Better Eating For Weight Loss

Since reading In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan and watching Food Inc. I have in many ways adapted new rules for eating. Typically I watch a documentary and I get the message and move on. I read a self-help book and get it, but usually move on. However, with In Defense of Food, something real happened. I made changes in my diet that made sense to me.

In the past I would go to Weight Watchers meetings and assume that any food with the words “free” “low” or “diet” in them meant weight loss and in turn would mean good for me. What has changed for me, is that even if foods can make you lose weight it doesn’t mean they are good for you. Let’s face it, I could lose weight eating four snickers a day and two apples. I could lose weight eating three slices of cheese pizza and salads. I could lose weight eating two hamburgers and fries a day with diet soda. This doesn’t mean it is good for me.

So when I starting thinking about it, I realized that Michael Pollan is right, our country is obsessed with nutrition and eating, yet we are the most obese. I observe what women eat, it’s what I do. And I notice really strange habits to stay thin. Only eating one meal a day (usually fast food) or staying away from bread like it is the plague,  or avoiding dinner, or not eating all day and then binging at night.

Sometimes I’ll have someone offer me microwave popcorn and follow with “it’s the fat free kind!” or state that the salad has fat free dressing or mayonnaise or whatever in it. I see a stocking up on “diet food” to feel in control. Force feeding ourselves fat free yogurt filled with high fructose corn syrup and some form of fiber to make it healthful and yet diet friendly.

There has been an absence of real food in the American diet for over 30 years now. If we aren’t eating diet fake food, we are eating processed convenience fake food. One or the other. Diet food is gross. It just is. There is nothing good about diet soda, fat free diary, or bread made in a factory. To me, there is no difference between a loaf of sara lee whole wheat bread and wonderbread. Same factory, same chemicals, same injections of fiber or vitamins. same same same. Which is why I find it so weird that so many of us are anti-bread. Bread at the supermarket, is not good and I get avoiding that, but what about real bread?

Bread that is made with flour that isn’t processed, or full of the latest super-nutrient? People have been eating and surviving on bread for centuries. People without weight issues or food issues in general.

What about evil salt? did you know that you actually need the minerals in sea salt to survive? The processed salt in most snack foods combined with the other crappy ingredients make it bad.

I know I sound like I am on a high-horse about all of this, and I am not perfect. This weekend I had a halloween party and did not want to spend a lot of time cooking, so I didn’t. I made black beans, rice, caramel dipped apples and had more candy to feed a whole town of tricker-treaters. And I ate and enjoyed. But, in general, when someone tells me something is good for me because it has fiber in it, or because it is “low fat”, “low calorie” or ”high protein” I just zone out. That train has left the station.

I believe in real food, local food, good food. I believe in fat. I believe in homemade bread. I believe in spinach salads with hard boiled eggs and local tomatoes. I only eat meat when I know the origin. I am still fat because I eat too much. And that is what I’m working on— eating less. Not eating more “diet” food.