Food talks are everywhere. Turn on the news, radio, or any
talk show and the discussions are about the best foods to eat or remove from your diet this summer. The main topic in majority of these discussions surround how to improve your health, making changes in body image, or both. The stories are of popular entertainers, vegans, religious practices that monitor food intake, the flat belly diet, the slim calm sexy diet and so much
more. Despite the fact that our eating behaviors may vary from individual to
individual, with some emphasizing a sensitivity to animal products or food allergies. In all honesty weight loss
is numero uno for the majority of folks .
If weight loss is the goal, before plunging
into your next eating venture ask yourself this question, would this change require me to eliminate an entire food group from my diet?
Eating is very important to carry out even the simplest functions in our body. Yet some of the
greatest myths involving weight loss surround the foods we eat. One of the myths I often encounter surround weight loss and food elimination. Removing certain food groups such as“Bad Carbohydrates” from our diets, because they make us gain weight. The second myth communicates the less we eat, the greater the amount of
weight we lose. These myths may not be true for everyone, but if you find areas that you most identify with, draw from the trues mentioned. We will spend this blog
post highlighting the first myth.
Take notice of the level of commitment and discipline when someone convinces themselves that weight loss happens faster if you stop eating bread, dairy products, or meat. Follow me here for a moment because this is true to an extent. Anytime you remove foods that you frequently eat from your diet, weight loss of some sort will occur. I believe it goes deeper than this, what really happens is we look at where we are and determine that we are overweight and out of shape, so what we are currently doing must not be good enough. Therefore committing to a new diet plan becomes easy, not because it is the right thing for us, but because we are hungry for change. We need to do something different, something new. Now all it takes is one persons story, a few pounds lost, and we are sold. We become passionate about a task without proof, allowing thoughts of a "slimmer and fitter you" serve as a driving force. Then like the weight watchers commercials of Jennifer Hudson, you too want to sing and tell everyone about this new thing. This is not a knock against weight watchers because I believe they offer a program that assist people in identifying the freedoms associated with food and eating. I'm saying we speak highly of diets that we are only beginning, while persuading others to get on board with the changes we expecting to experience.
Do you find that you identify more with the concept of food elimination (I will not eat _____ anymore; I stopped eating ________) as a method of changing your eating behaviors?
Something to think about: If a healthy (without disease) person
were to ask a medical professional whether they should give up something like carbohydrates for
weight lose. About 99% of the time you would be encouraged to not eliminate any food groups because each are necessary
components for healthy living. If necessary, they will have you replace foods within a food group with other foods. For example if pastas cause you to bloat instead of removing all grains from your diet, they may suggestion you replace pasta with brown rice or oats. Or become more attentive
to reorganizing your eating and eating behaviors (how often you eat or how much you are eating). In most cases they would not condone
eliminating an entire food group unless it was causing some sort of medical
malfunction within your body.
I have placed a chart below containing the 6 classes of
Essential Nutrients the Body requires and the major food sources from those categories.
Proteins
|
Form important parts of muscle, bone, blood, enzymes, some hormones,
and cell membrane, tissue repair, water regulation, acid-base balance, help
in growth, energy supply.
|
Meat, fish, poultry, eggs, milk products, legumes, nuts
|
Carbohydrates
|
Supply energy to cells in brain, nervous system, and blood, and
muscles during exercise
|
Grains (bread, and cereals), fruits and vegetables, milk
|
Fats
|
Supply energy, insulate, support and cushion organs, absorb fat soluble
vitamins
|
Animal foods, grains, nuts, seed, fish, and vegetables
|
Vitamins
|
Promote chemical reactions within cells
|
Abundant in fruits and vegetables and grains, also found in meat and
dairy products.
|
Minerals
|
Help regulate body function, aid in growth and maintenance of body
tissues, act as a catalyst to release energy.
|
Found in most food groups
|
Water
|
Makes up 50-60% of body weight, assist in chemical reactions,
regulate body temperature, remove waste products.
|
Fruits, vegetables, liquids
|
Have you been tempted to deny your body any of the food
groups? If so, did you consider the effect the changes would have on the internal functions of your body?
Take the time to discover what works
best in getting your
body to function at it’s highest potential. Each of our bodies respond
differently to certain foods and those things that energize one person may
cause
another to feel sluggish. Some foods will cause one to feel bloated and
others
to feel light. Some may increase factors that lead to weight gain and
others
weight loss. The important thing is when we recognize these things, we
must not
take it to be permission to remove an entire food group from our diet,
but as permission to experience foods outside of our "normal" that has the capabilities to promote
wellness.
Prior to beginning your next weight loss adventure ask
yourself this question, will it supply me the freedom to eat WELL?
Mrs. Nez
