Sunday Story…3 Food Truths

It’s that time. You know the one…where the cognitive dissonance of eating clean and healthy, your training schedule and the holiday party season come into full blown conflict. All of your favorite foods you remember from your childhood days will be in evidence. These foods aren’t necessarily the best or worst for you but they are filled with memories.

Food isn’t just about calories or chemicals. Food is about emotional triggers and imbued with meaning, right or wrong. The right smell will send you to cloud 9 and the wrong one will put you in a funk. A bite of watermelon might send you back to a lazy hot languid summer afternoon with friends and family. The taste of a particular soup brings up a meal time of strife and stress.

Here are 3 things you need to know about food that may make these next few weeks easier to get through and not blow your entire regimen up for the New Year.
1. Fat doesn’t make you fat and neither do carbs. That’s right…a high fat, low carb diet isn’t going to make you fat and neither will a high carb low fat diet. Obviously something else is at work…if you eat too much based on your energy expenditure you will get fat. If you drink too much sugar (soda or juice or alcohol) you will get fat. What really matters is what your overall diet looks like. Lots of junk food? Loading up on spinach dip and bread before dinner? Pounding handfuls of salted roasted (in Trans fat) nuts watching the game? Not a recipe for healthy results. Have a bite of spinach dip or 1 handful of nuts (pass on the Trans fat though!) and enjoy every guilt-free morsel. Just don’t put on the feed bag at the hors d’oeuvre table.

2. Food marketers are liars. Well, not exactly liars. They just don’t tell you what you need to know. They tell you what you want to hear. Whole grain cocoa puffs are not any healthier than regular ones. Froot loops are froot loops and it doesn’t matter if they are organic or not. Gluten free isn’t necessarily healthier, it’s just gluten free. Let’s start recognizing this BS for what it is…a way to get you to buy more products. They don’t care if it’s healthy or not, their purpose is to move calories off the shelf. You get to decide if those calories fit your particular needs.

3. Eat when you are hungry. It you aren’t hungry don’t eat. Don’t confuse hunger for thirst. Drink lots of plain water throughout the day. Sit down and eat. Give thanks for whatever you are eating and the people you are eating it with even if it is with strangers in a restaurant. Approach each mouthful with pleasure and an attitude of gratitude, your gut will reward you.

When that big holiday meal shows up or that buffet or office potluck you get to look at those offerings and decide how best to serve your current health needs. Have pie alamode if you want but you don’t need a whole pie or a half gallon of ice cream. Get your frontal lobes engaged and stop the lizard brain from devastating the buffet table.

If you don’t know what you should be eating let’s figure it out. If what you are doing isn’t working let’s do something different. Call me, write me, send out a smoke signal but let’s get the ship righted before it sinks.

Namaste

John Mariotti
www.crossfit-odyssey.com
www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com
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