Maintaining a Healthy Diet
The Right way to do it
These days when you walk into a bookstore, you won’t find Bryce Courtney or John Grisham on the number one seller list. To my disappointment all you’ll most probably find is some ‘Fad’ dieting book on how to clean your liver or flush your colon or some other craze that’s sweeping the land. Most of them should be entitled “How I became rich at your expense” or “How to get an eating disorder in ten easy steps” or “how to flush your health down the toilet”.
That may sound a little harsh but in essence it is probably true. Most of those diet books aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. You probably get more nutritional value out of those books by eating them.
So who does have the best diet advice?
None of those books I can tell you. The only way to get a diet that will work for you is to see a Dietician. A good diet is a lot like Chinese Medicine. The treatment is individual and is tailored to the patient’s needs and body type. The one pill fixes all rule doesn’t apply.
Before we all trundle off to see our local dietician maybe there are a few things that we can do for ourselves first. Firstly we should look at what we eat, how much we eat, how often we eat and lastly, discard all those pre-conceived thoughts we had on dieting, learned from those trashy women’s magazines.
There is no magical pill and there is no magical easy way. It takes a lot of work and some sensible eating to achieve any loss at all. Once you can get the ‘magical fix’ concept out of your mind, you can begin to start to do something about it.
The other main problem with people is the perception of what is good and what is bad for them to eat. Perceptions are usually based on assumptions, not on facts. Most people perceptions on what is good are so far left field that it is not funny. Most perceptions are also brought about to justify what we are doing is right.
Most people that come to see me about weight issues are waiting for me to tell them that there is a ‘magical pill’ behind the counter that will instantly take away all those years of bad dietary habits. Nobody wants to hear that it takes effort and a change in your thinking process. Remember, nobody has put that weight there except you. Therefore, you cannot hold anyone responsible for getting rid of it. This may sound harsh, but it is the cold hard truth. Even with a magical pill, unless you change your eating habits, the weight will come back once you stop taking them.
The main problem with 90% of people with regards to weight loss is that they don’t eat breakfast and don’t exercise enough. The other main problem is an excessive amount of carbohydrates and not eating regularly.
Breakfast should be the most important meal of the day and yet many people just either don’t have enough or totally skip it altogether.
The word ‘Breakfast’, means exactly that- (Break…Fast). You’ve just fasted for 6-8 hrs, and now you are breaking your fast. It is time to fill your body up to start the day. Yet, as I said, a good 90% of people just don’t do that.
When most people are asked do they eat breakfast, nearly all of them say ‘yes’. Many just say no. But, this is where it all falls down. Next you ask them what they top their stores up with at the beginning of the day. Most of them answer ……. ‘Toast and a cup of tea or coffee’.
Many of them also answer just a bowl of cereal and a glass of orange juice. Some of them class a smoke and a coffee as breakfast. No wonder so many people are so tired at the end of the day and suffer from mood swings all day long. Most people aren’t fuelling their bodies to cope with the gruelling day ahead. If this is you then it is time to change your dietary habits.
Why fill up with a heavy meal at the end of the day once you have stopped. What good is that? The whole idea is to fuel up at the beginning to get through the day. Fuelling up at the end of the day is a waste of time and only sits there all night.
A good analogy of this is going on a long car journey. Do you just put $5 worth of fuel in and see how far you get before you have to fill again?
Over that period of a journey you will be stopping many times, burning up more fuel and letting the car get down near empty (sugar drops) all the time. If you do this regularly, the car will develop engine damage (fatigue, ulcers, constipation, cancer etc), and have a lot of wear and tear and repairs to do. It might not wear out soon, but over a long period of time it will just have one problem after another, or just give out with no warning.
Now, what happens if we fill the car up before we go?
We get better fuel economy (no sugar drops), we can travel better, and less wear and tear on the engine (less problems internally)
One of the main problems with our society with regards to bad dietary habits was the advent of the breakfast cereal. This is half the reason; the other main reasons are time and convenience.
The breakfast cereal is time effective and very convenient, but it has caused a huge reversal in the way we are supposed to eat. Instead of having a light snack like cereal at night, we are now having it in the morning. Instead of having our main meal in the morning, when we need it to fuel our day, we are having it at night when it is totally of no use to us at all. It just sits in your stomach all night and most of it gets converted to fat. No wonder our society now has to deal with weight and digestive problems. The other main problems with most cereals are that they are full of hidden sugars.
So, what is the right way to eat?
I firmly believe that the first step to losing or maintaining a balanced weight is to eat a good breakfast, and maintain some sort of regular exercise of course. Those old sayings, eat like a King in the morning, eat like a Prince for lunch and eat like a Peasant at dinnertime, should still apply today. But, many people will say “I can’t eat breakfast” or I feel sick if I eat breakfast or I couldn’t eat like that in the morning. Well that may be true for now. But after a bit of persistence and reversal of habits, you find yourself not being able to go without that hearty meal of a morning.
It took me a few weeks to get used to it too. But once you get used to it, you’ll notice a great difference in your energy and health. Most people notice a drop in weight within a few weeks.
If you still are having problems eating a proper hearty breakfast then this may suggest that you have a sluggish digestive system and you may need some help getting it back into order.
One simple thing you can do of a morning, before eating, is put a few teaspoons of lemon juice or apple cider vinegar in a half a glass of warm water. This will help stimulate the digestive juices and help you to get your appetite back.
The other main problem, this is now a clinically, fully research proven fact, is our over consumption of carbohydrates and underconsumption of proteins.
Too many cereals, breads, pastas and high-refined processed foods are causing all the problems. Carbohydrates are short chain sugars that are burned fairly quickly, but also cause many problems. Too many carbs cause an excess of blood sugar, which leads to excess insulin, which leads the body to store fat and stops the burning of fat that has already been stored. Insulin also promotes the inflammatory conditions that are the causes of many common ailments and conditions. Obesity, Diabetes, PMS, Depression, Arthritis, Chronic tiredness, Allergies, Asthma, High Blood pressure etc.
The other main problem is that we should be eating every 3-4 hours. After 4 hours the sugar drops and the body starts to feel fatigued and then stores fat again.
The other main fact that is missed is that we all have bad digestion. In Chinese medicine, over-consumption of too many cold raw foods impairs the digestive function. Too many icy cold drinks, beer, ice-cream, smoothies, cold salads etc, all impair the digestion.
What we have to remember is, that the digestion relies on a chemical process of a reaction-taking place to digest our food.
Our body runs on 37degrees Celsius and therefore for any process in our body to take place it requires this temperature to run at optimum efficiency.
Therefore put a cold piece of fruit straight out of the refrigerator at 5 degrees Celsius into the stomach. This cold piece of food then lowers the temp in the stomach. The stomach then has to try and bring this cold substance up to 37 degrees for digestion to take place. This requires more acid, which in turn requires more mucus to be made to protect the stomach lining. It also requires a lot more energy.
More acid, more mucus and we get fluid build up and bloating taking place and a lot of energy being taken for this one piece of fruit. Do this over a lifetime and you are literally using up most of your energy just to digest your food. Also the digestion is impaired from all the extra work it has to do. Go back to the car that chooses the hard way.
The Chinese have been very conscious of dietary habits to keep them well for over 10,000 years.
One of the other main factors behind not being able to budge those few extra kilos is stress. Sometimes the stress of dieting can counteract the diet that you are on. Have you often seen this really slim person who can put anything into his/her mouth and not gain weight or even put on an inch. Most of the time when these people are asked how they can do this, their answer is they eat and don’t worry about it. This lack of stress, and probably a very fast metabolism, may be the key to losing those extra inches.
Speaking about metabolism, this brings me to the next topic.
Most people that have a problem with shifting weight probably have a slow metabolism. So, the next step for these people is to speed the metabolism up. So how do we do that?
The answer strangely enough is, “Eat more”
Most of you are now thinking that this is crazy, since most of us would think that we should be cutting down our food intake. But this is where most of us go wrong. Instead of increasing our food intake we all tend to drop it and even skip meals. This then slows the metabolism down and the body starts to store fat.
By rights we shouldn’t let the body go more than 3 hours without eating. After three hours or so the body’s sugar levels start to drop and then the body goes into famine mode, so to speak. By this it means that the body doesn’t know when the next lot of food is coming. So, it starts to store food as fat for reserves in case no more food is coming for a while. So, by skipping meals and not eating, to lose weight, is actually not going to help you at all. It is actually going to make it worse.
To speed up the metabolism we need do start eating more. When I say eating more, I mean more in frequency. Smaller meals, more often. Instead of three meals a day it should really be 5-6 meals. Never let the body go more than 4 hours without eating. It is dangerous to do so anyway and most of us tend to do this in this busy world with all its deadlines. By letting your sugar levels drop to danger levels it can cause many problems. Tiredness, fatigue, mood-swings, migraines and maybe even worse. Many people that suffer from headaches and migraines get them because they have let their sugar levels drop too low. This is why many of them crave sweet things just before an attack. They then blame the food they ate before, for the problem. The problem is really that they let themselves go to long before eating. So don’t skip meals.
So what should the average daily diet look like?
I’ll give you an example to follow. But remember this is only an example and that everyone is an individual case. The only real way to get the perfect diet for you is to get one individually tailored to your needs.
Example Diet 1. (For meat eaters)
Breakfast - (Always make breakfast the most important meal of the day)
Protein (Eggs on toast, Bacon and eggs (not every day obviously), Steak and vege, Baked beans on toast, mushrooms on toast, mince on toast, rissoles, scrambled eggs, sardines, omelette etc.
Protein is to be eaten first. The first thing you put into your mouth regulates your sugar levels for the rest of the day. If you put in short chain sugars like cereals and other sweet thing, you’ll be craving sweet things all day and have your sugar levels dropping and rising like a yo-yo.
Preferable a warm beverage. (Tea, coffee, warm soymilk etc.) (Cold beverages are all right as long as you’ve got something in the stomach first. Never get up and have the first thing going into your stomach be a cold glass of juice or ice cold water. It is so bad for you that it’s not funny. Don’t do it. If you need a drink on waking make sure it is a warm glass of water. Never put cold straight into the stomach. It impedes the digestive system)
Morning tea
Cheese & Olives,( Ham, cheese, tuna, tomato), protein bar, Yoghurt, fresh fruit, protein shake
Beverage (preferable green tea or freshly brewed coffee beans) Not too many cold drinks.
Lunch
Some Protein again preferably (Salad with meat, steak & vege, stir fry, noodles, fish and Veggie/salad, chicken and veggie/salad etc)
If still hungry have some fruit, yoghurt etc.
Beverage (Green tea is good for breaking down any fats and is a good antioxidant)
Afternoon tea
Crackers with toppings, Fresh Fruit, Protein Bar, protein shakes
Yoghurt, cheese, olives and nuts
Beverage
Dinner
Light meals (small piece of fish (palm size piece) and vege, Vege stir fry, Soups, salads
Fruit salads, stewed fruits, dessert occasionally
Beverage (Not caffeine)
Example Diet 2. (Vegetarians)
Breakfast
Protein (Mushrooms on toast, eggs (if not vegan), Tofu and vege, Lentil patty and vege, Baked beans
Nut meat steak and eggs, Avocado & Cheese omelette, Vege casserole etc.
Congee with nuts, veges and beans etc etc
Beverage
Morning Tea
Nuts, cheese, stewed fruits, Soups,
Fruits, nuts and dries fruits, soy yoghurts etc.
Beverage
Lunch
Stir fry with tofu, casserole, stir fry vege, baked vege, Lentil burger, Vege lasagne
Soups, fruit, yoghurt
Beverage
Afternoon Tea
Much the same as morning tea
Dinner
Misso soup, mixed vege, noodles, Rice and vege, etc
Black sesame dessert, tapioca and coconut milk, stewed fruits
Beverage
Conclusion
Remember this is just a guide. It is not a strict rule of thumb. Also with any diet you still should be watching your fat intake, (and maintaining regular exercise). The average is about 30- 40gms of fat per day depending on what you are doing and your body type.
The other thing is, don’t replace real sugars for artificial sweeteners thinking they’ll help more. They don’t. There is evidence that they are cancer forming (carcinogenic). So just go back to plain old sugar. It is preferable to cut back on refined sugars but I’d rather see people using natural sugars than artificial ones. So throw out the diet coke because it’s full of those artificial sweeteners. It may help the weight, but it may give you cancer in the long term.
I hope this has helped some of you in some way. I bet it’s given many of you something to look at. Most of us have very bad diets and we probably all should see a health care practitioner at some time. Not just for maintaining healthy weight, but for maintaining health in general.
There is too much information that I have left out about diet because I’d have to write a whole book. So, if anyone needs any advice, please feel free to call anytime. I’ll give you as much information as I can provide. If I cant help you I can refer you to some very good people who can.
There are one or two last words I’d like to say about dieting though. Don’t ever take it to extremes or start to stress about it. Remember to be happy within yourself first and foremost. The internal is more important than the external. Be happy with who you are. Remember it takes all shapes and sizes to colour the world.