Sure!
Why not?
There are worse ways to eat than tons of plants with a little bit of meat.
Being a flexitarian is actually not too different than following the Mediterranean Diet.
It’s the same way of eating, just with a new name.
Author Michael Pollan summed it up years ago with “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.”
Truth be told, healthy eating is more or less the same no matter what you call it.
They just label it with different names to sell books.
Here’s what every nutrition expert agrees on:
- Focus on whole foods
- Eat plenty of protein
- Make room on your plate for lots of vegetables
- Minimize the consumption of processed food or junk food
We lay all this out in our Guide to Healthy Eating, which I would encourage you to check out.
If this is the first time you’ve tried to “eat right,” or the 17th, it’ll help you make small lifestyle changes towards a healthy diet.
This is our preferred approach here at Nerd Fitness.
That will bring me to my one concern on adopting The Flexitarian Diet or any other strict form of semi-vegetarianism: if you change too much at once, it might be overly difficult and you’ll grow frustrated.
Frustration can lead to abandoning a new way of eating.
We see it all the time here: people go Paleo or Keto for 21 days, hate it, then go right back to where they started.
Since they’re now demoralized from the experience, they don’t even try anymore, which is where the real harm comes in.
So try a small step today:
- Make dinner this week.
- Try eating one new vegetable.
- Hell, make it exercise-related and just go for a walk.
This might be better than changing everything at once giving up meat for most of the week.
No matter what you do now, start!
You can’t create new habits if you never get going, so pick something you’re going to work on and try it for a week. Then look back and review your progress:
- If you did the thing, keep going!
- If you didn’t do the thing, no problem!
Make a smaller change this time and try again.
Want some help along the way? The perfect path on where to go from here and what to change?
You got it!
#1) Our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program: a coaching program for busy people to help them make better food choices, stay accountable, and get healthier, permanently.
You can schedule a free call with our team so we can get to know you and see if our coaching program is right for you. Just click on the image below for more details:
#2) Join Nerd Fitness Prime!
Nerd Fitness Prime is our premium membership program that contains live-streamed workouts with NF Coaches, a supportive online community (with many like-minded people embarking on new diets), group challenges, and much more!
#3) Become part of The Rebellion! We have a free email newsletter that we send out twice per week, full of tips and tricks to help you get healthy, get strong, and have fun doing so.
I’ll also send you tons of free guides that you can use to start leveling up your life too:
- Follow our 10-level nutrition system at your own pace
- What you need to know about weight loss and healthy eating
- 3 Simple rules we follow every day to stay on target
Alright, I think that about does it for this article.
Now, your turn:
What are your thoughts on the Flexitarian Diet?
If you follow it, when do you eat meat?
Any tips or tricks to make it sustainable?
Let me know in the comments!
-Steve
PS: If you’re just starting to explore vegetarianism, make sure you read our Beginner’s Guide to Plant-Based Diets so you do it safely and effectively!