Cathal BarryHealthy Living
Now that January is drawing to a close and well-intentioned new year resolutions have been abandoned by most of us, this is the time to get serious about your health and fitness. Don’t be discouraged by broken promises of a ‘new you’ in 2015. You aren’t alone. Too many people subscribe themselves quick fix solutions in search of long term results.
Fad diets have taken the world by storm in recent years and it seems 2015 will be no different. I can’t tell you how many newspaper supplements, articles and advertisements I have come across in the early part of this year purporting to hold the key to weight loss success.
There are the low-carb, low-fat, paleo, keto, vegan diets… the list goes on. Most of these have been around since the mid-70s and many of them circulate anew each year. However, there is nothing new about fad diets. They didn’t work then and they don’t work now. They are quick fixes rather than long term solutions. So, it’s better just to forget about them.
Common sense tells us what foods are healthy and what foods are not. We need to eat a balanced diet made up of protein (like lean cuts of meat, chicken and fish), unrefined carbohydrates (like potatoes) and beneficial fats (like avocado and nuts). Any diet that seeks to ban one or the other just doesn’t make sense.
Health Minister Leo Varadkar announced before Christmas that his department will start work on a National Nutrition Action Plan in order to improve diet, health and well-being among Irish people.
“This will be part of the Healthy Ireland initiative which aims to bring together all the arms of Government and foster a healthier society,” he said at the time.
The sooner this work starts the better. People need to be educated properly about what constitutes a healthy diet, because there are too many mixed messages and misconceptions out there at the moment.
When it comes to weight management, one of the greatest problems we encounter in fact, is not what we eat, but how much we are eating.
The reason why so many people don’t see success isn’t necessarily a reflection of their dietary practices but rather their ability to be accurate and consistent with their energy consumption and output.
Chocolate, ice-cream and sugary sweets, although they are not optimal choices for health, can be enjoyed on occasion. A biscuit or two here and there will not pile on the pounds, provided you don’t indulge in the entire box!
As a general rule, if you can manage to consume 90% of your foods from wholefood sources that leaves you some wriggle room for a tasty treat when it is deserved.
But taking the wholefood approach also has its problems it seems. Just because you are eating healthy, nutrient-packed, beneficial foods, doesn’t mean you can eat as much as you like.
Food consumption should be entirely dependent on energy output. That means the amount of food you eat should be dictated by how active you are throughout the day. If you exercise more, you can eat more. If you’re perched on the couch – stick to the salads!
It’s as simple as that.