Happy New Year! I know it’s late, but I decided to sit out the first Internet wave of new year nutrition advice. This was intentional, but then the SEVEN snow days with my three kids at home kicked me completely out of commission. (Although extending vaca wasn’t half bad…if I’m honest!)
So, although I am somewhat late, at this point I hope you are like me and still mulling over what/if anything to do differently now that it’s January. If so, these are my deep thoughts and words of encouragement to help you keep it real for 2018—with real food and real talk, as always! Because January is the peak of nutrition-related misinformation, in case you haven’t noticed.
But stick with me (if you want, subscribe to follow this blog via email, or follow @dvnorwood on Instagram or The Wandering RD on Facebook) and we’ll get through it together. Let’s start with three “nutrition truths” to help you wade through the media buzz and start your year off with steady, science-based steps in the right direction.
- Goals Are Still Resolutions (Do Set Goals)
So, new year. New you? Wrong. If you read the many wellness articles this year, most tell you not to set resolutions. Have you noticed lately the health and wellness conversation has shifted from always trying to improve yourself to accepting yourself?
I get the focus on self-love. I mean, I love you (ya know, as a neighbor) enough to want to help you figure this stuff out. So, surely, I want you to love yourself. But as with all things, a healthy balance is important. And to be our best, I believe we all can make small changes to our lives that would improve our health, wellness, relationships, productivity, etc. The important things in life are worth the effort—are they not?
Nothing explains what happens when we don’t put forth the effort as well as the scientific concept of “entropy,” which is the universe’s tendency for disorder (a.k.a. why our kids’ rooms get messier by the day.)
So, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with setting goals. And you can even call it a resolution, if you want. Because isn’t a goal still a resolution? “Resolutions” just have a bad rap because it’s human nature to want to change ourselves in grandiose ways and then drop the ball when it’s unachievable. So, if “resolutions” are a New Year thing, then maybe “goals” are better.
But the point is this: it’s never a bad idea to set realistic, small resolutions (a.k.a. goals) to improve yourself or your circumstances. Don’t let anyone make you feel bad about that. It doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with the current you. It doesn’t necessarily mean your self-worth is in jeopardy. If anything, it means you are investing in yourself, and isn’t that something we do when we can see our own potential?
And further, there’s no reason anything has to start on January 1st. I don’t know about you, but I’m still mulling my goals over and yes, it’s almost February. It’s great if you want to ride the wave of motivated people in January, but it’s equally great if you decide you’re ready to start something in September. Goals have to be realistic and practical. It helps to have a plan in place to be able to achieve them. And most importantly, before you even try, you have to decide which goals will be meaningful or you will fail and not even care about it—don’t ask me how I know this…
So, wait till you are fully ready, but go ahead and start to wrap your brain around what it is that would help you become the you that you’ve always wanted to be!
I was reminded recently in this NYT article that sometimes, for many of us, the hardest part of doing anything is starting…(unless it’s finishing, then read the book, Finish: Give Yourself the Gift of Done. Ha! It’s a great quick read and I am not paid in any way to say this.)
- Diet is a Four-Letter Word (Do NOT Restrict Drastically)
About half of the population makes resolutions that involve losing weight and getting in shape. But have you heard? “Diet” is a “four-letter” word—literally, and figuratively. Yes, diet can be just a word that means “habitual nourishment,” but it has come to conjure up images of a very restrictive way of eating to lose weight. Research shows that’s bad because most people lose weight only to gain it back when they go “off” the diet, and often even more weight than they lost. So, bottom line: diets don’t improve your health if you gain back the weight (or more) and even decrease your metabolism in the process. And then there are the feelings of failure you’ll have to deal with, too.
So, if your goal is to restrict yourself so drastically that you can’t maintain it, then please, please, please change your goal to a more attainable, sustainable one. It’s okay to want to make changes to your diet, even to lose weight and/or improve other aspects of health, but consider smaller changes that you can incorporate to become lifelong habits. That said—even a lower sugar, and/or lower carbohydrate diet can be maintained if you slowly make changes that become your new normal, which is especially helpful for preventing and managing obesity, prediabetes and diabetes.
- Mindfulness Isn’t Always Intuitive (Do Practice Mindfulness)
So, 1) set goals, 2) don’t drastically restrict—this begs the question: what’s a person to do?
Have you heard about Intuitive Eating? It’s often used in the same sentence as “mindfulness.” The principles promote a non-diet approach to eating, which involves ditching the scale, listening to hunger and fullness cues to determine food intake, and perhaps most importantly, finding other ways besides food to deal with emotions.
Let’s be clear, I am not at all against any of these things. But I do have a serious problem with the word “intuitive.” If eating is supposed to be so intuitive, how are so many people doing it “wrong”? It appears to me that eating is not intuitive for a large part of the population, or there wouldn’t be a growing obesity and diabetes epidemic.
The problem may be this: it’s intuitive to eat what is available. Studies show people weigh more when presented with more variety and diversity of food options (think: buffets). And in America, we have a disproportionate amount of unhealthy foods available at our every turn.
Or the problem may be this: what if certain people with a genetic predisposition for overweight or obesity are biologically driven to overeat certain foods (such as refined carbohydrates and sugar)? It is far from conclusive, (and I talk about it in this comprehensive post about sugar) but there is a school of thought that refined carbohydrates and sugar could be addictive in some individuals. If it proves true, aren’t we judging and–even worse—alienating many people we are trying to help by telling them, or even trying to teach them, to simply “eat intuitively”?
I believe it’s not fair, accurate, or helpful to call eating “intuitive” in our food culture and that it does more harm than good.
Rant over!
That said, can one learn to eat mindfully? Absolutely.
However, it appears mindfulness may be harder for some people to learn and practice, perhaps due to one or more of the following:
- our fast-paced culture,
- our food supply,
- differing genes,
- and/or emotional issues (including eating disorders).
Some people can eat “everything in moderation” while others prefer to avoid certain foods because they can’t stop at a “reasonable” portion. It’s highly individual and we all know ourselves best, although sometimes need help and guidance teasing out all the factors that affect building healthy eating habits.
It should be noted it is impossible to talk about mindful eating without fully addressing the emotional aspects of eating, especially eating disorders, preferably with qualified therapists, psychologists and psychiatrists, in addition to RDs.
Nonetheless, mindfulness for most everyone involves learning to incorporate more real foods, and far fewer processed foods, especially those with refined carbohydrates. I like to say it is a practice, because it is important enough to do the hard work and there is no room for perfection or guilt–just keep at it the best you can.
And you can always count on me to try to make practicing mindfulness as simple as possible with an ever-growing list of easy, real food recipes. Stay tuned for a post with specific tips on how to practice eating mindfully!
I think we can all agree, nutrition is the most relevant yet most confusing science. Everybody eats, but in the 19 years I’ve been an RD, I’ve seen complete 180-degree shifts in what we know. And trust me, I’ve been as frustrated as the average person. Even knowing that nutrition is a relatively new science that is constantly evolving, I have wondered what to eat and what to feed my family.