A New Era of Eating Creates Questions on How to Lose Weight Safely
A new form of illness seems to be rising in the USA. This illness is psychological in that people are now starting to obsess so much about eating better “clean” that they are going to extremes. So let’s talk about how to lose weight safely and not go to extremes.
There is a new term being thrown around, “Orthorexia Nervosa” which is an obsession with eating clean, pure and healthy foods.
Orthorexia Nervosa is not a clinically recognized eating disorder but has been observed by many to be on a sharp rise since 2006.
This new eating disorder classification is just another indication of the extremes we go to when we decide on a specific eating philosophy which has not been proven to be healthy in the long run.
Losing weight was never a problem before the 1970’s. The biggest weight problem people had before the 1970’s was how to gain weight.
During the late 70’s there was an infamous discovery that changed everything about how and what we eat. The discovery was that a combination of fats, sugar, and salt would make almost any animal into a glutton.
A lot of people have forgotten this little incident, and you can read it for free in SALT, SUGAR, FAT: HOW THE FOOD GIANTS HOOKED US – MICHAEL MOSS.
In a nutshell:
Sugar, salts, and fats stimulate our hunger center and create a craving for these type of foods.
The realization that there is a pleasure center now recognized and that the centers can now be monitored through functional MRI’s have opened up a tremendous tool against society. Researchers can now figure out the perfect formulas to stimulate and create a need for those foods.
The research on children to track their “bliss point,” a point that is perfect in which the perfect amount of sugar is added to foods to stimulate the sugar sensors but not enough that it would discourage the taster. Children of ages as young as six years old were tested on the exact formula of sugar to hook the kids on the
Since that day we have been in a downward slope health wise and upwards slope in obesity.
Tough to fight a motivated multimillion dollar company that’s sole purpose is to make money and not too concern about anybody’s health.
After figuring out what are the forces against us let us regroup and start thinking how we can help ourselves become healthier and leaner.
We know that if we eliminate foods similar to the ones create by the food manufacturers will give us some control back. When understanding the process (read the PDF by Michael Moss) taken by food manufacturers the very best first step to take would be to eliminate processed foods, this does not mean decreasing the volume of the food we take in just the stuff we take in.
So, eliminating seem to be an easy concept but when it comes to that we take in seems to be a huge problem.
A large portion of the population seems confused about what types of foods to take in. The saturation of health gurus on social media are creating a worshiping of fitness models, fitness coaches, and nutrition coaches
I do not need to tell you the number of diets or eating styles that exist out there, a lot of them which seem to have some research but if someone that looks fit and pretty is behind it means people are going to follow it.
So, if we lift the facade and really notice we start to see that a lot of the gurus have an eating disorder too: bulimia, anorexia nervosa, exercise anorexia, extreme healthy eating (orthorexia nervosa).
Everybody seems to be having an eating problem, so trying to make a proper decision is so difficult that we consult nutritionists and even they seem to have eating problems.
What I suggest is to think back to the eating styles our parents and grandparents used to practice before refrigerators were commonly used and function more similarly to that era.
Our grandparents used to buy fresh food from the open market with vegetable and that meant that would need to be consumed as soon as possible otherwise they would spoil.
So hold on, I do not recommend going without a fridge or not buy foods that are not refrigerated. What I think should be done is think what our grandparents used to do and duplicate it in our modern day.
Our grandparents did not have access to too much of the processed foods nor the fast food places.
They did not go out for coffee or doughnut unless it was a very special thing.
So, to summarize it: do not eat processed foods and do not eat fast foods, which are the main idea behind staying lean and not relying on the fast/processed food for our health.
The one difference between yesteryear when people were slim is that they did not have the convenience of quick food at their fingertips. This quick access to foods is one of the main reasons we are so overweight.
If you dare to proceed reading this blog post I will continue with another tip:
Do not drinking anything sweet even though it might not have any calories. Drinking sweet stuff is another one of the conditioning effects of the food creators/manufacturers that “tell us” that we need to do something like drink their concoction because it is the coolest thing and fashionable.
We all know we are being had, we know all about advertising and how much it influences us, yet we let it happen. Do not let it happen to you, and do not go to any extremes like the newest eating disorder, Orthorexia Nervosa.
So now the question on How to lose weight safely has another new chapter to be written.
