In part 1 of this series I shared how I decided to step up my game on how I managed to stay healthy though having a chronic disease (Type 1 Diabetes). One of the three pillars was Knowledge. I’ve since then written about my learnings and findings on what works for me on Stress Management and Quality Sleeping. So time has come to deal with the most challenging and controversial topic: Food.
No one really disagrees with that you need good quality sleep nor does anyone really claim that high stress is good for you – but when it comes to food you will find an extremely wide spectra of opinions, theories, research findings, public health recommendations, passionate advocates for or against an endless number of diets, lobbyists for the food industry, dietary recommendations from drug companies, Netflix documentaries… and the list goes on and on and on.
When being diagnosed with T1D at the age of 13 the hospital dietitian provided me and my parents, who were all in shock about this dramatic change to our life, with well meaning dietary advice and presented us with a number of brochures – all from the same kind of sources: Lily, Beyer, Abbot… the companies that made money out of me needing more of their medicine. “No worries” we were told – “you can eat anything you want, just take more insulin”. They also recommend us to look for anything labeled “light” or “diet” in the grocery store. “There’s very good artificial sweeteners today, makes it taste almost the same as sugar!”. We listened to their advice and went home and stocked up on products with aspartame and asesulfam, sucralose and sugarfree crackers full of empty carbs. I shot up more insulin than I would have needed in order to not go high from the “anything I want” food and I dropped dangerously low when the effect of the empty carbs was over. I had a roller coaster blood glucose graph.
I can’t even begin to explain how sad I am about how extremely poor the awareness about nutrition is in the medical world. A student going through medical school in a western education system is receiving approximately 20 hours of nutrition training as a standard – still. That’s not even a weeks worth of studies of the most fundamental aspect that we can actually control in order to both prevent and reverse many medical conditions.
We are what we eat – is a true statement. We replace the cells in our body constantly – some has a lifespan of days others months and years. The building blocks for the new cells are essentially the nutrition we chose to eat. Proteins, fats (lipids) and carbs along with water, vitamins and minerals together supports our whole system. If we eat well, stress less and sleep soundly our amazing bodies will repair a lot of damage on its own.
When we chose to eat processed foods filled with preservatives, refined sugars, trans fats and other components that are essentially unknown to the body – we’re not serving it any good but we force it to spend time and energy on getting rid of things it can’t make use of. Some of it passes through but some of it stays and contributes to inflammation, increased bad cholesterol (LDL), toxins, cancer, insulin resistance, increased glucose in the bloodstream, it triggers stimulus and behaviors of addiction, releases fat binding hormones etc etc. Sounds yummy? Just add some pills to fix it.
Most of us knows this. But why is it so difficult to change our eating habits? In this text I’ll not share dietary advice but I’ll share what worked for me in terms of making that highly needed change.
Learn the ugly stuff
I made sure to learn the actual negative and positive consequences of eating certain food. Not from studying a particular diet but from actually taking a course in basic nutrition. I’m not telling you to go and sign up for a class (unless you want to and then I highly recommend it!) but reading up on some basics will take you far. Learn about the basic components mentioned above – Fat, proteins and carbohydrates. Then do part two and read up on vitamins, minerals and add in the importance of hydration. When I learned what actual damage certain choices can cause – not only that it was “bad for you” I found myself a lot more reluctant to actively putting those things in my body.
Once you’ve learned the theory – focus on what you should eat – not what you shouldn’t eat
Forbidden fruit is always tempting. If you forbid and take away the risk is big of cheating and justifying. I found that when I identified things that I truly love to eat in the “good food category” I stocked up on those things at home and pretty quickly stopped craving the bad stuff.
I also did a kitchen clean out and gave away things I now deemed unnecessary to eat. For me that was high carb things like pasta, rice, flour, juice, fruit yoghurt, ready made sauces such as ketchup and sweet chili. I instead filled up with nuts and seeds, organic vegetables and berries of all sorts, fish, avocado, olives, fresh ginger, citrus fruits, herbs, spices, olive oil, real butter, cheese of all kinds, red wine and dry champagne.
If I’m having a nicely aged compte on my homemade seed crackers with a fresh figue and a glass of oaky Bordeaux on a Friday night along with my movie – I tend to not crave a can of Pringles, a chocolate bar and a bottle of Diet Coke so much that I’ll get myself to the store and buy it.
Whatever’s your better option – keep it closer at hand than the ugly stuff.
Don’t let the menu limit you
My trick for eating healthy while eating out is that I’m treating the a la carte menu as an open buffet. I ask the waiter to check with the kitchen if I can take away the X from this dish and replace with Y from that dish, I ask for the sauce on the side or to change the dressing to just olive oil. It’s always possible to ask them to replace the rice with a garden salad or sautéed vegetables.
You don’t need to think of yourself as an annoyingly picky customer – rather as a dead serious foodie who gives the restaurant a better opportunity to serve you a fantastic food experience – just tip them well and rate them high if they’re being flexible.
I have an important exception though – for the very rare occasions that I’m eating in a Michelin starred restaurant, I’m allowed to go all in. That also serves as a reward for being a truly healthy foodie.
Don’t diet – change your game
Be it that you identify your change as stopping dairy, reducing the meat, going full vegan, dropping the carbs or any other variety suitable for your optimal health – learn all about the pros and cons, take a well informed decision and commit to it as a lifelong change – not a temporary diet. Temporary diets simply doesn’t work in the long run. Temporary diets only work for getting into those jeans a month from now at that party. It doesn’t serve your health but could potentially rather be damaging as you risk to deprive your body and brain of essential nutrients.
I truly love food and I experiment with new dishes and snacks all the time, I visit great restaurants and I always try local food when traveling – I’m constantly conscious of my food choices but I almost never feel that I’m missing out anymore. After all, the things I chose not to eat anyways tend to leave an aftertaste of guilt. There’s definitely better options.
Enjoy your next meal!