You want to eat healthy. Maybe you want to do it because you want to lose weight. Or, perhaps your doctor told you you need to adopt a healthy diet. Or maybe you just feel like crap and want to eat healthy to feel better.
It’s good to know you need to “eat healthy”, but what does that really mean? How much dieting do you need to do? Will you have to give up your favorite snack? What “food rules” will you need to live by?
You may have said to yourself at some point, “I need to go on a diet”. But, what diet?
You may have tried a diet, maybe Keto, or Paleo and stuck with it for a while and had good results, but you’re no longer “on that diet”. Maybe you’ve tried several different diets with a variety of successes, and you wonder why you can’t stick to anything.
Some of the answers might surprise you.
In this article, I’m going to tackle some misconceptions about dieting, and diets. And give you some “Food Rules” that are helpful but not restricting.
Healthy Eating 101
- Make food choices to support your goals AND lifestyle
- Aim to eat mostly minimally processed whole foods.
Support Your Goals and Lifestyle
Most diets will work. Not all diets will work for every person. That means what worked for your coworker may not work for you.
How you eat – the foods you choose, when you eat, how much you eat – is just as much a part of you and your lifestyle as your favorite color or animal, or your preference on fashion, TV shows, or music is. What this means, is that for you to eat healthy successfully, you need to make sure that your “diet” fits with you. However, if you are reading this article, there’s a chance that your current diet isn’t supporting your goals.
So, if I have to make “rules” to eat by, Rule Number 1 would be: However you choose to eat, it has to be sustainable for you – forever.
Why do diets fail?
Like I mentioned, most diets work, but not for every person. The reason diets fail isn’t because the person trying it doesn’t have the willpower to stick to it. I think there are two main reasons one might “stop doing the diet”:
- Your schedule doesn’t support the meal prep requirements, or
- You try to change too much too fast.
Your Schedule
Let’s talk about number 1: Your schedule.
For the longest time, conventional wisdom was that in order to rev your metabolism and burn lots of calories, you need to eat 4-6 small meals a day. First, I need to say that this is NOT the case. (See Sidebar on Meal frequency for a more in-depth discussion). But, think about the amount of preparation needed to have 4-6 healthy meals ready for you to eat every day. Healthy meals don’t need to be complicated or fancy, but when deciding what to do for 6 of them, there’s a lot of thought that has to go into it. For example, if you need to eat 1800 calories a day, each meal would need to be roughly 300 calories. One chicken breast is about 280 calories. Which only leaves 20 calories for cooking oil, vegetables and any grain or starchy carb you want to have with it. So, you’d have to split that into two meals. That means portioning it out and having little containers. Or, being diligent on eating only half of one meal every time you eat. You’d also need to spend time making all these splittable or properly portioned meals.
If you work somewhere that has standardized break times, you have to fit your eating schedule into your available break times. Can that support 2-4 evenly spaced out meals?
Some diets give you a great meal plan, however, If you follow a meal plan that requires cooking your meals fresh every day, that might not be conducive to your lifestyle if you don’t always have time after work to cook (or before work).
With any addition to your routine, something else has to go away. If you want to exercise more, you need to give up something else (couch time?). If you want to cook more, you have to give up something. The catch is when your schedule is so full of requirements (work, school, kids, family) that it’s hard to take one of those things out to prep meals extensively.
To eat healthy, you most likely will need to cook your own food at least some portion of the time. But the key is to find quick things that work for you. Then pepper in bulk cooking or simple meals throughout the week that also work for you.
Change too much too fast
Number 2 on my list for why diets fail is changing too much too fast.
Even if the diet you are trying to move towards is the optimal perfect fit for you and your lifestyle, it is possible that you would still fail to stick to it. Why? Well, that requires a discussion on habit and habit forming. See, your current “diet” is habitual. This is why it’s often referred to as “eating habits”. Maybe you’ve heard someone say they “need to adopt healthy eating habits” or they “have bad eating habits”.
Meal Frequency
For a long time now, health and fitness publications have been releasing articles explaining that the best way to eat is to have 4-6 small meals a day, rather than 2 or 3 large ones. The theory is that it "boosts your metabolism". The reality is that the assumption is based on an effect called "Thermic Effect of Food" (TEF). This means that whenever you eat, your body burns more energy to digest the food. Certain foods require more energy to digest (such as Protein). And some take less energy to digest like sugar and simple carbohydrates. Once a person eats a meal, their TEF spikes and for some time after eating, the metabolism stays high.
The reasoning is sound. TEF really is a thing that happens. However, it is completely dependent on the amount of food you eat. So, if you eat a 300 calorie meal, the TEF will be about half that of a 600 calorie meal (depending on the types of food eaten). Since regardless of how or what we eat, energy balance still is in effect to govern our weight (if we eat more calories than we use, we store it as fat), in order to eat 6 meals a day, they must be small. So, the reality is that if you eat 1800 calories a day, you will be getting the same TEF metabolism burst regardless if you eat it in six 300 calorie meals or two 900 calorie meals.
Some people, such as elite athletes, may need to eat more frequently. However, this has less to do with TEF or metabolism than it does with them needing to refuel their bodies and replenish the glycogen used during high-intensity exercise. This means that if you are a high-performance athlete, that is someone that trains intensely for a few hours a day (think your sport is your job), or you running a marathon, you may need to eat more frequently. For the general population, even highly active ones, meal frequency is generally not a concern.
Why is habit such a big deal? Well, it turns out that habits are programmed into your brain. Once something becomes a habit, you perform that habit without conscious thought. Each habit has a cue and a reward and the behavior itself is the routine or the action performed. Many of our actions are habitual. Driving to or from work, backing out of the driveway, picking up your phone to read a text, checking email, and watching TV after work, and even eating lunch may be governed by what are called “Habit loops” in the brain. (For more information on habits a good read is: “The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business”, by Charles Duhigg.)
I’ve heard many different timeframes on how long it takes to make or break a habit. I’ve heard everything from 2 weeks to 30 days. I think it probably depends on the person, the habit, and the consistency at which the make or break behavior is performed. But one thing is pretty certain. It’s far easier to make lasting change when you change one thing at a time. Very few behavior changes will stick if you try to do all the things, all at once.
If you think about it, everything you do every day is part of your lifestyle. Changing any one aspect of it changes your lifestyle (even in a tiny little way). So, it’s important to make these changes slowly and methodically. And evaluate if the change really does support both your lifestyle and your goals.
Evaluation
Above I mentioned that whatever eating style/habit/rules/diet you decide to live by, it must support your lifestyle and goals – forever. It is important to note that what supports your goals and lifestyle today, may be different 2 years from now or 10 years from now. Your goals will likely change. And it’s quite possible that your lifestyle will change.
What you need to eat to lose 50 pounds is not the same as it is if you want to maintain weight, and both differ from what you may need to eat to build muscle.
As you go through life, your job, family, time constraints, workout habits and more may change. Your “diet” needs to change with those things as well.
Minimally Processed Whole Foods
So, if you were to evaluate all the popular diets right now, you’ll find one thing in common. You guessed it: they all focus on eating minimally processed whole foods.
What’s a “whole food”?
Well, most simplistic is its something you can hunt, catch or grow. Think fruits, vegetables, meat and fish in their most natural state. Apples, apple wedges, broccoli, salmon, mushrooms, potatoes, steak, carrots, and quinoa are all examples of whole foods.
What does “Minimally Processed” mean?
The further away from the natural state of food, the more processed it is. Think Corn on the Cob vs Cheetos. Both are corn… well, one is obviously corn, the other is made from cornmeal. Corn on the cob is minimally processed. Cheetos are very much NOT minimally processed.
Another way to decide if it’s a minimally processed food is to check out the ingredient list. Generally, the more ingredients, the more processed it is. For example, chicken-flavored top ramen contains 30 ingredients. That isn’t even counting the 6 things listed under “Enriched Flour”. But does count the “Natural and artificial flavor” and “Spice and color” as 2 total ingredient, which means it could be at as few as 2 but who knows what artificial flavor is in there, or color. Contrast that with a recipe for Curried Paneer Cheese and Potatoes (an Indian dish), which has 22 ingredients. And that is counting the 5 separate spices that make up homemade garam masala, as well as the water that goes into making the dish. In fact, 14 of the 22 ingredients are spices.
Generally speaking, the more minimally processed foods can be found around the perimeter of your grocery store, while the more processed foods are located down the aisles. This isn’t always the case, you can find processed cheese products in the refrigerator sections that are sometimes on the perimeter. And you can find unprocessed whole grains (like quinoa) and dried beans in the aisles.
An Ideal Meal
It’s not quite enough to just aim for minimally processed whole foods. It’s also important to understand what your meals should consist of as well as the amounts you should eat to support your goals. So, we’re talking about quantity and quality.
Quality
It’s important to eat a variety of foods to increase the amount of nutrients you consume. It’s really easy to get into a “chicken, broccoli and rice” rut. Challenge yourself to branch out and try new foods or recipes. Consider food on a quality continuum. No food is inherently “bad” but some foods support your goals better than others. For example:
- Baked potatoes are better than fries that are obviously cut from potatoes, which are better than potato chips that don’t resemble the potato form anymore.
- Steak is better than prepackaged meatballs with flavor additives, which is better than beef franks.
Instead of thinking of food groups as the US Government does with the USDA Choose My Plate suggestion, I prefer to think of them more functionally. I divide them into 4 groups plus non-caloric/low-caloric beverages (water, black coffee, unsweetened tea).
Protein
- Meat
- Poultry
- Fish
- Plant-Based Proteins (Tofu/Beans)
Vegetables
- Leafy greens
- Carrots
- Tomatoes
- Cauliflower
- Asparagus
Carbohydrates (other)
- Rice/Pasta
- Potatoes
- Grains (Breads, cereals, whole grains)
- Fruit
Healthy Fats
- Nuts
- Seeds
- Avocado
- Olive Oil/Olives
Quantity
Women should aim to get at least 3-4 servings of each group every day. Men should aim to get 5-6 servings of each group every day.
If that feels like too much, cut back carbs and fat first.
If it feels like not enough, Women should increase Protein and Veggies to 4-6 servings a day first then add carbs and fat. Men should increase protein and veggies to 6-8 servings of protein and vegetables first, then add in carbs and fat.
Remember that if your goal is to lose weight, you must consume less energy (food) than you burn. This may result in feeling a little hungry. The guidelines above are good places to start, but keep in mind that every person is different. Some people tolerate more carbohydrates and some tolerate more fat. Keep in mind that both carbohydrates and fats can sneak a lot of extra calories to your diet. Fats have more than twice the caloric content per gram as carbohydrates or protein, so extra oil on your salad can add up quickly. Carbohydrates aren’t high in calories per gram, but it is really easy to eat a LOT of them without feeling “full” or “satisfied”. Consider how much more “Full” you would feel eating a cup of vegetables like steamed broccoli or sauteed asparagus than you would be eating a cup of white rice or 1 piece of bread. Yet, one piece of bread has about 4 times as many calories as a cup of broccoli.
Ditch All or Nothing Thinking
Eating healthy doesn’t mean “never having food X again”. It really means at least 75-80% of the time eating to support your goals, and allowing some freedom and flexibility to enjoy foods that aren’t as supportive of your goals in moderation. Food is so much more to most of us than just the source of energy for our bodies. It can be part of our culture or socialization, it may be a source of comfort or relaxation. It can be a way for families to bond. To “demonize” any food simply because it doesn’t support your goals is unhelpful. For some of us, putting a food on a “bad food list” makes us want that food more because it is not “forbidden”. For others, it could mean beating yourself up when you eat the “Bad food” destroying self-confidence and wreaking mental havoc.
Everything is on a continuum.
Unless you have a food allergy, intolerance or addiction, it’s best to remember the continuum and the 80% rule.
As stated above, when making a lifestyle change, it is important to take it slow and build the habits.
Can I pick a diet to follow?
Absolutely! There is generally no harm in trying a sound diet such as Keto, Paleo, Vegetarianism, Low-Fat, or DASH among others. Talk with your doctor if it is a radical departure from where your starting. You may want to get baseline bloodwork and monitor changes. And remember to test progress and evaluate changes periodically to make sure 1) you are supporting your goals and lifestyle and 2) you are choosing minimally processed whole foods more often than not.
If the diet you are considering is not prioritizing minimally processed whole foods over pre-packaged shakes and bars, supplements, or if it promises rapid weight loss or the use of “detox” food or drinks, it may be better to pass on that option.
Summary
Let me make sure I answered some of the questions that I promised.
You don’t have to “diet” to eat healthy. Ideally choose minimally processed whole foods for the bulk of your food choices. Follow and 80/20 rule where you aim to eat this way 80% of the time. This means you probably don’t have to give up your favorite snack (Unless it’s an unhealthy addiction, allergy or intolerance.)
Adapt to your new diet slowly making smaller changes over time and continually evaluate them to make sure that the changes support your goals and lifestyle. What works for you may not be what worked for your friends and colleagues.
Focus on getting enough protein and vegetables each day (this is different for every individual). Vary carbs and fat as needed based on your personal tolerance. Remember to keep food quality on a continuum. And adjust the quantity to meet your goals.
Eating healthy doesn’t require deprivation or long lists of “bad foods”. It does mean making informed choices based on your individual needs and goals.