Fitness for Smart People

Anyone else tired of the anti-carb, anti-fat, or anti-anything approach to eating.  After all, hasn’t the current research established that both extremes and probably everything in between are as equally as effective for weight loss.  And we all know of that person who swears they lost weight on the twinkie diet.  Okay, we get it.  But is eating twinkies really the way to go?

You would think we would have learned the danger of demonizing foods back in the early ’80s when we were told  fats were bad, and as long as we avoided them, we were good to go.  Ironically, when many manufacturers took out the fat, they added sugar in its place.  Of course, we now know that sugar is bad for us, which would be fine if grains, specifically whole grains, weren’t also being targeted by some of these popular anti-carb diets. The experts…you know the people who actually study this stuff including the Harvard School of Public Health… claim we aren’t getting enough whole grains at the same time that blogs, ads, and articles everywhere are warning about the evils of grains and carbs in general.

Choosing Nutrient Dense Foods – A Diet Revolution

Today, what I like to think of as the “in-crowd” of health experts are gravitating towards a new approach, an approach that doesn’t necessarily alienate any one nutrient or any one food.  Instead, it is a system that rates a food or even your diet on its overall nutrient density, the amount of nutrients it supplies compared to the amount of calories it contains.

The advantage to this approach is that it is objective.  It doesn’t start out with the premise that a particular food is bad simply because it happens to contain fat, carbs or protein.  It looks at each food as a complete package.  We rate it on its overall nutrient profile and quality, including macronutrients (fats, carbs and protein), micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) and phytonutrients (phytosterols, carotenoids, limonoids, etc).

What is really great about this new approach is that natural, more wholesome foods like fruits, veggies, whole grains, fish, lean-meats etc, always top the list, while processed and refined prepackaged foods always end up at the bottom.  And it makes sense since many of us believe it is the added fats and sugars found in processed foods as opposed to the ones found naturally in nature that are responsible for some of our recent health woes.

There is a great website listed at the end of this post under sources.   The World’s Healthiest Foods, really is that, a website dedicated to promoting the world’s healthiest foods.  In addition to recipes and daily updates, the site provides detailed nutrition information about all the foods it recommends as well as the scientific literature to support it.

I can promise you that you won’t find corn-flakes, or twinkies, or margarine on their list, but you will find a number of foods that have previously been off-limits, foods like certain grains and healthy fats and oils.

Take home point:

In the end, weight loss and weight maintenance are really about calories in vs. calories out.  Sure there are a few subtleties that factor in, but in general, all excess calories can be converted and stored as fat.  We also know that while weight loss may be challenging, keeping the weight off is just as difficult.  A nutrient dense approach to eating not only provides for weight loss in the short term, it also arms us with eating patterns that supply an abundance of things we know to be good for us over the long haul.  It certainly gives diets like the twinkie diet a run for their money while displaying some distinct advantages over diets that focus only on the macronutrient content of foods like high-protein or high-carb diets.

Sources:

World’s Healthiest Foods

Photos:

Thai Cuisine by Stoonn/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Fish meal by vitasamb2001/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Brown rice by nixxphotography/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Fresh Vegetables at Market by Kittikun Atsawintarangkul/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Shaun received her Bachelor of Science in Nutritional Sciences with minors in Chemistry and Biology from the University of Delaware in 1994 and then completed a professional Masters of Physical Therapy also from the University of Delaware in 1997. Shaun has worked as an aerobic/group fitness instructor, a personal trainer, a massage therapist, an out-patient orthopedic physical therapist, and a consultant for an international credentialing agency that evaluates the educational documents of physical therapists educated overseas. She is currently an advisory board member for the Delaware Academy of Massage and Bodyworks and has taught continuing education for massage therapy practitioners. She also writes online fitness and nutrition articles and runs a blog titled Fitness for Smart People. Perhaps most importantly, Shaun is a mother of four who was forced to deal with a serious injury that left her with permanent nerve damage in her right foot. She understands the unique challenges we all face when trying to get and stay healthy.

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Tags: diet, health, healthy eating, nutrient dense foods, nutrition