The Problem
We eat for convenience and comfort.
You've had a busy day at work. You get home and have less than an hour before you have to eat dinner, shower, and head out again. No time to prepare and cook a healthy meal. Instead, you grab a bag of potato chips, a leftover salami sandwich, and a soda and eat while you dress. You know this isn't good for you, but it's quick and easy. Plus, the chips and pop taste great.
In today’s fast-paced society, convenience often takes precedence over proper nutrition, leading to detrimental effects on general health and increasing stress and anxiety surrounding food, what we should and shouldn’t eat, and dieting habits.
At its core of the issue is the prevalence of fast food, highly processed meals, and snacks that have become staples in our diets. These foods are often palatable but high in unhealthy fats and added sugars while lacking essential nutrients like fiber, vitamins, and minerals.
The convenience-focused culture surrounding food choices also promotes mindless eating and a disconnect from the actual process of nourishing your body. Eating on the go, in front of screens, or in a rushed manner diminishes the enjoyment and mindfulness associated with meals.
The convenience of grabbing a quick meal on the go or ordering takeout has led to a significant decline in home-cooked, wholesome meals. Food is an object of fixation and often devoid of the pleasure of being prepared in the home as part of engaging communal dining experience.
One major issue with our diet culture is its tendency to promote fad diets and restrictive eating patterns that often lack scientific evidence and fail to provide adequate nutrition. These diets focus on short-term weight loss goals rather than long-term sustainable health. They often eliminate entire food groups or severely restrict calorie intake, leading to potential nutrient deficiencies, imbalances, or eating disorders.
Moreover, diet culture often overlooks the importance of understanding macronutrients and their role in supporting overall health. While the focus may be on counting calories or eliminating certain foods, the emphasis on macronutrient composition and balance is often neglected.
The higher the number of red flags a specific food or type of food contains, the more cautious you should be about eating it.
Each macronutrient (carbohydrates, proteins, and fats) plays a crucial role in energy production, hormone regulation, and cellular function. Without some understanding of these macronutrients and their impact on the body, individuals may inadvertently compromise their metabolic needs.
The Hack
Eat like you mean it.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to nutrition. There are key principles of nutrition that every individual will benefit from understanding, and there are simple strategies that help make those principles practical to deploy. The ultimate priority is for you to know how to ditch harmful eating habits and gradually replace them with solutions that feel aligned and doable for life.
Uncontrolled eating, mindless eating, convenience-focused eating, and overly restrictive eating won’t allow you to feel aligned or healthy in the long term. With that common understanding, it’s time to dive into core principles of nutrition that are fundamental to a healthy approach to eating.
Consuming mostly nutritionally deficient foods will rob your body of key micronutrients (vitamins and minerals), increase mental and metabolic stress, impede normal digestive functions and gut health, lower your body’s immune system and ability to fight inflammation, and increase the potential of many other associated health risks.
Highly processed foods lack the structural and nutritional complexity of whole foods. These foods include what we generally call junk foods but can also include plenty of options that the general public would consider to be “healthier” foods. There are six key markers, or red flags, to look out for in your dies.
These markers typically show up in combinations. The higher the number of red flags a specific food or type of food contains, the more cautious you should be about eating it. The markers are 1) high saturated fat content, 2) high sugar content, 3) high-calorie foods with little nutritional value (check the food label for macro and micronutrient info), 4) easier to overeat (not satiating), 5) highly processed, and 6) high flavor stimuli.
You wouldn’t “wing it” when it comes to important life decisions, so why would you approach what fuels, heals, and protects your body without planning and preparation?
To move away from convenience-focused meals to home-cooked meals, you will need a process for mindful meal planning. Start by creating a weekly meal plan that includes a few staple “go-to” ingredients that can be combined to create a variety of nutritious and balanced meals.
Consider the nutritional value, portion sizes, and ingredients when designing your menu. Pick two to three great protein sources, two to three high-quality carb sources, two to three vegetables you enjoy, and two to three healthy fats.
What you can do tomorrow
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Focus on protein + fiber. This will reduce cravings and keep blood sugar levels steady. The protein + fiber combo will change the way you eat and snack. You will benefit from more sustained energy, longer fullness signals, better digestion, and more regular bowel movements. You will also keep blood sugar more stable and get off the cravings-to-crash spiral. Greek yogurt + fruit, overnight protein oats, veggies and cottage cheese, no-bake protein power balls (tons of great recipes online), and nuts with cheese are a few great combos to consider.
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Use hand portion guides. Portion control is huge. Practice portion control by using smaller plates and bowls to help regulate serving sizes. My favorite method for portion control is to use your hands as your measuring tool. The benefit is that your hands are always with you and remain a consistent size. As a general rule, one palm = a portion of protein, one fist = a portion of vegetables, one cupped hand = a portion of carbs, and one thumb = a portion of fats. Moderately active people will typically have success at creating balanced meals by aiming for one to two portions of each hand size per meal. This strategy comes particularly handy (excuse the pun) when eating at a conference, party, or buffet.
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Plan a healthy snack. You will get hungry, and you will be tempted to grab unaligned options when you are on the go. The best strategy is to trust your preparation, not your willpower. Plan healthy snack options in advance. Keep great snacks stocked at work. Invest in a cooler bag for daily cold snacks. Store some shelf-stable options in your car (trail mix, seeds, dried fruit, jerky). Life will surprise you. Control the uncontrollable by having your backup snacks always close by.
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Eat slowly and chew more. Nutritious food requires more chewing to break down than processed foods. You can experiment with this. Generally, high-processed foods average ten chews per bite by design, whereas whole foods average twenty-five chews. Chewing your food more is an important aspect of the digestion process. Your gut will also thank you if you eat slower. Not only will you give satiety signals time to kick in, but you will also reduce the workload on your gut. Win-win.
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Limit liquid calories. Liquid calories are sneaky. You can easily consume an additional 500 calories per day from liquids alone. High-calorie drinks are highly palatable, typically contain many added sugars, and don’t usually trigger your satiety signals like solid foods do. Be mindful about your intake of sweetened beverages and aim for water to be most of your liquid intake.
Final word
What you eat and how you eat will have a larger cumulative impact on your life than where you work, where you live, what education you have, or the vacations you take. You wouldn’t “wing it” when it comes to those important life decisions, so why would you approach what fuels, heals, and protects your body without planning and preparation?
Changing the quality of your food will directly change the quality of your life. You cannot eat perfectly because there is no perfect diet. But you can always eat a little bit better. You can always eat more mindfully, eat foods more aligned with your goals, and do the best you can to care for your body.
Don’t stress over nutrition, but don’t neglect it, either. Finding sustainability and balance in your nutrition is a lifelong journey and can include an incredible amount of fun and joy.
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Some content has been excerpted from Small Wins Big Health, by Bryan Holyfield, with permission
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