Healthy Eating
For many of us the New Year is a marker for taking stock of our weight, eating & drinking habits. Often this is due to over indulgence over the festive period but it is also an occasion to decide that this is going to be the year to achieve that perfect figure or at least go some way towards it.
Unsurprisingly many New Year’s resolutions do not last for more than a week or two and it is not long before we are back into old habits. I personally cannot think of a worse time of year to cut back on calories – after all we need calories to provide us with energy and warmth. However I believe that where many individuals go wrong is the types of foods they are eating.
For instance it is a fallacy that we need added sugar in our diets. Sugar became fashionable in the 15th century when it was seen as a luxury that only the rich could afford. To have lost a tooth to excess sugar became a sign of wealth! Our modern day diets are often full of unnecessary sugar – any foods that are pre prepared usually have added sugars to improve the taste. Likewise cakes, biscuits, breads and sweets all contain sugar that we don’t need. If we eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, balanced with the correct amount of unrefined carbohydrates then the body will consume sufficient sugar for its needs.
Refined foods are also to be avoided – these are foods such as white bread, white sugar, white pasta, white flour, white rice – in fact anything that has been processed. Most of these foods have had the nutritious bits taken out and thrown away. If we think of food as fuel and medicine then many of the modern day’s products which we consume would not even be considered.
We all need to change the way we view food which also includes its preparation. We need to make time to prepare nutritious foods not just buy something that has been made by someone else. We find time to watch the TV or go on facebook but often say that we have no time to prepare food. A lot of healthy, nutritious meals can be prepared in half an hour – it just takes some thought to make sure you have the right ingredients.
At this time of year I often get asked about detox diets but to be quite honest there is little point if you then just carry on as before. I believe it is far safer to your health to eat sensibly all the time. To cut out food groups for a week or more often causes more harm than good.
Likewise fad diets – although they can lead to weight loss the weight often
goes straight back on when returning to normal eating. The change needs to be something that can be sustained long term. We must also remember that the body’s metabolism will slow down if we are starving ourselves resulting in little weight loss. I have seen clients in the past that were eating so little they couldn’t understand why they were not losing weight – I persuaded them to eat more, sensible foods and they started to lose weight and become more healthy. We need to eat to sustain our health – low calorie diets can often lead to malnutrition.
We are bombarded by what we should and shouldn’t eat that many of us are confused as to what is right and wrong. It is good to remember that products being sold which claim a certain health benefit are being sold commercially for profit – they are hardly going to tell you that they have no impact whatsoever! A classic case of this is no added sugar products – they often contain unnatural sweeteners instead such as aspartame which has been linked to many modern day health problems such as fibromyalgia, cancer and Parkinson disease.
Eating nutritious food is so important to our health – it should not be an option but a necessity. Changing what we eat on a long term basis will have a huge impact on general health both now and into the future.
Happy New Year.