it's not a diet. It's a skill set that will serve you for the rest of your life. Okay?

So following a balanced diet, having regular exercise in your routine, having some type of strength training in your routine, that is going to help you form strong bones and build up muscle around those bones. Guys, muscle is an organ of longevity. The more muscle you have, I guarantee the more years you're going to add to your life. So incorporate regular exercise, strength training, definitely. Going for a walk, taking a yoga class, right? Exercise is essential for maintaining good physical and mental health. Period. End of story.

Now there are other things, like stress management. This involves finding ways to manage it. The majority of this world is under stress. A lot of people experience stress on a day-to-day basis, whether they're experiencing stress in their work life, with their family, with their significant others, friends, yada, yada, yada. Everybody experiences it. And with the state of the world, everybody experiences some kind of stress. Okay. But this involves you finding ways to manage and reduce that stress. Practicing deep breathing, practicing mindfulness. 10 minutes, guys. 10 minutes. It's not this woo-woo shit. That shit is real. You take 10 minutes to just be centered with yourself.

Even working out. Working out for one hour is 4% of your day. I don't want to hear that you don't have the time to make it for yourself. You have 10 minutes. You have an hour to make time for yourself, to make sure you're managing your stress and reducing your stress. All right.

Spending time in nature is great. I love going for hikes. I love being outside. I love being one with nature. It feels so damn good. So incorporate those things, you guys. You're going to develop a good stress management routine just by involving those things in your practice. It doesn't have to be every single day, but it can at least be the weekends. Great time to get outside. Great time to practice mindfulness.

Put yourself in the closet in the morning. I've had clients do this. They have a crazy household full of kids and a husband running around in the morning. Dude, take 10 minutes. Go put yourself in the closet. Sit down. Just be in silence. I promise you it's going to help. I've seen it help drastically with the clients I've worked with. All right. So that's stress management.

And then there's sleep hygiene. Oh, man. I'm going to actually do a podcast on sleep coming up. But this involves you guys developing healthy sleep habits, like going to bed and waking up at the same time, stopping watching TV and bright lights before you go to bed, and getting enough quality sleep every single night. At least seven hours. I would say seven to eight. I know some of you guys rock on five to six. But dude, if you can, just try and make this a lifestyle change for yourself.

And again, you don't have to try and fix all of these things, but at least fix one of them. Apply it to your life. Practice it daily, right? Two weeks. Then try and add in another one. That's how you form habits. And that's what a lifestyle change is.

A lifestyle change is you developing new habits and routines that are integrated into your daily life. These lifestyle changes are sustainable because they involve creating new habits and routines that become a part of your daily life. I can't say it enough. That's a lifestyle change. That's the difference from what a diet is. Lifestyle changes aren't focused on deprivation. They're not focused on restriction. They're not focused on an X amount of timeline that you have to achieve a specific goal in. They're not telling you to cut out specific nutrients in your routine, right? A lifestyle change is helping you to make positive choices that will benefit your health and your well-being in the long term. Period. End of story. That's what a lifestyle change is. That's the difference from what a diet is.

And that's why I will always say, and you guys will hear me say this all the time, that macros are not a freaking diet. And the people that go into it approaching it like a diet, y'all need to change your old patterns, your old beliefs, your old systems, and eliminate all of the things that you've tried in the past, which have been diets, and allow for a fresh outlook on macronutrients and understand that this is a skill set that will serve you for the rest of your life. It is a lifestyle change. You are developing new habits and routines just by learning and understanding macronutrients. I promise you.

Hey, real quick. If you want to learn more about macronutrients and understand the methodology of how they can help you achieve your body composition goals of changing the way your body looks, I put together a free 15-minute training where I dive into macronutrients and how you can control your body for the rest of your life with them. That link is in the description below. Click on it after listening to the show today.

To sum this all up, the difference between a diet and a lifestyle change is that a diet is a temporary approach to food. It's usually focused on achieving an X amount of aesthetic appearance in an X amount of time, like dropping 10 pounds in one month or two months, or there's some type of specific health goal, or they're going on a diet to do a health regime, or yada, yada, yada. A lifestyle change is a long-term commitment to living a healthy, sustainable, realistic, balanced lifestyle. Okay?

Diets may be helpful in the short term. If you go into the next crash diet that's out there that everyone's doing and talking about, you will definitely lose weight. They'll work in the short term. But they will not help you develop long-lasting, sustainable changes: lifestyle changes, habits, routines, all of the things that can be effective for you in the long term. Okay? So that's the difference between the two. Diet, lifestyle change.

I hope you guys found this podcast valuable. I definitely love diving into these and just speaking to it out loud like that, because I hope it's drilled home to y'all: stop focusing on the next diet, or "I need to go on a diet," or "I need to follow a diet," and focus on creating a lifestyle change for yourself. Okay, guys. Peace out. See you in the next episode.

Real quick. The only ask I could ever have of you guys is to help spread the word so we can help more women lose body fat, build muscle, reach their goals, and feel insanely confident. And the only way we can do that is if you rate, review, and share this podcast. So the single thing I ask you to do is leave a review. It will take you 10 seconds, and it will mean the absolute world to me and may change the world of someone else.