Eating for Success

Eating is a life changing behavior. Eat well and you will be healthy. Eat poorly and your quality of life will suffer. Stop eating and you die. I can think of only three other activities of equal importance to our lives: drinking, sleeping, and breathing.

SAD

The acronym SAD stands for Standard American Diet. It’s fitting. Most Americans eat too much calorie-dense, nutrient-poor food, the result of cultural norms, over-processing, and an endless blizzard of advertising.

There is nothing mysterious about what makes high quality food. Lean cuts of meat. Fresh vegetables in different colors. Fresh fruits. Fresh potatoes, baked or mashed. Whole grains. Beans and legumes. Everything prepared with just enough seasoning to bring out and complement the natural flavors. Fancy preparation is not required, but done right can make preparing and eating food more enjoyable.

The challenge is finding high quality food. You will not find it at a fast-food restaurant. It is hard to find at a traditional restaurant. So-called health food restaurants are overly focused on being meatless rather than nutrient rich. Ironically, when you can find healthy food at a restaurant it is expensive, in spite of its simplicity.

The best way to get high quality food is to prepare it yourself, from ingredients as close to raw as possible. The more the food has been processed before it reaches you, the more you should avoid it. A bag of frozen vegetables is just as good as fresh, more convenient, and maybe even cheaper. A frozen, microwaveable vegetable side dish is likely to contain a lot more than vegetables, including ingredients with unpronounceable names.  

Eating poorly can mean several distinct things. Undereating will cause the body to break down, to literally consume itself. Overeating will cause weight gain, which leads to a variety of undesirable outcomes including cardiovascular disease and Type II diabetes. Just as important as quantity, if not more so, is quality. The more you focus on food quality, the less you need to worry about quantity.

Diet

In a strict sense, what we eat is our diet. Somewhere along the way the word was usurped by the weight loss industry to mean eating a restricted diet. We are inundated by fad diets claiming to produce a variety of positive outcomes, especially weight loss. High fat. High protein. High fiber. Low calorie. Vegan. All of these diets have something in common, restrictions on specific classes of food. This approach creates imbalances in our required nutrients, often with serious and unwanted side effects. At their best, such diets demand a great deal of effort by the individual in order to overcome those deficiencies. Eating a complete, balanced diet is much simpler and a whole lot safer.

Eat Everything

A good starting point on the path to successful eating is to plan on eating everything. No, this is not permission to overeat. Eat everything means no restrictions, and lots of variety.  

Nutrients

Most of the composition of food falls into three categories, called macronutrients: carbohydrate, protein, and fat. In addition to these are the micronutrients, commonly referred to as vitamins and minerals. Iron, calcium, vitamin c; that sort of thing. Then there is fiber, which is not a source of nutrition but vital to a properly functional digestive tract and a valuable tool for regulating blood sugar. And of course there is water, an ingredient that is not, strictly speaking, a nutrient, but vital to our health.

Balance

Simply put, the SAD diet is out of balance. Too much fat and carbohydrate, and not enough micronutrients and fiber. It does not take much to turn a sad diet happy. Less bread, rice, and potatoes, less fatty meats, more fruits, nuts, and vegetables. Less sugar. Emphasize variety. Legumes are especially useful because they function a lot like vegetables but can be a source of protein.

Taste and appearance

Eating healthy does not mean eating raw tree bark and shapeless lumps of mysterious brown sludge. Meals are best when enjoyed, in terms of appearance, smell, taste, and texture. Since eating well means more home cooking, time spent making food attractive is time well spent. Again, healthy eating is not about giving up foods that you love. It is about adjusting the balance.

Timing

When to eat and how much to eat is another topic; too much to cover in any detail here. What should be said is that active people – athletes – need to adjust their daily calorie intake with regards to the energy demands of the next few days. Establish a daily calorie budget, then increase the carbohydrate intake to account for the next day’s activity. Beyond that, the body like regularity, and for most people that includes three meals a day. Too much variation in meal timing can cause unpleasant disruptions in the digestive system. Regularity breeds regularity.

Nutrition for athletes is a specialized field, one in which many books have been written. It is safe to say that this article is only a taste. Sorry. If you are looking for professional advice, see a registered dietitian. For everyday eating just keep in mind these simple points:

• Don’t eat SAD.
• Eat everything, in balance.
• Keep it good looking and good tasting.
• Don’t skip meals.

Note: The Healthy Eating Plate is from this Harvard website.