May
19
The Five Rules Of Eating Healthy
Filed Under Eating Healthy, Nutrition
When I first started turning my life around, I read quite a bit about eating healthy. I looked through magazines, books, blogs and any other source of information I could find. While there was a lot of good advice out there, I felt a little overwhelmed. There was so much information out there, so many tips, so many things to do and so many things not to do. I felt like I needed to analyze every single bite I ate down to the smallest component, total up everything hour by hour and then make careful adjustments meal by meal.
Did I have enough protein today? Better increase that measure of Tofu for dinner by 5grams! Did I have enough vitamin D? How about carbs? Did I eat enough or too many? Wait, I just ate an orange. Oh no, now my vitamin intake is all out of whack! It just felt like there was no way to achieve that perfect diet and if my diet wasn’t perfect then I was in danger of backsliding.
Well, after a year of driving myself a little crazy, I started relaxing. I started trusting my own judgment when it came to food. I started understanding that I don’t need to have the perfect balance of protein, fat and carbs every single day, things will balance out over a few days or a week and that’s just fine. Rather than diving into the minutiae of my diet, I started looking at the overall picture. Over the next two or three years, I developed a few basic rules by which I eat. I find these easy to follow and easy to remember.
Before I list my rules of eating, I would like to give credit where credit is due. One, some or all of these rules were inspired by YOU: The Owner’s Manual: An Insider’s Guide to the Body that Will Make You Healthier and Younger
Please note that over the next week I plan to review each of these in more detail, so I hope you don’t mind the quick treatment they each get in this post. I want to provide people with a quick summary of the rules in general before moving on to detailed discussions.
1. Eat a variety of foods
Most foods are not balanced nutritionally and there are very few if any “super” foods that contain everything you need to consume in the proper amounts. So rather than worry about which amino acid you’re missing out on today, just eat a variety of foods from a variety of cuisines. Don’t restrict your diet too much or stick to only one type of food.
2. If they wouldn’t recognize it in the 19th century, you probably shouldn’t be eating it today
This is a paraphrasing of Pollan’s rule “if your grandmother wouldn’t recognize it, you shouldn’t be eating it.” Well, my grandmother is still alive thankfully and she’d recognize quite a bit of crappy food. So I modified this a bit. Essentially, this is a rule meant to protect you from all the overly processed junk available today. If you showed what you’re about to eat to someone from a hundred years ago, would they recognize it as food or what they wonder what they hell you were thinking about for putting this crap in your mouth? This also applies to heavily processed versions of old fashioned food. For example, pasta is fine, highly processed pasta that went through three factories and two refining processes before ending up on your plate is not.
3. The 1/2, 1/4, 1/4 rule of balanced meals
I’m really sick of trying to measure serving sizes. What the heck is the right serving size for meats? Is a tomato one vegetable serving? What about a large tomato? How can a cup of milk be the same serving size of dairy as a slice of cheese?!? Rather than worry about all this, I just balance my plate. 1/2 leafy or crunchy vegetables like spinach, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, peppers and so on. 1/4 starchy vegetables like potatoes, squashes, beans and others. Then finish it off with 1/4 protein like meat, tofu, dairy or legumes. Will this always be the perfect balanced meal? Not always, but things will balance out over time and at least you won’t drive yourself crazy doing portion control.
4. Eat slowly and enjoy your food.
When you eat fast you eat too much. Eat slow, savor your meal, enjoy the flavors and the food. This was one of the hardest rules for me and one I still struggle with. If you’ve seen me eat, you know I eat fast, but believe me, I eat a lot slower than I used to.
5. Eat when you’re hungry, stop when you’re not
The three meals a day plan is for people who’s bodies operate on some abnormal mechanical clock. Stop listening to how society tells you to eat and start listening to your body. If you’re hungry, eat. When you’re not hungry stop eating. If that means eating at 2pm instead of lunch time, that’s fine. If it means not finishing your restaurant portion, that’s fine too.
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That’s it, 5 easy rules to live by that don’t require much in the way of scientific analysis. On Wednesday, we start talking about the first one and what exactly it means.
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I really like this article. I also believe in small rules or small steps to making lifestyle changes. I agree that it can be very overwhelming out there in the health and fitness world. I have had many clients tell me that sometimes they just give up because they don’t want to count, measure or think about anything anymore–too much information. You give 5 simple, easy to follow rules–This is great! Keep up the good work!
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