Last night my wife made chocolate chip cookies. For those of you who don’t know, my wife makes the best chocolate chip cookies in the entire world. She only makes them to torture me. She fills the whole house with the scent and then the cookies sit on her cooling rack and she says, “Eat me now.” (That’s true. I can hear them.) They are never satisfied. If I eat one, the others start yelling louder: “Eat us too.”
I love food. I love all kinds of food. The problem is that I am also very health conscious and it turns out that not all the foods that I like are healthy. I don’t think I’m alone. How do we justify our (sometimes uncontrollable) desire to eat something delicious that may not be “good for us” while staying true to ourselves in eating healthy and maintaining a healthy lifestyle?
By treating many patients in my weight loss clinic and teaching many others to eat healthy, I have developed the 85/15 eating rule. Says so. We eat to survive 85 percent of the time. We have to have breakfast in the morning so we can go to work. We had a mid-morning snack around 10. We had lunch around noon. The day goes on and we eat because we need nutrition and energy to live.
The other 15 percent of the time we eat for social reasons. We may go out to dinner with friends or be invited to a party. Or my wife makes cookies. We’re not really eating to survive or for energy or to stay healthy. During these times we are eating because we want to, because it tastes good, or because we are at a social event.
If we as individuals and as a society can learn to eat only healthy foods “85 percent of the time” we would solve our obesity problem. And we might still have the occasional treat. If we choose items that will provide us with good nutrition and energy 85 percent of the time, the other 15 percent of the time it won’t matter what we eat.
I think that’s the secret to solving the dilemma of being a “health nut” and still being able to have the occasional “bad stuff.”
My healthy eating plan consists of these basic components:
Fruits and vegetables. Eat at least four servings of fresh fruits and vegetables every day. Also, I try to vary the color of these items. Each color represents different nutrients. So try to have something green, yellow, red, orange, and purple to get a wide variety of nutrients.
If eating four servings of vegetables a day is difficult, which it sometimes can be, then getting a juicer will help. I’m a huge fan of juicing and I feel so much better when I do it. It is difficult to eat a whole handful of raw carrots, a cucumber and an apple in one sitting, but it is very easy if you squeeze the same products. Make sure you buy a quality juicer; the cheaper ones only frustrate you more.
protein. I am also a big proponent of eating more protein and less simple carbohydrates (sugars). We need at least 1 gram of protein for every kilogram (2.2 pounds) of body weight. I recommend even more protein: 1 gram per pound of body weight. Do this and keep your total number of calories the same and see if you don’t start losing weight, gaining lean muscle mass, and losing fat. Inevitably, if my weight loss patients stop losing weight it’s because they don’t have enough protein in their diet. Your diet should consist of at least four servings of protein a day, including meats, protein shakes, protein bars, nuts, dairy, or any other healthy, lean protein source.
Water. Make sure you drink enough water. I don’t believe, like some others, that you need to be constantly carrying a bottle of water with you and flooding your kidneys. Our bodies have evolutionarily adapted an amazing mechanism to keep us from getting dehydrated. It’s called thirsty and you should listen to it. But when you’re thirsty, instead of reaching for a soda, or some food, drink some water first, and then see if you still want something else. Most likely you won’t.
vitamins. I also think you need to supplement with some type of multivitamin. They are cheap and easy to take. And there is ample evidence showing that they can help prevent disease. You can get them in pill form, as part of your protein drink, or in a variety of other forms.
Synchronization. Eat six meals a day. Last week I told you to eat like a 2 year old. They graze, eating small amounts of food throughout the day instead of three large meals. That also makes sense for adults. Helps you maintain a better balance of insulin and other hormones. And it keeps you from getting too hungry, which means you’ll be more likely to eat nutritious foods instead of high-sugar foods.
So go ahead and splurge once in a while. You don’t have to feel guilty as long as you follow a common sense eating plan 85 percent of the time. Today I ate my four servings of fruits and vegetables, took my vitamins, took my protein, and drank lots of water. I think it’s time for another cookie.
Reprinted with permission from Total Health Breakthroughs.