YHATC049: What Do I Eat??

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It’s one of the questions that I get the most often as a trainer…

“What do I eat?”

This might also be asked like…

“What do I eat to lose weight?”

or…

“What do I eat to get healthy?”

And to that, I’ll say “rightfully so.”  I believe that the reason that most of you ask about what to eat is because you are already aware that what you eat has the biggest influence on your weight and on whether or not you get results from your workout routine.  The only folks who don’t have to worry as much about their diets, from a weight loss perspective, are professional athletes, who often have to eat enough to maintain their weight.  When you’re working out 2-6 hours a day, you gotta find calories; you’re not trying to cut Calories, unless you wanna lose your performance and become a string bean.

Anyhow, another reason that folks ask “what do I eat” is because, quite frankly, it’s confusing!  I consider the plethora of diets that are popular right now – keto, paleo, low carb – as well as the many others out there that include Whole 30, Atkins, vegan, vegetarian, low fat, plant-based, blood-type,  programs like Slim-Fast and Nutrisystem, and the list really does go on and on.  One would think that the abundance of choices would make things easier, but yeah, right.  It never works that way.  Tons of choices very often complicate, rather than simplify, a situation, and that definitely goes for figuring out what diet to choose.

I’m going to make this podcast concise and brief, but I want to help you out a bit by giving you some basic principles to live by when it comes to figuring out how to eat.  This isn’t going to solve all of your problems or answer all of your questions, but I believe based on my own experience that this is going to get you started on reaching your goals, and it’s going to help you think about eating in a more sustainable and healthy manner.

Let me pit stop right there for a second and say this:  I am a firm believer that we were never supposed to obsess over and get confused about eating the way that we are.  Eating is supposed to be a very straightforward part of our day-to-day lives.  I just can’t imagine grandma and great-grandma worrying very much about carbs or protein.

Eating is supposed to be enjoyable.  It’s not supposed to be like a math class, where we pull out our calculators and try and figure out if we’re eating “the right amount” of Calories and all of that.  One of my biggest goals with what I do in the health and fitness realm is to help people see that they can enjoy mealtimes again.  I want people to see that there’s a different way than obsessing about whether you ate too much or whether you’re going to gain a pound from eating that potato.  There’s a better way.

Let’s move on.

Quick Pointers on Knowing What To Eat

To answer this question, I am going to give you a couple of tidbits that I always have in the back of my mind when it comes to figuring out what to eat.  As I’ve said, when you adopt these simple patterns of thinking about food, it will help you start accomplishing your weight loss goals, and most importantly, it will help you take your health back.

#1:  Focus on REAL food.  The opposite of real food is man-made food.

In the book In Defense of Food, author Michael Pollan uses the phrase real food as well.  When I say “real food,” I am simply referring to food that occurs naturally in the same state, or at least, food that is as close to it’s naturally occurring state as possible.

Real food is minimally altered by humans, if at all.  When you think about man-made food, think about all of the foods that come in boxes, bags and other similar containers in the aisles.  This is stuff like cookies, crackers, cereals, candies, meals-in-a box, canned meats and vegetables and so on.  In most cases, all of these were formerly natural foods that you could get from a farm or pick from a garden that people processed – meaning, they manipulated the food in various ways for the sake of taste, appearance, convenience and preservation – and sold to be put on a grocery store shelf.

Generally, when we process foods like this, we strip away much of the original nutritional content – vitamins, minerals, fiber, etc. – of the natural food, but not only that.  Many of the things we add to processed foods make them even more unhealthy and fattening.  Think salt, colorings, sugar, preservatives and so on.

That said, if you make your goal to eat real food that has been minimally touched by humans, you might be surprised at how you start losing weight, or at how your headaches start to go away or how your blood pressure starts to better regulate itself.  Natural foods were made for us to eat.  They taste good, and they have the whole spectrum of nutrients that our bodies require to work properly.  That’s why they produce such health benefits.

Focusing on eating real food means that you will need to visit the grocery store more often and the restaurants less often.  It also means that you will need to stay out of the aisles for the most part, and that you will need to learn to cook more.  Yes, in our modern day world, this means that more time will be required to prepare one’s own food, but isn’t your health worth it?  After all, we can only rush so much through each day without nurturing ourselves through food before we start having health issues that keep us from being able to do anything.  We might as well take the time now.

#2:  Be smart with the carbs in the 21^st century world.

I want to be careful talking about carbohydrates because it’s easy in today’s world to obsess about them.  Low-carb eating in various forms is the big fad right now because people have figured out that lowering carbohydrate intake is a definite way to lose weight.  That’s true; I don’t dispute that.

However, I am always a big fan of us not obsessing over what we eat and having to count carbs and Calories all of the time, so let’s talk briefly about why lowering carbs leads to weight loss.

Carbohydrates are sugars found in the foods that we eat that our bodies use as a source of energy.  Some foods, like potatoes and corn, are very high in carbohydrates, while foods like meat have little to no carbohydrates.  In our society, we love carb-heavy foods, especially bread and pasta.  Sadly, we are not nearly as physically active as we should be, which means that we don’t use a lot of the energy we eat from carbs.  This is why we become overweight and obese.

Unless you have a very active job or you are an athlete, you could do away with much of your carbohydrate consumption because you simply don’t require all of that energy.  Doing so would allow you to use your own fat as energy.  This is why lowering your carbs in general is a good idea.  It’s not necessary to cut them all out, as doing so might cause you to miss out on nutrients that come from a balanced diet, but you should wean yourself to an extent to get to a healthy weight.

An easy way to lower your carbs without having to count each little gram is to center your diet around non-starchy vegetables.  In other words, make non-starchy vegetables the main part of your meal.  You might have a taste of carb-rich food, but you keep from overdoing it because most of your meal is low carbohydrate, low Calorie vegetables.  So instead of having a huge serving of mashed potatoes and gravy to go with your meat, along with a small serving of green beans, you would have a much larger serving of green beans with small servings of meat and potatoes.  Trust me, this works.

Also, you could limit your carbohydrate servings to one or two meals rather than having them at every meal.  If, for example, you eat grits with your breakfast, you could focus on non-starchy vegetables and protein for the other meals.  Again, both of these practices keep you from having to count every gram of carbohydrate.  Unless you are an athlete, in which case counting carbs might be necessary.

#3:  Drink only water.

It’s painful, I know.  But at the end of the day, you will be just fine drinking pure water as your beverage.

I know that you love sweet tea.  I know that soda “settles your stomach.”  I know that energy drinks give you energy.  I know that juice you drink is 100% fruit juice.  At the end of the day, though, you must realize that all of those are filled with sugar, and lots of it.  Consuming lots of sugar through beverages causes weight gain, teeth issues, raises your risk of insulin insensitivity that leads to Type 2 Diabetes, and so much more.  If you’re really serious about your health goals, making water your only drink is a fundamental step to take.

I also discourage those sugar-free sweeteners.  They are presented as an option that allows you to have the taste without the consequence, but please understand that there are still consequences that come from such sweeteners.  Some of them can still contribute to insulin insensitivity and weight gain, even with zero Calories, and because they are chemicals, they can possibly cause other health issues.  A lot of people don’t want to accept this, but hear me:  It is better to wean yourself from the “need” for sweet taste all the time (special occasions are okay) rather than to try to find it in other forms.  It requires discipline, but it is possible.

So when you’re trying to figure out what you need to eat, use what I’ve given you as filters.  First, focus on real food.  Second, be smart with your carbs.  Lastly, know that water should be your only drink.  Take my word for it; you will experience a change in your health and in your weight.

If you know that some of what I’ve talked about is useful for you and you plan on implementing it, I want to hear from you.  Use the hashtag #iamresponsibleYHATC on Facebook or Instagram and tell me what changes you’re going to make.  I want to support you in what you’re doing.

Your Questions

Here are the health and fitness questions that you asked…

What are the best exercises to do when losing weight?  (Tyniesha B.)

Exercise to lose weight is pretty straightforward.  Walking or comparable moderate aerobic exercise (think doing yardwork, gardening or even housework) can be good for losing weight, just because most people can do them and they count for physical activity.  Only thing is, according to the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), you need to aim for at least 50 minutes per day of such exercise, on at least five days of the week.

If you are physically able, more vigorous exercise such as running, sprinting or sports that require such things will help you lose weight quicker.  I personally like to sprint hills and play basketball to lose weight.  Find something you like to do.  Just remember, though.  If your diet is bad, it almost doesn’t matter how much exercise you do.  You still won’t see results.