FACT:- Nothing influences our weight more than the food we eat!
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As confusing topics go, there seems none more so than diet & weight loss. Go to any book store and have a look a the Diet & Weight loss sections and you will see a plethora of books with titles all promising you the- 'The SECRET to weight loss and health' or promoting 'the best diet..'
Diets DON'T work! Short term fixes don't produce lasting results. We are bombarded with misinformation especially when it comes to Diets. There are many reasons people choose to loose weight but often we look for a quick fix rather than a permanent change to our way of eating. Have you noticed that many diet books seem to be contradicting one another and thus adding to the confusion? Here are just a few examples of conflicting ideas: 1) Fat is bad for you versus fat is good for you 2)Carbs are bad for you versus carbs are good for you 3) Fruit is healthy versus fruits make you fat or it has too much sugar 4) Sugar is bad versus we need sugar 5) Meat is bad for you versus we need meat 6) Milk is good versus Milk is bad 7) We need lots of protein versus we need very little 8) Saturated fat is bad for you versus it isn't bad for you 9) Salt is good versus salt is bad 10) Alcohol in moderation is good for you versus it is bad Then there are those books that suggest that diet has little to do with weight gain and that it's all in our DNA or Genes? What is the result of all this confusion? The result is generally that we begin to believe that there is no way of knowing what the truth is when it comes to Diet and Weight loss and we begin to conclude that the search is futile and thus we often give up searching and we revert back to doing what we have have already been doing and thus get the results we have already been getting. Where can we find reliable truthful information? Do we need to read through all those conflicting books to discover the answer? - No! 'Results speak loudest'- to illustrate, say you had a bunch of keys are didn't know which one opened the door, then let's say you find a key that opens the door, would you then check all the other keys? Carbs, Fats & Protein In the western world we are getting most of our calories from fat- about 50% typically. In nature (fruits & Vegetables) you cannot find foods that typically have a 50% fat ratio, for example most fruits and vegetables have less than 10% fat content. Nutritional science & and Sports Nutrition have demonstrated that a diet that keeps the fat consumption under 15% is optimal for health & performance. All fruits & vegetables contain protein so no worries there, yet don't we need to eat meat to get protein? The short answer is NO! What we actually need are Amino acids- the building blocks of protein, fruits and vegetables contain.... Processed Food is the problem! Go to any big chain supermarket and see how much of the floor space is dedicated to processed and convenience foods- most of it right! The fresh produce aisle usually take up just one row or about 10% of the floor space. Many of us eat food that comes out of a tin, packet or box. These foods are usually loaded with sugar, salt, fat as well many artificial ingredients. It's obvious to me, that the more we tamper and alter the food that we are provided in nature the worse it is. The solution? Center your diet around natural foods and remove (or severely limit) all processed from your diet. What can we expect from eating the way we were designed to eat? 1) Results will be permanent. 2) Health & Weight balanced perfectly; in other words one shouldn't come at the cost of the other. 3) Species specific- in other words, what diet are humans designed to eat? Every other creature on planet earth has a species specific diet why would we think that the rule does not apply to us and that we can eat pretty much what we want to and get away with it. As Dr. Doug Graham puts it; "You can't break the laws of nature only proof them..." 4) Peak performance. Our correct diet should enable us to achieve peak performance and get the most out of ourselves. It should provide us with vitality and abundant energy. 5) Feel Great! Most of us want to look great and to be honest that can be achieved with expensive cosmetics but when it comes to feeling great there are no quick fixes. When we are truly healthy we can look and feel great naturally! 6) Sustainable. The best diet for us is the best diet for all. It is a well established fact the the typical western diet is unsustainable and comes at not just a huge health cost but an economic and environmental one too! 7) Enjoyable. We should enjoy our food with no guilt attached. If we find ourselves counting calories or constantly worrying about what we have eaten we are most certainly on the wrong track. If we eat the foods we were designed to eat we should be able to eat to our hearts content without counting calories or fear of weight gain. It is easier for the so called 'experts' to make claims that their diet is the best one for health or weight loss than it is for them to prove it. As the Bible itself puts it; "Wisdom is vindicated by its works..." |
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How do you sift through all the conflicting information and actually find what works? Well for me it was establishing a set of proven principles, Let's look at just 2
Firstly, let's look at a universally accepted truth among most so called diet experts- fruits and vegetables are believed to be good for you right? We are all encouraged to get a minimum of 5 a day as recommend by the World Health Organisation http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/notes/2004/np17/en/ and only just recently a New published 12 year study by the University College London found that the number should be increased to 10 a day! - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/10735633/Healthy-diet-means-10-portions-of-fruit-and-vegetables-per-day-not-five.html
So, no one seems to be arguing that fruits & vegetables aren't good for you hence if we build our diet around fruits and vegetables we must be onto a good thing right?- that's principle number 1.
Sorry if I offend anyone here but I am going to use the 'D' word- 'design' it became obvious to me the more I researched this subject that there is a diet that we are designed to eat- to illustrate; if you were gifted by a rich benefactor with a 'super-car' something like a
Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport Vitesse - $2,600,000 but the generous benefactor insisted that in return for his generous gift,0 you simply must put the correct high grade fuel in the tank in order to keep this incredible machine running as it was designed to do, would you argue with that?
When we look at nature we see that various species of animals eat the foods they were designed to eat and if we get in the way and alter that as in the case of feeding cows (herbivores) the dead remains of other animals- we run into problems like- 'Mad Cow Disease'
If we can accept that various species of animals have a species specific diet- why not us? Once we determine what our dietary nature is and then stick to that, surely that would lead to Health right? principle 2.
Above I listed 10 conflicting dietary ideas; could design or nature settle those arguments?
FAT!
Well using our first principle namely that- Fruits & Vegetables are good for us, what do we find in those fruits and vegetables? With just a few exceptions we find that generally the fat content of most fruits and vegetables is between 3-8 %. What does the consensus of expert scientific opinion and research say about how much fat we need? About 10% fat maximum- see link: http://dwb.unl.edu/Teacher/NSF/C11/C11Links/www.heartinfo.com/ahadiet297.htm
PROTEIN!
We were for many years brainwashed to believe that protein was the building blocks of civilisation and therefore our most important macro nutrient. However, extensive research showed that to be incorrect, in fact the opposite is true. Coming back to Fruits & Vegetables we find that their protein ration is generally under 10% (seems like a magic number!) Consider this; mothers breast milk provides a baby with less than 6% protein and bare in my our greatest need for protein is when we are infants under 5 years of age a new born baby doubles it body size in less than 8 months- that's a lot of bone, muscle, tissue etc.. all of which require protein and yet design in nature chose to provide that infant with less than 10% protein from it's only food source mothers breast milk.
The reason we are battling obesity and disease particularly in the western world is quite simply due to the fact we consume far to much protein and fat- fat being the worst culprit on average the UK average fat consumption is about 50% of total calories consumed. In the US it as about the same 50%.
THE SOLUTION?
Fruits & Vegetables! I know it seems to be over simplifying things but no really it's that simple! The more our diet centers around natures perfect foods the healthier we will be. Now you might be thinking, '...OK how do I get more fruits & vegetables into my diet?' Hopefully between this website, my Youtube channel and the links to other resources I will include on this site as well as books I recommend you will find the answer and it is not as difficult as you might think!
Firstly, let's look at a universally accepted truth among most so called diet experts- fruits and vegetables are believed to be good for you right? We are all encouraged to get a minimum of 5 a day as recommend by the World Health Organisation http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/notes/2004/np17/en/ and only just recently a New published 12 year study by the University College London found that the number should be increased to 10 a day! - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/10735633/Healthy-diet-means-10-portions-of-fruit-and-vegetables-per-day-not-five.html
So, no one seems to be arguing that fruits & vegetables aren't good for you hence if we build our diet around fruits and vegetables we must be onto a good thing right?- that's principle number 1.
Sorry if I offend anyone here but I am going to use the 'D' word- 'design' it became obvious to me the more I researched this subject that there is a diet that we are designed to eat- to illustrate; if you were gifted by a rich benefactor with a 'super-car' something like a
Bugatti Veyron 16.4 Grand Sport Vitesse - $2,600,000 but the generous benefactor insisted that in return for his generous gift,0 you simply must put the correct high grade fuel in the tank in order to keep this incredible machine running as it was designed to do, would you argue with that?
When we look at nature we see that various species of animals eat the foods they were designed to eat and if we get in the way and alter that as in the case of feeding cows (herbivores) the dead remains of other animals- we run into problems like- 'Mad Cow Disease'
If we can accept that various species of animals have a species specific diet- why not us? Once we determine what our dietary nature is and then stick to that, surely that would lead to Health right? principle 2.
Above I listed 10 conflicting dietary ideas; could design or nature settle those arguments?
FAT!
Well using our first principle namely that- Fruits & Vegetables are good for us, what do we find in those fruits and vegetables? With just a few exceptions we find that generally the fat content of most fruits and vegetables is between 3-8 %. What does the consensus of expert scientific opinion and research say about how much fat we need? About 10% fat maximum- see link: http://dwb.unl.edu/Teacher/NSF/C11/C11Links/www.heartinfo.com/ahadiet297.htm
PROTEIN!
We were for many years brainwashed to believe that protein was the building blocks of civilisation and therefore our most important macro nutrient. However, extensive research showed that to be incorrect, in fact the opposite is true. Coming back to Fruits & Vegetables we find that their protein ration is generally under 10% (seems like a magic number!) Consider this; mothers breast milk provides a baby with less than 6% protein and bare in my our greatest need for protein is when we are infants under 5 years of age a new born baby doubles it body size in less than 8 months- that's a lot of bone, muscle, tissue etc.. all of which require protein and yet design in nature chose to provide that infant with less than 10% protein from it's only food source mothers breast milk.
The reason we are battling obesity and disease particularly in the western world is quite simply due to the fact we consume far to much protein and fat- fat being the worst culprit on average the UK average fat consumption is about 50% of total calories consumed. In the US it as about the same 50%.
THE SOLUTION?
Fruits & Vegetables! I know it seems to be over simplifying things but no really it's that simple! The more our diet centers around natures perfect foods the healthier we will be. Now you might be thinking, '...OK how do I get more fruits & vegetables into my diet?' Hopefully between this website, my Youtube channel and the links to other resources I will include on this site as well as books I recommend you will find the answer and it is not as difficult as you might think!
