I am going to take you on a journey back in time. To a time and place before eating kale made you cool, before green smoothies and kombucha were trendy and before gluten was the enemy. People had never heard of acai and foods weren’t grouped into categories like superfood, organic or antioxidants. A time when eating healthy wasn’t the cool thing to do. When I was growing up “healthy” was just becoming popular. If you wanted alternative medicine, food, or drink you would have to drive to some far away specialty health food store that smelled like incense and was run by girls with dreadlocks and nose rings (now called “hipsters” lol). During this time alternative medicine, holistic and nutritional healing and celiac disease were not common topics in day to day conversations.
Now we live in a time when there is an overabundance of information about healthy living, healthy foods and how to live a healthy lifestyle. Magazines showcase celebrities who lost weight doing this diet or that exercise routine. Daytime TV shows like The Dr.Oz show, The Chew, The Doctors and others show ways to lose weight, burn fat, build muscle, and eat healthy. We hear and see headlines such as Lose 10lbs in 10 days, Try this Cleanse, Do that Detox, How to Go From a Size 14 to a Size 8 in Just 2 Weeks, Get those Summer Abs with This Intense Celebrity Workout Routine and on and on. Celebrities endorse diet pills. Talk show hosts recommend the trendiest ways to lose weight. We watch reality weight loss shows like The Biggest Loser and Extreme Weight loss Challenge. To say it’s overwhelming is an understatement. We are inundated with health information every day. So how do we sift through all of this information and know what really works and what doesn’t?
It’s frustrating and overwhelming and usually these feelings end up creating a lot of confusion and doubt. One day soy is good for you the next day it isn’t. One day milk is good for your bones the next day it’s filled with hormones and antibiotics. Who do you trust? Well I used to feel the same way as you do. And honestly sometimes I still feel that way. But there is one thing that I know that is true and always will be true. There is no magic pill. There is no secret to losing weight. No matter what hot celebrities endorse it or what magazine recommends it, it all comes down to you and how much work you are willing to put into to changing your habits. You put in the work and you see the results.
I promise if you spend 3-5 days a week sweaty and breathless in a workout for 30-60 minutes you will see results. You could do Zumba or Crossfit, Barre Classes or traditional weightlifting. You could increase your activity level by hiking, biking or simply walking more. Then add in eating less crap (processed foods, soda, all fried things) and more vegetables, lean meats and complex carbs you will see even more results. Don’t fear food, educate yourself. Don’t just listen to some random person talk about the benefits of this nut or that superfood. Be smart. Eating some special bean or probiotic is not going to solve all of your health problems, get you to lose 20 lbs, and help you to sleep at night. Let’s be realistic here.
But some people are just die hard diet fans. They NEED to be on a diet. They truly believe their diet is the end all be all of all diets. And they may be right. Maybe following their specific plan did in fact work for them. Maybe it changed their life and they need to share it with everyone they meet. Whatever it was, be it the paleo diet, low carb diet, south beach diet, IIFYM diet or the cabbage soup diet it worked because of one simple fact. They lived in a caloric deficit. All that means is that they burned more calories than they consumed so their bodies lost weight.
I am not hating on any diet, TV show or celebrity when I say all of these things because I do believe that there is truth in what a lot of these people endorse BUT not all of these health things work for everyone and not all of these things are “healthy”. Years ago health was something we had and if we didn’t we worked to improve it by learning about it from educated professionals and scholarly sources. Now it’s a cash cow; a $20 billion dollar industry. An industry that doesn’t care if you lose weight or not. It does not care if you are healthy or not. It just cares about making money.
So what do you do? At the end of the day it’s all about experience and education. Do your research and learn about how food affects YOUR body and YOUR mind. Listen to your body when it reacts poorly to certain foods or drinks. Educate yourself on carbohydrates, fats and proteins (I have another blog about this if you scroll down). Read books or scholarly articles by professionals. Be realistic, if a diet recommends something that sounds ridiculous, it probably is. Don’t go crazy restricting yourself and instead focus on portion control, changing out your unhealthy habits for healthy one and seek out educational sources that do not endorse or recommend any specific diet plan.
In some ways growing up was difficult because I felt so different and weird. I would fruitlessly try to trade my sprouted grain bread sandwich for a tastycake during my cafeteria lunches. It never worked. I would read weird books that my mom had laying around the house like “Milk the Deadly Poison” and “You are What You Eat”. It created a very deep seeded unhealthy fear of food within me. But I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to be educated about food and its role in my body because now we live a world with so much misinformation that it’s almost impossible to comprehend what actually is true and what’s not. But that doesn’t mean that we just give up and live a life of ignorance. Keep learning and keep applying and you will find what works best for you. At the end of the day keep it simple; eat balanced amounts of all food, eat more home cooked meals than meals out, stop drinking your calories and stay active by exercising. Read more and when I say read more I really mean read more of my blogs. More information to come weekly!