Nutritional diet guidance

There is no universal template that is suitable for everyone. A diet that can be adhered to for a long time, makes the body comfortable after eating, and matches your own health status is the best diet. The priority is always "eatable" > "absolutely correct".

I met a girl who just graduated a while ago. She followed the "Perfect Mediterranean Diet Template" on the Internet for two weeks. She ate salmon fried in olive oil and whole wheat bread with lettuce. In the end, she not only broke out in acne, but also suffered from severe constipation. She came to me and asked me if she had a metabolic problem. I looked at her food records and laughed. She is afraid of heat and easily gets angry. She usually gets acne when she eats spicy food. Her daily fat ratio suddenly increased to more than 35%. Of course her body couldn't handle it. Instead, the tomato and egg rice bowl she had eaten before and an apple contained carbohydrates, protein, and vitamins. It was much more suitable for her than a hard and concave "healthy meal".

The several dietary patterns that are hotly debated on the Internet are actually suitable for each group of people, and there is no one who can overwhelm the other. The Pagoda of Balanced Diet for Residents released by our country is a basic framework based on a large sample survey and is suitable for most ordinary people with normal metabolism. However, if you have insulin resistance and your fasting blood sugar has already crossed the critical line, and you still eat according to the carbohydrate ratio of the Pagoda, your blood sugar will definitely not be stable. The low-carb ketogenic diet has become very popular in the past few years. Some diabetic friends around me have lowered their glycosylated hemoglobin by 0.8. There are also friends with a large weight base who have lost 20 pounds in a healthy way in three months. However, there are also people who have had high cholesterol during a physical examination for half a year and have developed hemorrhoids due to lack of dietary fiber. People with liver and kidney problems cannot touch it. There is also the Mediterranean model, which is touted as the "healthiest diet". It is indeed friendly to people in coastal areas who often eat fresh seafood. If friends from the inland are forced to make do with it, the frozen salmon they bought will change hands many times, but it is not as practical as eating some fresh local river fish and soy products.

To put it bluntly, all dietary guidance must be implemented in your own life scenes to be useful. I have seen too many office workers who work nine to five. They have dozens of "10-minute nutritious breakfasts" saved in their favorites, but they have never made them. They don't even have time to wait in line to catch the subway in the morning. How can they have time to make yogurt with chia seeds or juice kale? If you really want to be particular, grab a tea egg, sugar-free soy milk and a stick of corn from the convenience store. It has all the nutrients. It is much healthier than the hand cakes with two intestines that you eat while walking. Those super expensive super foods are the icing on the cake. Without them, your health will not be hindered.

There is also the ongoing quarrel over "should we give up sugar completely?" The two groups are scolding each other so much that they are almost fighting. One group says that refined sugar is the root of all evil, and it is responsible for acne, aging, and obesity, and one should not touch it. The other group says that one lives to eat sweet things, and being harsh on oneself is purely a disease. In fact, both sides are right, but they are suitable for different people: if you are so fat that your BMI exceeds the standard, or you have diabetes or high blood fat, you must try to quit refined sugar products such as milk tea cakes, otherwise the index will only get worse; but if you are of normal weight and have no problems in the physical examination, if you eat your favorite cheesecake once a week and drink half a cup of milk tea with three sugars, as long as the total calories are not exceeded, there will be no problem at all. I have a friend who strictly abstained from sugar for three months and ate only cucumbers and tomatoes even for fruits. In the end, he couldn't help but overeat for three days. Not only did he gain ten pounds, but his aunt also postponed it because of her anxiety. Instead, she was not as good as before eating dessert once a week, and her weight was stable.

In the past five or six years of doing nutritional consulting, I have discovered a particularly interesting pattern: healthy diets that can be adhered to for a long time are all modified from my original eating habits, and never completely overturned. Northerners love to eat noodles, so there is no need to force themselves to eat brown rice and whole-wheat rice. Replace half of the white flour with whole-wheat flour. The taste of steamed buns and boiled noodles will not be much different, and the rate of raising sugar can be greatly reduced. Southerners can't live without white rice. They don't have to chew tasteless quinoa. When cooking, add one-third of millet, oats or mixed beans. After getting used to it, it even tastes better than white rice. If for the sake of so-called "health", you force yourself to eat things that you can't swallow every day, you will definitely lose your success within two weeks. No matter how correct the eating pattern is, it will be in vain if you can't stick to it.

Many people think that healthy eating only costs money, but this is not the case. The vitamin C content of fresh cabbage that costs a few yuan a pound is much higher than that of kale powder that costs dozens of yuan a pack. The high-quality protein content of old tofu that costs two yuan a piece is no worse than that of imported steaks. I have calculated it myself. If I cook at home and follow the nutritional mix, my monthly food expenses are even cheaper than ordering takeout. There is no such thing as "the poor are not worthy of healthy eating".

In fact, after all, nutritional diet has never been an exam question that requires full marks, and there is no unified standard answer. If your stomach feels comfortable after eating it, you don’t feel sleepy at work, your weight is stable, and your annual physical examination indicators are normal, then this is the diet that is best for you. Don’t be bound by the “must eat” and “don’t touch” rules on the Internet. After all, when it comes to eating, you must first be happy before you can talk about long-term health.