Most people know how to eat right, i.e. how to have a healthy diet, yet very few actually do. Everyone knows that proper diet is important to living a healthy life, yet nearly everyone will tell you that eating right all the time is very difficult to do. Could it be that we are doing things that make it impossible to stick to our diet? If so what are those things?
Wrong dietary information
People are being made to believe nowadays that their diet has to be like prescription medicine. It a different notion about diet and dieting. Remember the old cliche – “my food is my medicine”? It seems we have taken this too far and are demanding our dietitians to be doctors of our eating by prescribing our ever meal.
And dietitians are doing just that because the amount of “scientific information” and research results on dieting have become overwhelming. People seem to have to be relying on the “experts” nowadays to tell them what to eat.
Some are saying we are supposed to eat 2 meals per day, others say 3 meals per day and still others, 4, 5, and 6 meals per day. I see this as thinking that the human stomach is like that of the cow so that we can just graze all day. No wonder there is so much trouble now with acid reflux.
Then there is the case of amount of food. Most Americans eat up to 2 times or more of the RDA of protein and other food nutrients. For example, if you are male and 5-ft 8-inches tall, your daily protein need is up to 56 grams (about 2 ounces)! However, in America it would not be strange to think that if a man goes to a restaurant and get 2 ounces of protein with you meal he may not go back – he may try to find another restaurant. We are programmed to think we need so much more than we should be eating and it is making us sick.
Perhaps the difficulty in maintaining a healthy diet is partly due to the
The Super-busy Lifestyle
A few days ago I met with a client at 1:30 PM – after having my lunch. When I caught up with this gentleman who is in his late fifties or early sixties, he was just trying to swallow his meal. He apologized for not being ready, saying he had not had time to have breakfast nor lunch all day and was just making sure to “grab a bite” before our meeting. I wondered how often that happened and silently hope that does not become (or is not already) a trend, because it is a dangerous habit.