Let me first specify that there’s a difference between being healthy and trying to losing weight. My blog’s primary focus is health. Going on a diet does not necessarily mean that you will be healthy. I can think of a dozen fad diets that can cause people to lose weight, but they also promote unhealthy processed foods that may create other side effects in the body. A lot of people just want to lose weight and do see results by doing a lot of the things recommended by fad diets or even some of the things on this list, but that doesn’t mean that their weight loss hasn’t come at a price. That weight loss may come at the price of your hormonal health, your ability to conceive, your thyroid health, your metabolism, or your bone health. The reason that people eat a lot of the “diet” foods on this list is in the name of weight loss, but weight is not always the most important thing when considering health. Of course it is a factor, but not the only one.
It’s important to find a healthy balance in your life. While eating a healthy amount of real food may cause people to drop weight effortlessly, some may eat a perfect real food diet and not lose any weight. However, eating real unprocessed food is a healthy and sustainable way of eating, while very low-calorie and other many popular crash diets are not sustainable and usually lead to a cycle of bingeing and deprivation and other thyroid, hormonal or metabolic issues.
Even though it’s hard to remember sometimes with all the unattainable standards set for women in our society, thin is not synonymous with healthy and health is not measured by your waist size. Many size 0 models may be malnourished and subsisting on an unhealthy diet of cigarettes and diet soda, which will probably come back to haunt them later in life. Some sized 14 women may be perfectly healthy women who are out and about exercising everyday and eating healthy real food, but still most people would see the model as the healthy one when compared to a size 14 woman.
My point is that the focus of my blog is not weight loss, in fact I care little about telling others how to lose weight, because there is far too much unnecessary emphasis on weight loss in our society and every one has different results with different methods for weight loss. There’s no one-size-fits-all method. How many times have you heard a friend or family member call themselves fat, overweight or nit-pick about some totally normal imperfection on their body when in your eyes they are a healthy lovely individual? How many times have you tried to shame yourself into going to the gym or to not eat that piece of cake by putting yourself down?
To put too much emphasis on losing weight creates a feeling of shame in people, like they should be losing weight even though it is probably not necessary. Even if weight loss is necessary, creating shame and poor self-esteem does not help anyone. Whether you’ve been called “too skinny” or “too fat”, we should all stop shaming ourselves (and others). If we stop hating our bodies, eventually the desire to be healthy because we love ourselves, want to feel healthy and nourish our bodies will be all the motivation we need to get moving and care about the quality of our food.
The main focus of this list I’ve created is health, not weight loss, although I will make reference to weight loss to address a few health myths. That’s not to say that making these changes in your diet will not result in weight loss, but every body is different.
This list will address 6 major health myths that still prevail in our society today. Changing your habit when it comes to these myths will make a big difference in your overall health.
Myth #1: Soy is A Health Food.
Although soy has been the darling of the health food industry for a long time, more and more people are beginning to learn about how soy is not quite the perfect food that they once thought it was.
I’ve said many times on my blog how I feel about soy. All soy, whether it is organic or not contains phytoestrogens which can disrupt normal hormone function, it is also high in phytic acid which can block the absorption of many vitamins, minerals and protein. Apart from that, about 90% of non-organic soy is genetically modified (learn more about GMOs here). These are just a few of the downsides to soy. If you want to learn more about soy this is a great book on the subject.
Just because you’re vegetarian doesn’t mean that you need to have soy all the time to get enough protein. I have been a mostly soy-free vegetarian for the past 2-3 years and I get enough protein and feel better without soy. For real food vegetarian protein sources see my article. If you are vegetarian and need soy-free real food recipe ideas check out my new ebook.
The fermentation process tends to break down some of the phytic acid in soy, so if you want to have it from time to time, the best choice would be fermented soy like tempeh or natto.
Myth #2: Dietary Fat Makes You Fat
It is a myth that fat causes weight gain. According to this study, low-fat and non-fat milk actually cause weight gain! According to this article,
“healthy fats actually curb your appetite and trigger the production of hormones which tell the brain when you’re full.”
Having the right fats are so important for good health. That includes saturated fats! I know we’ve been told for years and years that saturated fats are the devil, but that was based on faulty research from the 60s and 70s that wouldn’t hold up today. Furthermore, there is ample recent research that shows that saturated fats do not contribute to heart disease. See my article 5 Cooking Oils You Think Are Healthy…But Aren’t to learn more about why this thinking has prevailed for so long and for more information about saturated fats, heart disease and other healthy fats.
Fat-free or low-fat milk and other foods do not provide the same nutritional value as their fat-filled counterparts. Most of the vitamins in milk are fat-soluble, meaning that they are absorbed along with the fat in the food, so if you’re skipping out on the fat, you’re also skipping out on the vitamins.
So, If you are getting low-fat milk, yogurt, and other packaged foods thinking it will help you lose weight…think again! It may actually contribute to weight GAIN.
I always recommend choosing whole organic grassfed raw milk for the best nutrition. If you can’t get raw milk, try to get whole organic grassfed milk that has been pasteurized at a low temperature. If your milk is not grassfed, I wouldn’t even bother drinking it because most of the important nutrients come from the grass. Non-grassfed cows are usually fed corn and soy, which significantly decreases the nutritional value of the milk. If you don’t drink dairy milk, my favorite dairy-free alternative is this.
As for packaged foods labelled “non-fat” or “fat-free” in order to lure the customer into thinking it’s healthier…don’t fall for it! Most of the time, in order to compensate for the lack of fat, companies will usually pack a food item with tons of sugar, MSG or other nasty additives. you’re best bet is to always choose whole unprocessed foods! Of course naturally low-fat or non-fat foods like fruits and vegetables are always good.
Myth #3: Vegetable Oils Are Healthy
Vegetable oils are not a healthier choice over traditional fats like ghee, olive oil or coconut oil. In fact, they are loaded with omega-6 polyunsaturated fats. These fats have been known to cause inflammation, which leads to a whole host of autoimmune disorders and heart disease.
I cover this is great detail in my article 5 Cooking Oils You Think Are Healthy…But Aren’t. If you want to learn more about why something like butter is better for you than grapeseed oil, you’ll want to read that article.
Myth #4: You Only Need to Count Calories to Be Healthy
Just because something is low-calorie doesn’t mean it’s good for you. It is true scientifically though, that in order to lose weight you have to burn more calories than you are consuming. So, calories do play a role in weight loss, but if all you’re taking into consideration is the number of calories, you may create a nutrient deficit for yourself that can lead to many other problems. You might also be consuming unhealthy foods that can create an inflammatory reaction in your body, which contributes to autoimmune diseases.
Let’s use these low-calorie packs that you see in grocery stores as an example. Even though they are only 100 calories each, this doesn’t mean that they’re good for you or that they won’t cause other issues in your body.
Ritz cracker 100 calorie pack ingredients:
UNBLEACHED ENRICHED FLOUR (WHEAT FLOUR, NIACIN, REDUCED IRON, THIAMINE MONONITRATE {VITAMIN B1}, RIBOFLAVIN {VITAMIN B2}, FOLIC ACID), WHOLE WHEAT, SOYBEAN AND/OR PALM OIL, SUGAR, WHOLE WHEAT FLOUR, SALT, CORN SYRUP SOLIDS, MALTED BARLEY SYRUP, LEAVENING (CALCIUM PHOSPHATE AND/OR BAKING SODA AND/OR YEAST), CHEDDAR CHEESE (CULTURED MILK, SALT, ENZYMES, ANNATTO EXTRACT COLOR), DEXTROSE, MALTED BARLEY FLOUR, AUTOLYZED YEAST EXTRACT, COLOR ADDED, SPICES (CONTAINS: CELERY, PAPRIKA), DRIED GARLIC, MONOSODIUM GLUTAMATE (FLAVOR ENHANCER), SOY LECITHIN, DRIED SOY SAUCE (SOYBEANS, WHEAT, SALT), SODIUM CASEINATE, LACTIC ACID, TAMARINDS, ACETIC ACID, NATURAL FLAVOR. CONTAINS: WHEAT, MILK, SOY.
This one little 100 calorie pack includes GMOs, sugar, corn syrup, a bunch of ingredients you can’t pronounce and MSG which has been linked to brain damage, nervous disorders and hormone problems (from beautiful babies).
Even 1 medium organic baked potato, which a lot of big dieters think is evil, is only 110 calories and does not have any GMOs, MSG, corn syrup or any other weird ingredients. I would much rather have a baked potato with butter over a 100 calorie pack any day!
Myth #5: “Diet” Foods Are Healthier
Diet foods often contain additives and artificial sweeteners like maltitol, MSG, and aspartame, many of which are GMOs. These additives have been known to cause many health problems.
For example, diet sodas often contain aspartame. Aspartame can aggravate neurological disorders and cause many other acute symptoms. According to Dr. Mercola’s article:
“ Aspartate and glutamate act as neurotransmitters in the brain by facilitating the transmission of information from neuron to neuron. Too much aspartate or glutamate in the brain kills certain neurons by allowing the influx of too much calcium into the cells. This influx triggers excessive amounts of free radicals, which kill the cells. The neural cell damage that can be caused by excessive aspartate and glutamate is why they are referred to as “excitotoxins.” They “excite” or stimulate the neural cells to death.”
To learn more about the dangers of aspartame and other excitotoxins, this is a good book on the subject.
Myth #6: You Should Avoid Cholesterol
The link between high cholesterol and heart disease has been disproven time and time again, yet the incorrect information about it still prevails in mainstream media.
Cholesterol is vital for our bodies. It helps brain development and synthesizes critical hormones. Dietary cholesterol is not the reason that heart disease is so prevalent in our country. I wont go into too much detail because I covered this in my article 5 Cooking Oils You Think Are Healthy…But Aren’t. So, if you want to know why we’ve been so misled about cholesterol, read that article.
Personally, I believe that a food that we’ve been eating for 100’s of years like eggs or butter is more suited to our bodies than something that has only been invented and processed by modern machinery in the past 50 or so years like canola oil.
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What a provocative title. I would be curious if any significant portion of your readership actually does any of these 6 things. 🙂
Actually, I was surprised to learn recently that many followers of my Facebook page did some of these things.
Loved this and so needed to be reminded. I am fully off the ‘fake food/count calories only’ bandwagon – but as a person whose weight nosed up a bit when I started eating real food, it is tempting to feel like a failure and lose sight of the fact that it’s about health, not keeping up with the current ‘perfect body’ image. I’m still not considered overweight, but to see that scale edge up was pretty harsh.
I’ve been on anti candida diets and most recently a 3 month stint on the gaps diet. (Which I’m not knocking, I’m glad I did it! And I’m glad I’m done!) I lost weight on these diets (which was an ego boost even though these are not weight loss diets.) When I went off them however the weight came back. (I am still gluten free and avoid some other foods that I don’t tolerate well.) I have learned so much from this blog and others that help keep my focus on my health and what I’m learning is right for me, rather than what might be right for others. And I’m so glad I’m on a real food diet now that makes me feel healthier AND as you said, is sustainable at the same time. After years of struggling with not knowing what to eat, I’m finally learning what’s right. And that’s pretty sweet!
Thanks Spring! So glad to hear you’re doing well with real food. I know how you feel, fluctuating weight can be tough to deal with, but focusing on health rather than just weight loss is an important step. 🙂
I do.
Great post! Too often we’re (as a society) more focused on counting calories than caring about what’s actually IN our food. I love the approach you talk about here, and on your site in general – focusing on real, whole, foods. Novel concept today 🙂
http://pistachiojar.wordpress.com/
Thanks Chelsea!
You could NOT be more right! I am pinning this so hopefully more and more people can read it and realize what they’re doing may not be very healthy!
Thanks for sharing Gigi!
Would love if you would share this at my blog hop Healing with Food Friday at http://www.purposefulnutrition.com. This is exactly the kind of thing we are looking for.
Cow Milk and cooking oils are bad for humans. The rest of your points are valid.