Food is Fuel, It Also Taste F#cking Amazing

This post is more of a rant than educational piece, I go and rant on the ideology that food is fuel and you shouldn't enjoy it and if you do enjoy your food it's probably unhealthy.

The fitness community is a weird one (generally speaking, mainstream fitness), when you sit back and really take a good look at it. “Food is fuel!” and “Food will not control me!” are very popular sayings among the diehard health wairy. I dont care how any one person decides to eat or their philosophy on food, if they decide that food is just a means to survive and they feel that anything else and they are being controlled then that is fine it doesn't bother me (even if I see that as a very unhealthy view on food). When people start to proclaim that the above view is healthy and is the way to better oneself to others is when I have a problem, why is it that people who try to be 110% healthy seem to only view life in black or white? Back to the idea that food is fuel, yes food is fuel, it gives us macro and micro nutrients that enables our bodies to run at its finest, why do people then make the correlation that if they enjoy their food then they will immediately be controlled by it and then fall into a vicious downfall of gluttony and laziness? A recurring theme I bring up is the overrestriction that leads to such binges that is rooted from misleading and wrong information. 

Here is a scenario to think about, Lacy is 5’3” 120 pounds, she works out 6 times a week doing HIIT resistance training along with cardio 3 times a week. Lacy wants to lose 10 pounds and maintain it so she overly restricts the food she will allow herself to eat and follows the ideology that food is fuel. Now over a 2 week period Lacy lost 7 pounds, but on the third week she binges on food she saw to enjoyable (“unhealthy”) and gained back 4 pounds (mostly water weight but some tissue weight), Lacy then becomes depressed and believes food is controlling her again so she falls into a slump for another week until she feels she is strong enough and goes back onto the program again. Lacy continues this vicious cycle posting things on facebook and instagram about her journey and how happy she is and also how she will never let food control her again because “healthy” feels so good. 

The above scenario is not far fetched a quick look through your friends list may show some similar journeys. Now compare Lacy to Bethany...

Bethany is 5’3” 130 pounds, Bethany has decided she wants to lose 10 pounds so she starts to work out 2 times a week weight training, she doesn't do any hardcore or advanced style of weight training she just goes at her pace and uses progressive overload. Bethany puts herself in a slight caloric deficit with no restrictions on the foods she eats, she does start to eat more vegetables, fruits, protein and whole foods all while still eating foods that others (Lacy) might see as “unhealthy”. Two weeks go by and Bethany has lost 3 pounds, on the third week Bethany decides to introduce some walking with friends once a week for some SS (steady state) cardio. Another 7 Weeks go by and Bethany has hit her goal of 10 pounds lost, Bethany continues to eat foods she enjoys and has introduced one more day of weight training. Bethany is able to follow her lifestyle since she can adhere to it very easily. 

Now decide who is more healthy, Lacy or Bethany? So why do people continue to push the idea that food is controlling and only fuel? If someone has a real issue with self control and food then they need to go see a medical professional to advise them and help them through their disordered eating. 

My unprofessional advice would be to take a deep breath and understand that food can not control you if you understand that eating foods you enjoy in respectable amounts (depending on the person and goals of said person “respectable” changes quite a bit, context is key) is not going to damage you, yes food is fuel but it also taste so f#cking good! There are so many different cultures around the world that prepare and cook foods so differently, different taste and textures are amazing to experience and yes, enjoy. I have just recently been eating more guava, guava jelly on my toast with small amount of butter is amazing, also I have been mixing 3 servings of vanilla ice cream with a 4 oz of guava nectar in a blender, the guava shake is highly enjoyable and refreshing and I make it whenever I feel like one, that can be once a week or maybe 3 times. The thing is I have not gained 10 pounds or lost controll, my health has not plummeted and you could say my mental health has improved. 

Like I said in the beginning if you want to eat food on the idea that its mainly fuel and you are in control then by all means go ahead, but it is not necessary or some would say even healthy. In the end eat how you want but don't let people make you think that enjoying one of lifes greatest pleasures is counter productive to health or your goals.   

Flexible Dieting

Low carb, low fat, Zone diet, fruit and veggie diet, liquid diet, South beach, Paleo...

some or all of these might sound familiar since they are popular dieting methods used today by people trying to lose those x amount of pounds and/or trying to live a healthier life. The thing all these fad diets have  in common is there arbitrary food restriction and rules that come along with them (for some people the restrictions might be good per individual reasons but for most these are firm rules that one must follow for no reason) and most of the rules are blanket statements that are so broad that they hinder most people in reaching their goals. If one is trying to lose weight they have to understand that you must be in a caloric deficit, some of the methods above might reach desired weight loss but its not because of some special magic it's usually because of restricting a food group or groups thus having the person cutting calories. For most people they will bounce back with the weight since fad diets really have no sustainability unless you're willing to be that person carrying 3 containers of food around and that person that gets water and celery sticks when you go out for lunch. The leaders and die hard sheep of fad diets will usually say that you have to sacrifice it all to win and you have to do what you don't like to be healthy, sounds kinda extreme to me and not needed.

You don't have to sacrifice to win...

This post is all about a scientific and common sense approach to dieting that allows you to live a normal social life being able to eat out with friends and eat foods you enjoy. This method is Flexible Dieting, there are no food restrictions, no special foods, no specific meal timing, none of that. Flexible Dieting is based on reaching 2+ serving of fruit and vegetables a day along with reaching a minimum fiber intake (this is based on how many calories you eat around 10-13 grams of fiber per 1000 kcals eaten) along with adequate protein intake and getting 80% of food from whole foods and 20% to eat foods that may seem unorthodox to eat while trying to be healthy or lose weight (this usually is food with a very low micronutrient values).

Now I will say that if your goal is to lose weight then counting calories is the most fool proof way to make sure you're in a deficit and combine that with flexible dieting you have the perfect match to reach your goals with no unnecessary side effects (eating disorders or arbitrary food avoidance) or loss of life. Once you learn that a serving of Entiments cookies with a half cup of milk isn't going to go straight to your things or midsection (your within your caloric limit) you can live a realistic healthy life and still reach your fitness goals. That is what flexible dieting is, it is realistic way to live healthy and reach your own goals without hindering your life and staying sane. Below I have links to better articles on flexible dieting please take some time to read them, so remember choose the foods you eat with hitting the simple criteria and live your life.

Continue Reading:

Lyle McDonald “Is a calorie a calorie?”
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/is-a-calorie-a-calorie.html

Alan Aragon “clean eating”
http://www.wannabebig.com/diet-and-nutrition/the-dirt-on-clean-eating/

Syatt fitness “Flexible Dieting for Long Term Success”

http://syattfitness.com/fat-loss/flexible-dieting-for-long-term-success/

Layne Norton “Clean eating vs Flexible Dieting (IIFYM)”

http://www.biolayne.com/nutrition/biolayne-video-log-12-clean-eating-vs-iifym-if-it-fits-your-macros/

Study on rigid dieting vs flexible dieting (I know its only the abstract but i don't have the full text)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10336790

Sources:
http://doyoueven.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/food-temptation.jpg

Clean Eating, Is it False?

How much windex do I need to make ice cream "clean"...

If you were to ask different followers of fad diets, different cultures or even a handful of people at your local gym for the definition of “clean” eating” or “clean foods” it would be different across the board. This is because there is no designated term for clean foods in nutritional science, because to use those terms are absurd and it 100% demonizes the “dirty” foods.

Foods are broken into high micronutrient value and low to none micronutrient value...

Even with that being said food with calories are still calories, a unit of energy that the body uses to live, but just because one group is higher than the other does not mean that the other is worse or inferior. To put things simply, a healthy diet is constructed of moderation and variety of all types of food to meet caloric and micronutrient goals by the end of the day that allows the person to eat foods they still enjoy to alloy them to live life. The idea that "x is good for me so I need to take x 1000 times" is what fuels the falsehoods of clean eating.

You can have some pizza or cake and eat it too...

Like I stated above placing foods into these two categories leads to people to demonizing certain food groups or specific foods all together. The process a person goes through when demonizing food that they enjoy can lead to harsh disorder eating down the road. Some of these disorders or unhealthy eating habits are binge eating, orthorexia, yo yo dieting, and anorexia (none of those seem fun to me). This is the outcome of the main stream nutrition though, separate foods into good and bad, Best or worst, any arbitrary hierarchy that pushes a groups agenda that has no basis on what the science shows us.

Here is the article that I based most of what  I wrote here, read it, it has stronger writing and goes into greater detail. 

http://www.wannabebig.com/diet-and-nutrition/the-dirt-on-clean-eating/

Sources:

http://www.wannabebig.com/diet-and-nutrition/the-dirt-on-clean-eating/
http://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/orthorexia-nervosa

http://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/general-information
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11883916

Images:

http://doyoueven.com/2013/01/iifympart1/