Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Lean Eating Progam: Human Support is KEY for Good Eating Big Sig Part of Diet Success
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The holidays usually mean food, unusual eating, making body composition goals 
seemingly risk slipping further away. If achieving such goals has been important to you, or for someone you love, and a trial to date, a simple question may be, despite the difficulty of actioning what to do, do you feel firmly that you know how to achieve your body comp goals and/or how long that process will take? Or if you want to help someone undertaking this process, do you know how?
If you're not 100% sure, you may want to connect with the Lean Eating program, or gift it to someone you love. Here's why: knowledge and human support make the difference for real and lasting diet success. Yesterday i offered a pointer to what real people look like who have made real progress on body comp goals
as a result of two things:
For folks who either have willing folks but without the knowledge (or potentially not great knowledge beyond their own experience) or have great knowledge but lack support - may even be in an environment that will be somewhat resistant to change, well, there are programs that offer this. The one program i know of, and trust, and where as i posted yesterday you can see the kinds of real people results that occur, is Precision Nutritions.
I'm bothering to post about this program again because the Lean Eating Program is about to get ramped up again (last summer's review here), and, as before ,there's a waiting list to get into it. They're opening up an early pre-sign up to get on the next list for the new year (you know, when we all get a little sensitive about post beast/feast effects)
Here's a quote from one of the people who did the program, and wrote about their experience on my first post about the Lean Eating Program
Here's the Executive Summary of the program:
6 months of coaching - en direct, from wherever you are right now, to get to where you want to go. Plus, beyond that regular personal coaching, there is a huge network of passionate people to support your success ( a place where i like to hang out, actually, because of the great expertise there - athletes, trainers, coaches, folks with doctorates in all areas of well being - and all incredibly nice. I can't get over this: folks are so NICE).
Anyway, i hope if you know someone who you think might benefit from this approach, you might encourage them to put their name on the waiting list. Something just for your well being (or theirs) for the New Year. And you ARE worth it.
THis just isn't one of those 12 weeks is all it takes to change oh, everything, to get results type approaches. A six month/26 weeks space is realistic NOT just to get on some kind of diet, but to get one with the type of habit changes that may be needed to support building up practices that support progress. Really, its' so not about the food. Food is good and important, and we learn an awful lot about it with PN, but more than anything else the PN approach is about habits. We know how challenging it can be to change existing habits, especially about something as loaded as food.
Which brings me back to support and coaching. Especially if you or someone you know has been yo-yo'ing around dieting with whatever approach, here's time to think about the fact there's nothing wrong with you; we are wired in certain ways with respect to food, and it takes effort and support and knowledge to rewire these habits. Changing habits isn't inate knowledge, either. Understanding this - that it's not us the eaters who are screwed up - is half the battle; getting knowledge but also the support and good guidance on retuning and building up knowledgeful habits for what will work FOR THE LONG TERM for us, is a key part of the other.
Vote Your Support. If you'd like to show support for those real people who have participated in the Body Comp Competition of the Lean Eating Challenge, please vote for your faves here:
Related Posts
Tweet Follow @begin2dig
seemingly risk slipping further away. If achieving such goals has been important to you, or for someone you love, and a trial to date, a simple question may be, despite the difficulty of actioning what to do, do you feel firmly that you know how to achieve your body comp goals and/or how long that process will take? Or if you want to help someone undertaking this process, do you know how?If you're not 100% sure, you may want to connect with the Lean Eating program, or gift it to someone you love. Here's why: knowledge and human support make the difference for real and lasting diet success. Yesterday i offered a pointer to what real people look like who have made real progress on body comp goals
as a result of two things:
- great nutrition practice info and
- great support.
A few months ago we ran a survey of a sample of Precision Nutrition members. We asked them a number of different questions, some of which were to ascertain their level of fitness, some of which were to test their nutritional knowledge, and some of which were to determine their access to mentorship and social support.DO you have the Support You'll Need? It may be that you may have a fabulous community or at least a few important people in your world who can provide great info and super support for your goals in nutrition. Way to go. THose people all need seasonal cards.The results were fascinating.
We wanted to know how much of an impact mentorship and social support actually have on a person’s ability to reach their physique goals.
So we asked people to rate their happiness with their own physique on a scale from 1 to 5, like so:
- Extremely unhappy – I’m nowhere near my goal and I doubt I can make it.
- Unhappy – I’m far from my goal but I’m willing to do something about it.
- Ambivalent – I’m working toward my goal but I’ve got a ways to go.
- Happy – I’m close to my goal and making progress.
- Extremely Happy – I’ve achieved my goal and I’m working on maintenance now.
We then looked only at the people who answered [5. Extremely Happy] in order to measure the impact of various factors on their success.
What stood out immediately was the fact that there wasn’t a significant difference in nutritional knowledge between the people who had achieved their goals (the 5’s) and the people who were still working on it (the 3’s and 4’s).
The people who achieved their goals knew their stuff (you have to, of course – success is not an accident), but so did many of the “in progress” people. In other words, you need to understand nutrition science – but it isn’t enough to get in great shape.
But then we looked at the response to this question:
“Have you ever had regular mentorship from someone who was in the exact shape you wanted to be in?”
Note: In this context, regular mentorship is defined as constructive and impartial feedback and direction, on a near-daily basis, for a continuous period of at least 3 months.
And check this out:
77% of the 5’s said “Yes” (37 out of 48)
Only 17% of the 3’s and 4’s said “Yes”
And less than 5% of the 1’s and 2’s said “Yes”
That’s a remarkable difference! Think about what that means for a second: you need to know a lot about exercise and nutrition, that’s true; but most of all, you need to find someone who’s where you want to be, and lean on them for help
For folks who either have willing folks but without the knowledge (or potentially not great knowledge beyond their own experience) or have great knowledge but lack support - may even be in an environment that will be somewhat resistant to change, well, there are programs that offer this. The one program i know of, and trust, and where as i posted yesterday you can see the kinds of real people results that occur, is Precision Nutritions.
I'm bothering to post about this program again because the Lean Eating Program is about to get ramped up again (last summer's review here), and, as before ,there's a waiting list to get into it. They're opening up an early pre-sign up to get on the next list for the new year (you know, when we all get a little sensitive about post beast/feast effects)
Here's a quote from one of the people who did the program, and wrote about their experience on my first post about the Lean Eating Program
I joined the program to get thru tax season without gaining another 15 pounds! I go from working 40 hours a week to 76 (avg) for 2.5 months during tax season. Usually, I put nutrition and training on hold. "I'm too busy."
The LEP taught me how to get organized, prioritize, and keep on track. Working 76 hours per week, I still had the time to train 5 hours per week, plus make all of my own meals and take them with me each day. I went from a tight size 8 to a loose size 4. :) And during the process, I was happy about it. (Training makes me feel good, and eating PN style gives me energy. Great combination!)
Tax season this year was much easier on my family. I was happy and energetic, instead of wiped out and irritable. :)
Here's the Executive Summary of the program:
- Group coaching program for women who want to become lean, fit and healthy the PN way
- 6 month duration
- Taught by world-class nutrition instructor
- All resources online and downloadable, 24/7
- Private support forum with guaranteed responses
- Daily instruction, weekly seminars
- Monitored action tasks and assignments
- Results guaranteed: 100% satisfaction or the course is free
- Plus, win $10,000 if you achieve the best transformation in the group
6 months of coaching - en direct, from wherever you are right now, to get to where you want to go. Plus, beyond that regular personal coaching, there is a huge network of passionate people to support your success ( a place where i like to hang out, actually, because of the great expertise there - athletes, trainers, coaches, folks with doctorates in all areas of well being - and all incredibly nice. I can't get over this: folks are so NICE).
Anyway, i hope if you know someone who you think might benefit from this approach, you might encourage them to put their name on the waiting list. Something just for your well being (or theirs) for the New Year. And you ARE worth it.
THis just isn't one of those 12 weeks is all it takes to change oh, everything, to get results type approaches. A six month/26 weeks space is realistic NOT just to get on some kind of diet, but to get one with the type of habit changes that may be needed to support building up practices that support progress. Really, its' so not about the food. Food is good and important, and we learn an awful lot about it with PN, but more than anything else the PN approach is about habits. We know how challenging it can be to change existing habits, especially about something as loaded as food.
Which brings me back to support and coaching. Especially if you or someone you know has been yo-yo'ing around dieting with whatever approach, here's time to think about the fact there's nothing wrong with you; we are wired in certain ways with respect to food, and it takes effort and support and knowledge to rewire these habits. Changing habits isn't inate knowledge, either. Understanding this - that it's not us the eaters who are screwed up - is half the battle; getting knowledge but also the support and good guidance on retuning and building up knowledgeful habits for what will work FOR THE LONG TERM for us, is a key part of the other.
Vote Your Support. If you'd like to show support for those real people who have participated in the Body Comp Competition of the Lean Eating Challenge, please vote for your faves here:
Related Posts
Tweet Follow @begin2dig
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Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Fitness Geek Gift Book Recommendations
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Time for thinking Presents Thoughts. If the shops are driving you crazy, you can always have a gift sent to your favorite Fitness Geek through the miracle of the internet. Here's a couple of book recommendations you may wish to consider:
Pain & Change. If your fitness geek suffers from chronic pain, besides putting a card under the tree to say you're giving them a session with a z-health trainer (here's a list), consider helping them get a model of what's going on with chronic pain. A fabulous book in this regard is David Butler's Explain Pain.
This is a great plain-language, illustrated text on what we know about the neurology of pain, what's going on when pain goes from acute to chronic, and most particularly, what are strategies for getting a real handle on one's chronic pain to reduce it.
No surprise, movement is discussed
as a great way to help actually rewire the nervous system which can get a bit screwed up (described further in this post on chronic back pain). But the main thing this book offers is a model of the pain process: how pain is perceived by the nervous system, translated by the brain as pain or not, and how we can work with that knowledge to turn down the volume on pain.
If you know your geek really enjoys this area of research, another book that's interesting is The Body has a Mind of Its Own
Again, this book is looking at our neurology in terms of how we are plastic people: we adapt constantly. By getting a handle on that plasticity, we can begin to work with that more directly for our well-being.
Another one in this space - that shows great examples of this plasticity in
action is the Brain the Changes Itself. This book got me totally jazzed about how we are always adapting. In particular it inspired me to look into the work going on at Posit Science that's helped kids and now the elderly to reclaim their brains. That's only one example of the work that's described that's been looking at everything from stroke rehab to dyslexia to autism to supposed senility.
Aside: Elder Brain Care And that reminds me, this is not a book, but if you do have elders whom you care about, and where they or you or both of you sense that mental acuity, hearing, related, seems to be deteriorating, please consider looking into Posit Science's products yourself.
There's a great online evaluation that's just listening to tones/patterns that you can sit down and do with your elder or ask them to do on their own to give them a baseline of what their perceptual age seems to be.
The brain tools that are part of the programs are like games that the participant plays that rebuild perceptual and conceptual accuity. It is amazing it's so effective. The design is not like the brain games stuff that we see on hand helds. This stuff has been evaluated a LOT to check real results. The packages are a couple hundred bucks, but when we think about the costs of assisted living/care, and just quality of life, they pay for themselves over and over.
FOOD & Change
Sometimes for some people, food is as painful to contemplate as an ongoing ache. If there's one thing you can do for these folks is give them an e-book that
de-stresses the cooking, food-making process. RD Georgie Fear's DIG IN really does this in spades. The recipes are simple, delictious, tasty, and totally lean-eating friendly so no worries on over-dosing calories for the food geek.
The book is overviewed here, with indicative recipes also provided, and a list of any utensils actually needed, and an interview with the author linked in. What's not to like.
Oh and the book is cheap, too, AND you can have it now via instant download, or you can have it sent to someone really easily for that on time delivery - either download or physical copy. The pics are fab.
Perhaps you yourself are a fitness geek, and someone you love is actually having a hard time with getting their eating to a place where they're getting the body comp results they want. Maybe because you're already pretty fit, you're not sure how to help them. No kidding. Diet change work can be frought. Now i'm a long time fan of Precision Nutrition, and there's a free e-book way you can offer your special person a way to check it out, just click here.
A related approach that it diet-free by Martha Beck, simply focuses on working through stages of change. As Beck argues, a lot of dieting goes crazy not cuz people lack discipline but because we don't have great strategies (a) to plan for what usually is CHANGE to the way we do something like the conditions under which we eat and (b) we don't therefore know how to plan for success.
Beck's 4 Day Win: the Way to Thinner Piece is a fab and engaging workthrough and work book for eating change that if practiced (and she makes the practice be whatever is absolutely doable for the person reading the book - so it's YOU driven and based) that it's guarenteed to help get that person to a Happy Place - whatever diet you choose. It's so not about the food, but about what we do, and this book helps support those processes of doing change.
Patterns & Change & Opportunity
And just for fun? I've written about it before in the context of the Perfect Rep Quest, but Michael
Gladwell's book Outliers brings together a whole whack of work well known within sociology but not so well known beyond that takes on the story of the Loan Great Individual. Gladwell does a pretty convincing job to demonstrate that no genius on the scene has emerged without - besides being smart/talented - having put in their 10 thousand hours of work in their field. That's a powerful fact. Even in music - the great and talented there - there is evidence of the ten thousand hours.
Gladwell unpacks how to get to these ten thousand hours before others sometimes means pretty special access to the resources and opportunities to enable this 10k of time, or by some standards, literally being born early enough in a season to have the right development in place by the time a selection is made for say a sports team.
Some have argued against these points saying pishaw there are too geniuses - not everyone who plugs in 10k hours at something is brilliant.
This may be true, but the corollorary is not. Indeed, the point remains that even with native talent, without putting in the time with attention and will but the time nonetheless, a person just doesn't get to carnegie hall.
Why is this a fitness geek book selection? Am i just showing a bias for a canadian author? As i wrote about last year, the role of the rep towards the perfect rep is no small thing. The PR lift may be as much about form as it is about strength, eh? If strength is a skill then a lot of practice with attention will be a good thing.
Real Fitness Books for Fitness Geeks.
If you're interested in more traditional lifting and muscle and related books (and other necessities) for your fitness geek, i proposed a whole bunch in last year's fitness geek giving guide. They can all be found in this post. I hope you enjoy, and can use these tips to shop faster and spend more real time with the fitness geeks you love.
All the best of the season to you!
mc Tweet Follow @begin2dig
Pain & Change. If your fitness geek suffers from chronic pain, besides putting a card under the tree to say you're giving them a session with a z-health trainer (here's a list), consider helping them get a model of what's going on with chronic pain. A fabulous book in this regard is David Butler's Explain Pain.
This is a great plain-language, illustrated text on what we know about the neurology of pain, what's going on when pain goes from acute to chronic, and most particularly, what are strategies for getting a real handle on one's chronic pain to reduce it.
No surprise, movement is discussed
as a great way to help actually rewire the nervous system which can get a bit screwed up (described further in this post on chronic back pain). But the main thing this book offers is a model of the pain process: how pain is perceived by the nervous system, translated by the brain as pain or not, and how we can work with that knowledge to turn down the volume on pain.If you know your geek really enjoys this area of research, another book that's interesting is The Body has a Mind of Its Own
Again, this book is looking at our neurology in terms of how we are plastic people: we adapt constantly. By getting a handle on that plasticity, we can begin to work with that more directly for our well-being.
Another one in this space - that shows great examples of this plasticity in
action is the Brain the Changes Itself. This book got me totally jazzed about how we are always adapting. In particular it inspired me to look into the work going on at Posit Science that's helped kids and now the elderly to reclaim their brains. That's only one example of the work that's described that's been looking at everything from stroke rehab to dyslexia to autism to supposed senility.Aside: Elder Brain Care And that reminds me, this is not a book, but if you do have elders whom you care about, and where they or you or both of you sense that mental acuity, hearing, related, seems to be deteriorating, please consider looking into Posit Science's products yourself.
There's a great online evaluation that's just listening to tones/patterns that you can sit down and do with your elder or ask them to do on their own to give them a baseline of what their perceptual age seems to be.
The brain tools that are part of the programs are like games that the participant plays that rebuild perceptual and conceptual accuity. It is amazing it's so effective. The design is not like the brain games stuff that we see on hand helds. This stuff has been evaluated a LOT to check real results. The packages are a couple hundred bucks, but when we think about the costs of assisted living/care, and just quality of life, they pay for themselves over and over.
FOOD & Change
Sometimes for some people, food is as painful to contemplate as an ongoing ache. If there's one thing you can do for these folks is give them an e-book that
de-stresses the cooking, food-making process. RD Georgie Fear's DIG IN really does this in spades. The recipes are simple, delictious, tasty, and totally lean-eating friendly so no worries on over-dosing calories for the food geek.The book is overviewed here, with indicative recipes also provided, and a list of any utensils actually needed, and an interview with the author linked in. What's not to like.
Oh and the book is cheap, too, AND you can have it now via instant download, or you can have it sent to someone really easily for that on time delivery - either download or physical copy. The pics are fab.
Perhaps you yourself are a fitness geek, and someone you love is actually having a hard time with getting their eating to a place where they're getting the body comp results they want. Maybe because you're already pretty fit, you're not sure how to help them. No kidding. Diet change work can be frought. Now i'm a long time fan of Precision Nutrition, and there's a free e-book way you can offer your special person a way to check it out, just click here.
A related approach that it diet-free by Martha Beck, simply focuses on working through stages of change. As Beck argues, a lot of dieting goes crazy not cuz people lack discipline but because we don't have great strategies (a) to plan for what usually is CHANGE to the way we do something like the conditions under which we eat and (b) we don't therefore know how to plan for success.Beck's 4 Day Win: the Way to Thinner Piece is a fab and engaging workthrough and work book for eating change that if practiced (and she makes the practice be whatever is absolutely doable for the person reading the book - so it's YOU driven and based) that it's guarenteed to help get that person to a Happy Place - whatever diet you choose. It's so not about the food, but about what we do, and this book helps support those processes of doing change.
Patterns & Change & Opportunity
And just for fun? I've written about it before in the context of the Perfect Rep Quest, but Michael
Gladwell's book Outliers brings together a whole whack of work well known within sociology but not so well known beyond that takes on the story of the Loan Great Individual. Gladwell does a pretty convincing job to demonstrate that no genius on the scene has emerged without - besides being smart/talented - having put in their 10 thousand hours of work in their field. That's a powerful fact. Even in music - the great and talented there - there is evidence of the ten thousand hours.Gladwell unpacks how to get to these ten thousand hours before others sometimes means pretty special access to the resources and opportunities to enable this 10k of time, or by some standards, literally being born early enough in a season to have the right development in place by the time a selection is made for say a sports team.
Some have argued against these points saying pishaw there are too geniuses - not everyone who plugs in 10k hours at something is brilliant.
This may be true, but the corollorary is not. Indeed, the point remains that even with native talent, without putting in the time with attention and will but the time nonetheless, a person just doesn't get to carnegie hall.
Why is this a fitness geek book selection? Am i just showing a bias for a canadian author? As i wrote about last year, the role of the rep towards the perfect rep is no small thing. The PR lift may be as much about form as it is about strength, eh? If strength is a skill then a lot of practice with attention will be a good thing.
Real Fitness Books for Fitness Geeks.
If you're interested in more traditional lifting and muscle and related books (and other necessities) for your fitness geek, i proposed a whole bunch in last year's fitness geek giving guide. They can all be found in this post. I hope you enjoy, and can use these tips to shop faster and spend more real time with the fitness geeks you love.All the best of the season to you!
mc Tweet Follow @begin2dig
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Food Inc.: the unbearable lightness of the food industry
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Don't care if anyone ever says again there's no 
difference between organic and not; free range or not. I get that much of what gets labelled as free range is specious in the UK for instance, but we all really do need a cold reality check about food production in the West.
Food Inc delivers that view without taking us right to the sharp end of the air gun as did Fast Food Nation. With some basic knowledge about the production of animals, the way the FDA and USDA has been allowed to go toothless, the fact that at least in Europe GMO crops are actually labelled as such becomes something to hang onto and hold dear. The EU may have value after all.
If you haven't seen Food Inc., it's on DVD; now's the time. It's interesting without being bombastic. If you like Michael Pollen of the Omnivore's Dilema you get a lot of him, too. And again, with just basic info that's pretty compelling. Walmart though in the film turns out not to be the big(gest) villain. Nope, it's the laws of states that prohibit anyone publishing a photo of a food production lot at a plant where animals are kept. It's the change of seed practices in the states so that the One Big Seed Company with its GMO corn ensures that farmers can't harvest their own seeds for regrowing. That's patent infringement.
You think you're not eating GMO products? Think again: Arnie vetoed a bill that had been passed in the Cal. Legislature to have GMO/cloned products labelled as such. All the corn based products like Coke, chips, most stuff with soy product or corn bi-products is GMO corn.
13 companies pack 90% of all the meat in america. I could just go on and on.
Ok one more thing: the special relationship meat packing houses have with law enforcement about shipping in illegals to work in the plants and then busting the immigrants, not the companies, when there's a hint of a Union about to emerge. What synergies.
But the most powerful take away is that consumers do affect the system: the meat industry changed because of fast food. Fast food wouldn't have that power if people didn't buy it. Walmart has had to get rid of growth hormoned milk because of consumer demand. Amazing.
So let's ask our stores about the provenance of our food and opt out of the crap. Food Inc gives some pretty compelling rationales of why that's not just Right it's critical. Monocultures eventually crash and take a lot down with them. Tweet Follow @begin2dig
difference between organic and not; free range or not. I get that much of what gets labelled as free range is specious in the UK for instance, but we all really do need a cold reality check about food production in the West.Food Inc delivers that view without taking us right to the sharp end of the air gun as did Fast Food Nation. With some basic knowledge about the production of animals, the way the FDA and USDA has been allowed to go toothless, the fact that at least in Europe GMO crops are actually labelled as such becomes something to hang onto and hold dear. The EU may have value after all.
If you haven't seen Food Inc., it's on DVD; now's the time. It's interesting without being bombastic. If you like Michael Pollen of the Omnivore's Dilema you get a lot of him, too. And again, with just basic info that's pretty compelling. Walmart though in the film turns out not to be the big(gest) villain. Nope, it's the laws of states that prohibit anyone publishing a photo of a food production lot at a plant where animals are kept. It's the change of seed practices in the states so that the One Big Seed Company with its GMO corn ensures that farmers can't harvest their own seeds for regrowing. That's patent infringement.
You think you're not eating GMO products? Think again: Arnie vetoed a bill that had been passed in the Cal. Legislature to have GMO/cloned products labelled as such. All the corn based products like Coke, chips, most stuff with soy product or corn bi-products is GMO corn.
13 companies pack 90% of all the meat in america. I could just go on and on.
Ok one more thing: the special relationship meat packing houses have with law enforcement about shipping in illegals to work in the plants and then busting the immigrants, not the companies, when there's a hint of a Union about to emerge. What synergies.
But the most powerful take away is that consumers do affect the system: the meat industry changed because of fast food. Fast food wouldn't have that power if people didn't buy it. Walmart has had to get rid of growth hormoned milk because of consumer demand. Amazing.
So let's ask our stores about the provenance of our food and opt out of the crap. Food Inc gives some pretty compelling rationales of why that's not just Right it's critical. Monocultures eventually crash and take a lot down with them. Tweet Follow @begin2dig
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
How Evil is a Molecule?
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To come back to the recent discussion on Carbs, recently i've seen more discussions that take it as given that there are good carbs and bad carbs.
This kind of understanding may be Gary Taube's fault for his good/bad dichotomizing of food stuffs.
But let's back up a step here. What do we mean by "bad" or "good" foods. Some folks may say that's obvious - a krispy kream is full of bad carbs - a spinach salad is full of good carbs.
Just to get clear, carbs are sugar molecules which in some combinations are starch (complex) carb molecule formations (more about simple/complex carbs here - with pictures!). So right away the good/bad thesis starts to tremble: what's wrong with a molecule? it's neither innately good or evil if good or evil can be innate, but the carb on the morality scale must be pretty neutral, devoid as we assume it to be of intent.
So what are we likely saying when we talk about 'good carbs' or 'bad carbs' - i don't know, but i'll guess we're actually talking about the foods in which they appear. And that foods that are high in starchy carbs tend to be high in other Bad things like Sugar and / or Salt and/ or processed white flour. Voila the donut or french baguette.
So, why are these things "bad" (and spinach "good"). As per usual, it's about scale, isn't it? about context.
Most of these foods are highly refined, which means most of their nutrients found in their whole product version (whole wheat vs white white) get stripped out. So these food stuffs end up being calorie dense (lots of cals) but very low nutritional value. Hence, eating these means weight gain with low to no nutritional value - they may fill a fast energy need, but may get a lot of the product processed into extra fat we don't want and do nothing for our digestion ( no anti-oxidants, no fiber, few vitamins etc etc)
So, these foods don't do anything for us, really. We indeed often experience them feeling good being ingested and then feel like crap after eating them. So they're "bad"? Bad for us? Will a krispy kream kill?
One? not likely. If we're trying to lose weight, well they cost at least a good half hour of intervals on the bike to get rid of them. Once in awhile? who cares?
It is a pretty good understanding that krispy kreams are not good for us in most circumstances, but that's not the same as saying they're "bad" for us. Context is important. And most reasonable people get that if they eat one once in awhile, they're not going to have horrible consequences.
So is calling something good or bad really a problem?
Perhaps not, but it seems that such terms (a) do nothing to help people understand why something is not good for us; how to make better food choices that are still healthy (have good quality chocolate rather than a krispy kreme) and taste good and (b) just perpetuates a moralizing head space about bad foods, guilt and puritanical punishment or catholic/jewish guilt that is well sinful (little joke there).
Michael Pollan talks about trends in north american diet where one nutrient is demonized and another celebrated. Carbs were good and fat was bad. Now, it seems, fats are in and carbs are out.
Food is more richly wonderful and complex than the recipe of a krispy kreme. Stupid simplifications that lead to these equally stupid and unfounded dietary prescriptions "reduce carbs! ahhhh!" give us nothing with which to understand our health. Heh, as pollan points out, the health press was wrong about the anti-fat prescription; will anti carb be any smarter?
So let's try to talk about food. Eating a rich pageant of it. Whole food. That's a simple prescription too: eat a variety of whole food types at each meal. lots of colour. if you want to lose weight, eat less of it. that's even simpler than thinking about nutrients - "reduce carbs"
But it's perhaps harder to apply because it may mean learning to cook real food meals for oneself. but is taking the simple way out of Dis the Nutrient good? or is it bad? or just stupid. and therefore a kind of evil of good intentions.
We can handle The Truth: that we need to get real about eating and cooking again and make some time for doing so. Anything else seems to be just cheating. The good news is, based on anywhere besides north america or most of the commonwealth, that means eating a great mix of foods, yum, and not some austere sprig of protestant work ethic parsley.
Eat Well rather than good, perhaps? Tweet Follow @begin2dig
This kind of understanding may be Gary Taube's fault for his good/bad dichotomizing of food stuffs.
But let's back up a step here. What do we mean by "bad" or "good" foods. Some folks may say that's obvious - a krispy kream is full of bad carbs - a spinach salad is full of good carbs.
Just to get clear, carbs are sugar molecules which in some combinations are starch (complex) carb molecule formations (more about simple/complex carbs here - with pictures!). So right away the good/bad thesis starts to tremble: what's wrong with a molecule? it's neither innately good or evil if good or evil can be innate, but the carb on the morality scale must be pretty neutral, devoid as we assume it to be of intent.
So what are we likely saying when we talk about 'good carbs' or 'bad carbs' - i don't know, but i'll guess we're actually talking about the foods in which they appear. And that foods that are high in starchy carbs tend to be high in other Bad things like Sugar and / or Salt and/ or processed white flour. Voila the donut or french baguette.
So, why are these things "bad" (and spinach "good"). As per usual, it's about scale, isn't it? about context.
Most of these foods are highly refined, which means most of their nutrients found in their whole product version (whole wheat vs white white) get stripped out. So these food stuffs end up being calorie dense (lots of cals) but very low nutritional value. Hence, eating these means weight gain with low to no nutritional value - they may fill a fast energy need, but may get a lot of the product processed into extra fat we don't want and do nothing for our digestion ( no anti-oxidants, no fiber, few vitamins etc etc)
So, these foods don't do anything for us, really. We indeed often experience them feeling good being ingested and then feel like crap after eating them. So they're "bad"? Bad for us? Will a krispy kream kill?
One? not likely. If we're trying to lose weight, well they cost at least a good half hour of intervals on the bike to get rid of them. Once in awhile? who cares?
It is a pretty good understanding that krispy kreams are not good for us in most circumstances, but that's not the same as saying they're "bad" for us. Context is important. And most reasonable people get that if they eat one once in awhile, they're not going to have horrible consequences.
So is calling something good or bad really a problem?
Perhaps not, but it seems that such terms (a) do nothing to help people understand why something is not good for us; how to make better food choices that are still healthy (have good quality chocolate rather than a krispy kreme) and taste good and (b) just perpetuates a moralizing head space about bad foods, guilt and puritanical punishment or catholic/jewish guilt that is well sinful (little joke there).
Michael Pollan talks about trends in north american diet where one nutrient is demonized and another celebrated. Carbs were good and fat was bad. Now, it seems, fats are in and carbs are out.
Food is more richly wonderful and complex than the recipe of a krispy kreme. Stupid simplifications that lead to these equally stupid and unfounded dietary prescriptions "reduce carbs! ahhhh!" give us nothing with which to understand our health. Heh, as pollan points out, the health press was wrong about the anti-fat prescription; will anti carb be any smarter?
So let's try to talk about food. Eating a rich pageant of it. Whole food. That's a simple prescription too: eat a variety of whole food types at each meal. lots of colour. if you want to lose weight, eat less of it. that's even simpler than thinking about nutrients - "reduce carbs"
But it's perhaps harder to apply because it may mean learning to cook real food meals for oneself. but is taking the simple way out of Dis the Nutrient good? or is it bad? or just stupid. and therefore a kind of evil of good intentions.
We can handle The Truth: that we need to get real about eating and cooking again and make some time for doing so. Anything else seems to be just cheating. The good news is, based on anywhere besides north america or most of the commonwealth, that means eating a great mix of foods, yum, and not some austere sprig of protestant work ethic parsley.
Eat Well rather than good, perhaps? Tweet Follow @begin2dig
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