What Have I Learned? Part 2

I've taken to the twitterverse! Follow me @Smurrf30 to get more nutrition tips.

Let's continue my conversation from last weekend. Here's a couple more things I've learned since becoming a registered dietitian.

Sometimes people don't understand the rules.
We've all learned little tricks and beneficial nutrients that make our diet "better." What I noticed with some people is that they will completely miss the boat with how to take the advice and practice it. The best example I have is those who try to increase unsaturated fats in their diet, usually for heart healthy desires. These people will switch to olive oil, fatty fish, and snack on nuts. To this I say great! But the thing here, is the idea comes from replacing saturated fats in the diet with unsaturated ones. If the diet becomes a high fat diet, regardless of type of fat, other problems could arise (like weight problems!). Another thing that comes from this misunderstanding is the mixing of diet tips. Sometimes those looking to lose weight will mix ideas like snacking on nuts, thinking that "they must be healthy, they are always recommended by everyone for their heart!" In reality, nuts are pretty dang high in calories, the ultimate concern when concerning weight loss. My tips are as follows:

• For weight loss, pay most attention to overall calories and increased physical activity.
• When anyone says to eliminate something (like wheat), think about what you will replace it with.
• Pay careful attention to the end goal. Your decisions should always revolve around this.

The secret weight loss diet was discovered years ago.
I had an awesome conversation with my trainer this week about media's influence on nutrition and the public's understanding between nutritionist and dietitian. In case you don't know, anyone can call them self a nutritionist, whereas a dietitian must earn their credentials through work hours and experience along with passing a registered exam. Basically, it matters whether articles or TV bits are given by a nutritionist or a dietitian! This being said, many people love to claim they've figured it out. The miracle answer is here, this single problem is to blame, yadda yadda yadda. We see a lot of this from nutritionists. The fact is, the answer has been with us all along, we just don't want to accept it. Healthy diet is all the "quips" you've heard before: 5 servings of fruit and vegetables daily, limit red meat, eat more fish, 3 servings of low fat dairy daily, whole grains over white, and regular exercise. Isn't it crazy how much we don't want to accept the simple truth, but we'll take the next crazy diet, which in some way usually follows these quips anyway? My advice here is to always remember this diet is research based and effective while most others are not whatsoever.

The best thing in nutrition is always eating real food.
Ah yes, real food. So tasty, so much to choose from. To me, real food always makes the most sense.  We should be eating foods that make sense. When comparing US diets to other countries, two things really jump out to me: the percentage of income families spend on food (news flash, we don't spend much on it) and the types of food eaten (making foods vs buying made foods). I wish we as a population would spend more $$ on our body's fuel. I know produce and proteins are always expensive, but to me are always worth the money. These last two weeks, the girlfriend and I decided to start eating right, cooking dishes, lots of vegetables, getting creative, and limiting the junk. First off, the food tastes great, the only down side is possibly more dirty dishes. (wow I wish I had a dishwasher). Second, we feel better. Just positive feelings. My girlfriend wants to lose weight and I want to gain. The way we are accomplishing this is regular exercise and decreasing her portions and increasing mine. That's it. There's no tricks, and it can work just that way for you. By the way, been having awesome packaged lunches to take to work from all this.

There you have it. These posts were pretty difficult to write given all the things I was taught. I tried to keep things pretty broad in order to cover many bases! Honestly, I could get on a soap box and preach for hours on the last two posts, but I'll spare you.