Lifestyle Eating and Diet - Part 1

One of the things that people tend to do when "I" walk into a room at a County meeting is joke about not being able to have "good food" and must resort to fruits and vegetables. As much as these foods may be more iconic to "health" they aren't always realistic. Plus, there are other ways to be "healthy."

The basic principle to weight management is calories in versus calories out. You keep it even, you stay same weight. You have an elevation on one side or the other and you will either lose weight or gain weight.

One of my first memories of "diets" were related to Weight Watchers or Richard Simmons' videos. I can remember in the early 80s that my mother did one or both of these. Now, she is over 70 years old and does she eat like she did then...no. Why, because it was not a lifestyle change it was a short-term "lose weight" issue.

As a former athletic trainer, I have witnessed people become anorexic due to trying to live up to a certain look. Two extreme cases were females. One went as far as passing out many times and going to see counselor due to the mental/psychological issues related to anorexia.

When it comes to the style of food intake, for the "normal" person (non-diabetic, elevated heart issues, or other conditions), we live in a culture where we are not going to be able to simply have "fruits and vegetables" all the time. Nor are we going to have sugary snacks all the time. Of course there are more health benefits in fruits and vegetables than sugary foods, let's not discount that fact.

One thing that is important to remember that we had plenty of "bad stuff" in the diets of our culture before we were born. But something that made a huge difference was they didn't have all the "lack-of-exercise" amenities" which we have now. Until "recent" (in all reality) if you wanted to get a hold of someone you had to be outside and go to their house, either by foot or horse/buggie. Now, we can e-mail/text/call in a few seconds.

The other problem is, those past generations brought their delicious food with them into a "lack-of-exercise" culture. So we have same good food - fatty, fried, sugary - but we don't burn it off.

Keep in mind that I am NOT suggesting we violate healthy eating, even if we exercise. However, there are times when we may eat a donut or choose to have a shake. There may be times which you do not eat very "healthy" in a given day or weekend. However, may we make it the "occasional" and not the norm.

Another concept to consider is portion control. Buffets are evil when it comes to health. I will be the first to think "I paid for this, I'm going to eat." This generally causes me to eat way more than I needed to in the first place. Most of us can survive on about 650-700 calories a meal. This is roughly around the 2000 diet, without snacks. However, to be about 165 a person needs to maintain about 1650 calories. If you chose to eat at McDonald's and you ate a McDouble (390 calories w/ cheese, 340 without), small fries (250 calories) and unsweet tea (0 calories) you would be close to that amount per meal. It also shows that it adds up with very little food.

The number presented to maintain 165 pounds is number is not limited to intake, this is what you need to have to maintain normal body functions. If you are taking in 2000 but burning 350, then you are going to be in that range. Keep in mind, digestion does burn some calories. Overall it is minimal - so don't count on it for weight loss.

The bottom line is that if we decide to eat something other than fruits and vegetables, which we need a balanced diet, then we need to be moving to burn some calories. We must keep in mind that if we are going to eat the "fun" foods, then we must be willing to burn them off through some sort of exercise routine. Otherwise, we will be gaining weight or increasing our chances for other health-related risks.

Let's eat (even fun things) and move.