Nutrition 101
Nutrition can be an incredibly complex subject or brain dead simple. It is easy to become caught up in the hype of every new diet that comes around the corner or every news report claiming chocolate is now good for you. Sometimes, as a defense mechanism, we tend to want complex answers when the simple will suffice quite well.
Eating in a healthy way should not be work. It should not stress you out and if it becomes an obsession, something is definitely wrong.
Over the years I have waded through many a diet and nutrition book. Some of it was good and most of it was utter garbage, but here is what I have come to believe and what has worked for me so far.
What to eat?
Simply put, the food pyramid of the USDA is utter garbage. You don't have to look far to realize that a diet based on nutritionally bankrupt foods such as grains and rice is leading us into a world of obesity and metabolic disease.
A healthy diet consists of vegetables, lean meats, fruits, nuts, oils and spices. That's it. Should you have a bagel? Nope. What about brown rice, that's ok, right? Nope. This may seem a bit dogmatic, but it really comes down to a simple question. Do you want to continue doing what you are doing, believing what you are believing despite your personal experience, or do you want real change. I have found that real, profound differences in my life were preceded by a change in mindset. These shifts were usually the result of discarding some previously held erroneous belief.
That said, we also have to recognize the distinction between what we technically should do and what we sometimes have to do.
Living in the World
It's a balance. The truth is that we live in challenging times that our body has yet to adapt to. Few of us want to retreat to the bush and live off the land. We have to deal with fast food at every corner, birthday parties, work dinners, stressful jobs, and more. There will be days where you just can't eat perfectly. They happen all the time. Don't sweat it. Just go with it. Enjoy the break. Make it a positive experience. Think about those less than optimal foods as helping make your body's immune system stronger by providing a new toxin for it to deal with. The trick is to get back on the plan the next meal. It is the stringing together of days and days of poor eating that causes issues.
Intermittent Fasting
Once you have your base diet in line it is a great time to throw in some Intermittent Fasting (IF). This just means you skip a meal now and then. I usually do this when I am just not that hungry. If you are in touch with your real feelings of hunger this becomes easy. Art DeVany made an excellent point on this front that it frees you from the profound attachment to food we all have. If you realize you can skip a few meals and not have any adverse effects, your stress level around food goes away.
Personally, I additionally follow a slightly more routinized program of IF that I learned from Martin Berkhan. I stop eating at 8pm and begin again at 12pm. It equates essentially to skipping breakfast. I know many people reading this will begin quoting the conventional wisdom of how important breakfast is, but I have not found it to be true. Personally, in making just this simple change I have lost about 8 pounds of body fat. Again, simple, effective, and true to my personal experience.
Measuring Food, Counting Calories
There is a lot of emphasis on calories among nutritionists and the model of measuring out your food is highly prevalent among athletes and chronic dieters alike. In my preference for the simple, I find this model broken as well. I lived it for a bit and can say that in large part an understanding of Intermittent Fasting and Evolutionary Fitness cured me of this obsession. In the end, eating should be more fun and playful (certainly not time consuming). Just try to make the right choices and eat until you are full. If your meal is broccoli and lean chicken breast you have no real need to count calories. Say goodbye to food scales and Tupperware!
The Cheat Meal
As mentioned above, there are at least a few times every week when I "cheat". Keep in mind it is a cheat meal, not a cheat day or a cheat weekend. Your body can overcome a bad meal, not a chronically bad diet.
These meals can be induced by my environment or be simply something I want to do to satisfy a craving. I love pizza and ice cream, so at least once a week I splurge. Is it ideal? No way. The good news is that I know if I am eating right the rest of the week it does not matter one bit as far as my fitness level. I also find that this type of freedom enables me to be mentally stronger on the other days. If I know that I have pizza coming up in a few days, I'll feel better about staying on my diet when I am tempted.
I should also note that Rob Faigin recommends two high carb/low fat cheat meals weekly (one on day 3 and the other on day 7) and he has much science to back it up; however, I find one cheat meal a week works better for me personally. This is probably since I typically include too much fat in that meal according to his guidelines.
Exercise
Obviously giving your body some acute stress is a powerful way to improve your metabolic pathways. However, I think people dramatically over emphasize it's relative importance. In my experience, diet is 80% of the equation and I am not sure the other 20% is exercise alone (eg. sleep, stress, etc). In the past I had times when I worked out like crazy and ate whatever I want. I also had times when I never worked out but watched my diet meticulously. I can tell you without a doubt that the former is a recipe for failure on many, many levels. The latter may not be completely optimal, but it works very well.
If you just watch what you put into your body, working out will just be that last little smoothing of the edges, but the statue has already been carved from the block of stone. That said, if you want to work out, and we all should, I have information on that front on the Fitness page.
Further Reading
The great thing about nutrition is that you don't really have to know why it works. If you switch your diet, how you look and feel will change naturally. However, if you want to dive deep and understand the science behind it all, there are a few places I would recommend you start...
The first book I read on this topic was by Rob Faigin entitled Natural Hormonal Enhancement (NHE). I have since re-read it at least twice - it is that dense. It is a fantastic book extremely well researched. This is several years old now, but I still find it to be the gold standard. Rob shone the light on a path that I didn't even know was there and for that I will always be grateful.
Next I was turned on to Dr. Mercola by way of his book The No Grain Diet. At the time I was full of sympathy weight from my daughter's birth and had hit about 230 and felt terrible. His guidelines are very much in line with those espoused in NHE (above) and the timing was right. Inside of a few months I was down to about 205, but still about 20 pounds too heavy in my estimation. But, I had a taste for what worked from real experience.
After coming across Crossfit, I began reading Loren Cordain's work, specifically his fantastic Paleo Diet. It covers a lot of the science behind a more evolutionary approach to eating and includes some recipes as well for those looking for inspiration.
Staying Up to Date
Diet and nutrition is an area being researched every day and staying on top of it all is a full time job. This is where I rely on the experts I have found. They all have blogs and post very regularly on this topic. Here are my favorites: Robb Wolf, Art DeVany, and Mark Sisson. If you read their stuff you can't go wrong. I also recommend Mr. DeVany's DVD Seminar and attending a Crossfit Nutrition Seminar with Robb Wolf. All solid information that will help anyone on this journey.
Final Thoughts
I put this information out there not to convince you or preach to you but simply to share the path I have tread. If it helps you, great. If not, that's ok too. Just consider it food for thought. We all have to find our own way, but I have always been grateful to those who have shared their research, wisdom, experiences, and more in that it has enriched me so thoroughly.
Best of luck in your quest, whatever that may be.