Rules Are Meant to be Broken
You may have noticed that I tend to swim upstream, fighting against the currents of conventional knowledge. Over the course of 5 decades, it has come to my attention that experts, especially nutrition experts, are basically full of shit.
In my wanderings around the intertubewebnets, I occasionally find a little something, here, or there, which restores my faith in man. That is, I find support for my position that experts, in general, and nutrition experts, in particular, are full of shit.
With that in mind, for today’s Nutrition Friday, here is my permission to break the following rules for healthy dieting.
A muffin is not a breakfast food.
Yes, yes, yes, I know, that healthy bran muffin you eat for breakfast is super yummy and nutritious, and so much better than a bagel or a doughnut. Except that, no, it’s not. What it really is, is a bran flavoured piece of cake. A few years ago a study was done on the calorie content of morning rush foods, and it turns out there’s as much, or more, sugar fat and calories in muffins as doughnuts.
Smoothies are not diet food.
Sure, sure, they’re full of fruits and vegetables and fibre and nutrition and shit. You know what else they’re full of? Calories, and if you’re buying them from a fast food joint, calories from the sugar they add to make them extra yummy. About ½ a day’s worth of calories.
Swearing off your favourite snack is a bad idea.
I agree, chips, fries, doughnuts, and especially those evil little Vachon cakes (10 bites of pure, poisonous heaven) are bad for you. Really bad for you, as it happens, but swearing them off forever is more likely to lead to a binge relapse than never eating them again. Allow yourself to cheat and indulge your favourite craving, at least once in a while.
Crash diets are for idiots
Count calories if you must (I decline to do so, thank you very much), but don’t crash diet. First, as I wrote over here, the well-being of your body and mind are interlinked and starving your body will harm your mental well-being. You’ll lack energy and focus, and if you’re me, be far more susceptible to mood swings and depression.
In addition, there is a strong risk of weight rebound, yo-yo dieting. The negative effects f yo-yo dieting are bad enough to warrant a post all of its own, so I’ll just say, don’t do it, m’kay?
Third, even absent the yo-yo effect, severe, short term weight loss carries its own set of nasty health consequences, so, again, don’t do it, m’kay?
Don’t diet by eating “diet foods.”
You know what diet foods are? A marketing gimmick to get you to spend too much money on over processed crap. You know what over processed means? Generally speaking, it means either; too much sugar, preservatives and other chemicals, or lacking in flavour and nutrition.
