The First Five Food Lies
When it comes to weight loss, there’s a ton of advice out there. The
problem is, most of it is terrible, outdated and scientifically
disproven. And if you believe it, it could be getting in your way. So
let’s take a look at the Top Ten Food Lies that keep you sick and fat.
Food Lie #1: All Calories Are Created Equal
When I walked into an 8th grade class recently, I asked if
them if there was a difference between 1000 calories of broccoli and a
1000 calories of soda. You know what I heard? A unanimous, “Duh! Yes!”
The idea that, as long as we burn more calories than we consume, we will lose weight IS SIMPLY DEAD WRONG.
The lie is that losing weight is all about energy balance or calories
in/calories out. Just eat less and exercise more is the mantra we hear
from the food industry and government agencies. It’s all about
moderation. How’s that working for America?
The truth is there are good and bad calories. And that’s because it’s more than a simple math problem.
When we eat, our food interacts with our biology, which is a complex
adaptive system that instantly transforms every bite. Every bite affects
your hormones, brain chemistry and metabolism. Sugar calories cause fat
storage and spike hunger. Protein and fat calories promote fat burning.
What counts even more are the QUALITY of the calories.
What are high-quality calories? Whole foods – fresh foods, foods like
great-grandma made. Good quality protein: grass-fed animal products
(not factory farmed), organic eggs, chicken, small wild fish, nuts and
seeds. Good carbs: vibrantly colored vegetables, the brighter the better
(you can binge on these!). Fruits like wild berries, apples and kiwis.
And super foods like chia and hemp seeds. And good fats like avocado,
extra virgin olive oil, nuts and seeds, coconut butter and omega-3 fats
from fish.
Food Lie #2: Don’t Lose Weight Too Fast, You’ll Gain it All Back
Slow and steady is what we are told. No quick fixes. Don’t lose more
than a pound a week. This is dead wrong. Studies show the opposite –
that a jumpstart leads to more weight loss over time. If you reboot your
metabolism with a quick detox from sugar, processed food and junk, you
will reset your hormones and your brain chemistry making it much easier
to sustain the changes.
The key is to use a healthy, sustainable strategy for weight loss
that balances your hormones and brain chemistry and doesn’t put you in a
starvation response.
That allows you to lose the weight and keep it off – I see it with my
patients all the time – if you see results, you feel empowered and get
inspired to keep losing weight.
Food Lie #3: All You Need is Willpower
This is one of the most insidious lies pushed on us by the food industry and government.
Their mantra is this: Eat Less, Exercise More.
The implicit message in this idea is that the real reason we are all
fat and sick is that we are lazy gluttons. If we just stopped stuffing
our faces and got up off the couch and moved our butt, we would lose
weight. It is moral failing, weak psychology, apathy or worse that
prevents people from moderating their food intake and exercise. This is
nonsense.
If you try to control your appetite with willpower, you will fail. We
have short-term voluntary control and can starve ourselves but then our
bodies compensate by slowing our metabolism and dramatically increasing
appetite. It is unsustainable. If I asked you to hold your breath for
15 minutes – no matter how bad you want to make it happen, you’re just
not designed to pull that off.
When your taste buds, brain chemistry, hormones and metabolism have
been damaged by sugar and processed foods, willpower alone won’t do it.
If you are addicted to sugar
and refined carbs you cannot white knuckle it for very long. You have
to naturally reset your brain chemistry and hormones so your body will
automatically self regulate and the cravings disappear and hunger will
be in balance.
When your metabolism has been hijacked you need to detox from the
addictive power of sugar and flour and replace them with real, whole
high quality foods. That will allow your appetite and weight to
automatically regulate without willpower.
Food Lie #4: Diet Soda Is Better Than Regular Soda
I call soda LIQUID DEATH. And you might as well call diet soda “New
& Improved Liquid Death,” because it may actually be WORSE.
In a 14-year study of more than 66,000 women,
researchers found that diet sodas actually raised the risk of diabetes
MORE than sugar-sweetened sodas. One diet soda increased the risk of
type 2 diabetes by 33% and one large diet soda increased the risk by
66%.
The truth is, diet soda slows your metabolism, makes you hungry for
sugar and carbs and packs on the belly fat. Stay away from all
artificial sweeteners, even natural ones. Just add a little real sugar
to your coffee if you want. It’s not the sugar that you add to your diet
that’s the problem. It’s the sugar that is added to your diet by food
corporations.
Food Lie #5: Foods Labeled Low Fat or Whole Grain Are Good for You
The low-fat craze of the last 30 years has paralleled the dramatic
rise in obesity and type 2 diabetes. When food companies took the fat
out of the products it was replaced with sugar. And in those 30 years
our sugar consumption has doubled. Fat actually makes you satisfied,
curbs your appetite and a review of all the research on fat and weight found that fat does not make you fat.
The latest health buzzword is “whole grain.” Food companies add a
few flakes of whole grain to processed foods and try to convince us its
healthy. A whole grain Pop Tart? Really?
Most cereals are 75% sugar, even with a little bit of whole grain
added. They shouldn’t be called breakfast, they should be called
dessert. And we are feeding sugary cereal to our kids for breakfast
thinking we are doing something good for them. In fact, we are killing
them.
My basic rule for food: If it has ANY health claim on the label, it’s probably bad for you.
To read more about these other food lies, please check out my new book, The Blood Sugar Solution 10-Day Detox Diet.
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