Are these the right foods or the wrong foods?

For a growing number of people who are looking to lose weight or ‘get in shape’ food seems to be divisive topic. The path to a healthy body or to weight loss becomes something that gets wrapped up into an identity which food plays a major role.

Common incarnations of these food related identities include:

Raw Foodies

Vegetarianism and all of it’s incarnations

Low Carb

Paleo style

Locavorism

Macrobiotic

In most cases there is little scientific basis for any of these diet styles but rather there is an ideological basis, a belief system and most of all an identity. In these cases people become part of a group they can identify with based on a list of foods they will and won’t eat.

I’m fully aware that this just offended someone who has never considered their eating pattern as an identity and actually believes there is a scientific rationale for it…I’m sorry to break it to you, but there isn’t…if there were, then all of the other styles would be wrong and yours would be the only right one…sounds a lot like a religion doesn’t it!

Upon closer inspection and when put to the test many of these people are only fair weather followers of their chosen food identity. In other words they sorta follow it but not 100% (at which point I wonder what the point was of having the identity in the first place at all)

But that’s fine. In fact to me that is encouraged, the less radical you get with one of these beliefs the better chance you have of not becoming completely obsessive compulsive about it.

Most normal people don’t think twice about food or where it comes from, they just eat what tastes good to them, and what is wrong with that? These same people could easily lose weight and improve their health by just eating less of those same foods and going to the gym or for a walk. Any food can be part of a healthy lifestyle as long as it doesn’t become the only food you eat. This seems like the healthiest way to eat to me, both from a physiological, psychological and social standpoint.

John

Are you Really Going to Measure Your Ratios Every Meal?

Most weight loss diets will usually give some sort of recommendation of the preferred or optimal protein carb and fat ratio based on the effect is supposedly has on your hormone balance and the way your body digests the food, how it will make you feel yadda yadda.

But what gets left out of the recommendation is the principle of less total calories is what is causing weight loss.

We can debate the merits of a 30/40/30 calorie ratio on appetite and the way it makes you feel all day long, but it’s a rather pointless argument.

If you’ve ever tried to actually eat at a specific ratio you’ll find out that it’s almost impossible. You’d have to measure the protein fat and carb content of each meal and of each individual food. For example you may assume that pasta is a ‘carb’ in this case, but pasta also has a fair bit of protein (and different pasta’s have different protein contents).

Same goes for things like bread, and most dairy products (they all have a mix of protein and carbs, and some of them have all three nutrients)

Balancing the nutrient ratio of a meal makes sense in theory but it’s highly impractical in practice, and as a final note it was never meant to be done on a meal by meal basis but rather on a more long term (weekly basis)

If you happen to eat a bit more carbs and bit less protein today it’s not a big deal, you’ll most likely have another day when you’ll eat more protein later in the week.

The point is that most of these dietary recommendations are meant to be done on a much longer scale than a day or a single meal. Worrying about the macronutrient content of each meal will cause you far more stress than any potential health benefit.

John