Eating for Health and Pleasure

Many people think that "eating healthy" and enjoying your food are two mutually exclusive choices. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, healthy eating is far more pleasurable than the typical eating pattern. Another misconception is that you must starve yourself to be lean. This actually will make you fatter in the long run (and it's likely to make you hard to live with in the short run--just don't go there).

What you want is to be lean, not skinny. You want those muscles that give your body its attractive curves, and you don't want to accumulate the brown fat that is essentially a disease factory. You must feed your muscles without feeding the brown fat that collects on bellies and thighs (and necks and other places where it ends up looking gross).

Feeding your muscles without feeding the brown fat is actually is easy to do. You don't need to count calories. You don't need to count carbs. You don't need to count fat grams. But you can count on looking better.

To feed your muscles without feeding your brown fat, you don't need some whacky diet and you don't need to spend money on special pills or powders to do it. Nor do you need to try to live on rice cakes and tofu. In fact, I recommend you don't eat rice cakes at all and use tofu only when a recipe calls for it.

The tips below will help you have the body you want, eat meals that you enjoy, and save thousands of dollars in medical bills. Say goodbye to Lipitor and hello to....

• Eat six small meals a day. If you enjoy eating, why eat only three times a day? Healthy eaters eat twice that often. Why? Because after about three hours, your body goes into the catabolic state. This "starvation mode" means it burns less fat, stops storing calcium in the bones, and begins breaking down lean tissue (muscles and organs). Many people have three very small meals (snacks) and three "normal" meals. That's a successful strategy, and for the typical person it's probably the most convenient.
   
• No time to cook three full meals and make three snacks a day? That's not a problem. Here's a snack trick used by construction workers and others who need physical energy during their work day. Pack an apple and a handful of nuts to make one meal. If you have a refrigerator handy, keep a jar of peanut butter in it and spread peanut butter on apple slices. Most "protein bars" on the market are nutritional nightmares, but you can find somegood protein bars here. If you don't have the money to spend on bars, there are other options. For example, if you boil two eggs they come in the perfect container for storage. All you need is a pepper shaker, and you're in business.
   
• Never go on a "weight loss" diet. If you want to lose a lot of weight, you could have all four limbs amputated. But does that really make you better off? The correct thinking is "fat loss" rather than "weight loss." If you think in these terms, your discipline will be easier and your results will be better.
   
• Enjoy all three macronutrients. The so-called "weight loss" diets that recommend no fat or low carb simply do not work. You actually need fat to burn fat and carbs to burn fat (the trick is to get the right kinds of fats and carbs). You need fats and carbs to be healthy; it is not mere coincidence that the best foods taste good due to the fats and carbs they contain.
   
• Good fats. The marketing hype about margarine and other toxins has no basis in fact. Your body can metabolize a certain amount of saturated fat. So a little butter isn't going to clog your arteries (a lot of butter, however, means a lot of extra calories). Your body does especially with certain oils, such as olive oil. The oils in nuts are also very beneficial. Hydrogenated oil, such as that used in commercial shortenings and found in most baked goods, is highly toxic. Hydrogenated oil isn't just a risk factor for colon cancer; it's a cause. It's a risk factor for many other disorders, though.
   
• Good carbs. If you get your carbohydrates from whole fruits and vegetables, it's really hard to "overdose" on carbs. Fruit juices are another matter; they are concentrated forms of fruit and highly glycemic (too much sugar hitting the bloodstream at once). Worse, however, is "corn sugar" (formerly known as high fructose corn syrup); this so overwhelms your body's endocrine system that it's known as an endocrine modifier. The modifications are not good.
   

More healthy eating, below....