Foodie Friday: The Distance Between Unhealthy & Healthy Diets

A couple of friends have recently asked me for advice about what I eat and what suggestions I could share with them. There certainly is a plethora of wrong answers (water, maple syrup and lemon? I think not), but there's also more than one right answer. When deciding what diet rules to follow, my philosophy is to evaluate your current diet and then make changes based on who you are. There are people who will certainly disagree with me on this, but if the changes are too challenging then people may not stick to them (which can lead  to feelings of failure and what overweight person really needs to experience that?).

Nutritionists and trainers will say to cut out all the bad stuff asap, but changing a diet at all is tough enough, so here's what I have to say about it: push yourself, but don't make it so difficult that you risk giving it all up. For example, if you eat chocolate every day and can't imagine living without it, then don't. Try eating less or focus on changing something that is more doable for you, like replacing canned vegetables with fresh vegetables. At some point when you become more comfortable with the change and start to feel better, you might drop chocolate altogether. You may also become a person who eats perfectly but has a piece of chocolate every night after dinner. I really see nothing wrong with that.

I love truffles!

(Is it mean of me to put this picture here?)

There is a distance between unhealthy eating and healthy eating, and longer distances = greater challenges. The factors that play into these distances are time, money, knowledge and experience, and of course comfort. Let's assume that the ideal diet is to cook healthy meals at home with full control over the ingredients. Someone who eats a fast food meal on a daily basis has a much longer way to go to meet the ideal than someone who cooks unhealthy meals at home. The home cook may just have to learn new recipes, where to shop and how to budget for new possibly pricier ingredients. The fast food eater has to do all of this in addition to completely rearranging his schedule to make time for meal planning, shopping, preparation and cooking time.

Then of course there is the comfort that familiar food brings. Have you ever traveled outside of the U.S? Most people will say that the thing they missed the most was food from home. Food is far more than an aspect of biology, it's an aspect of culture and psychology as well. We are conditioned to respond to certain types of food from the time we are children. So when the decision is made to change our diets, in order to be successful we have to recondition ourselves, and like any big change it can take time.

Couldn't resist this one--found it when I did

an image search for "Happy Food!" :-)

I believe that people have the best of intentions when advising others on how to eat, but if on the first day someone is saying, "You HAVE to do it this way, no excuses," well that's just a big red flag in my book. I'm not a fan of changing things cold turkey because they often backfire, but if you want to hit the ground running and see weight loss sooner than later, you may have to do a complete overhaul of your diet right away. If the distance between your current diet is miles away from a healthy diet and you aren't ready to change everything, then be O.K. with it and realize that while the scale may not be changing much, you are taking some very important steps to improve your life.