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You Are What You Eat: The Plan that Will Change Your Life (Page 2 of 3) The food we eat is like fuel. It gives our bodies the energy they need to function well. If you don't make sure that the fuel you pump into your body is of the right quality or quantity, you just won't feel as healthy as you could. We all have up to 100 trillion cells in our bodies, each one demanding a constant supply of daily nutrients in order to function optimally. Food affects all those cells, and by extension every aspect of our being: mood, energy levels, food cravings, thinking capacity, sex drive, sleeping habits and general health. In short, healthy eating is the key to well-being.
The first step to turning around your life and your health was in picking up this book. But how can I now convince you to take the all-important next steps and break your bad diet habits? | ||||||||||||||||
The relationship between food and health is significant. Diet plays a vital part in promoting good health and well-being. The first crucial step is to make the connection between good food choices and good health, and poor food choices and bad health. I realized this when I looked at the food diaries of the participants for my TV show, You Are What You Eat. Not only were all participants overweight at the beginning of the series but they all had other health complaints, many of which were caused by the poor food choices they made. These foods were the catalyst for most ailments and complaints. When I prepared a table of the bad foods that they had eaten for a week and explained how these foods affected the body, the relationship between food and health suddenly became shockingly apparent. Here are ten important food facts: A diet high in fat (particularly saturated fat) and high in salt is associated with an increased risk of coronary heart disease. It is estimated that, on average, a third of cancers could be prevented by changes in diet. A diet which is high in fiber and whole grain cereal and low in fat has the potential to prevent a number of cancers, including colon, stomach and breast cancer. Many fertility experts believe that an unhealthy diet, high in fat, sugar, and processed foods and low in nutrients essential to fertility, can lead to infertility and increase the chances of miscarriage. A diet high in fat, sugar and salt leads to weight gain and increases the risk of obesity. Carrying excess weight doesn't just increase the risk of heart disease, diabetes, cancer and infertility, it is also associated with fatigue, low self-esteem and poor mental and physical performance. An unhealthy diet increases the risk of depression and mood swings. It's also linked to PMS, food cravings and anxiety. A diet high in additives, preservatives and refined sugar can cause poor concentration, hyperactivity and aggression. This is because foods high in sugar and additives lack chromium, which is removed in the refining process. Chromium is needed for controlling blood sugar levels; when these levels are out of control it can trigger these behavioral problems. A diet that is low in the essential nutrient calcium (needed to keep your bones strong) increases the risk of bones becoming weak or brittle - a condition known as osteoporosis. A diet low in nutrients puts enormous strain on the liver. The liver is essential for the proper digestion and absorption of life-sustaining vitamins and minerals. For optimum health you need your liver to be in peak condition. The liver cannot cope with large amounts of saturated fat and alcohol and this can lead to liver and kidney problems, such as kidney disease and cirrhosis (a life-threatening condition where the cells of the liver die). A diet too high in sugar can lead to too much glucose (a form of sugar carried in the bloodstream) circulating in your body. Too much glucose in the blood indicates development of blood sugar problems such as diabetes mellitus. Its symptoms are thirst, frequent need to urinate due to excess glucose, problems with vision, fatigue and recurrent infections. If your diet is poor this can compromise your immune system and make you more susceptible to colds, flu and poor health. We need a steady and balanced intake of essential vitamins and minerals to keep our immune systems working properly, to provide protection from infections and disease.
This top 10 list of popular foods that many people eat on a regular basis may at first glance not appear too alarming, but just take a look at the nutritional analysis below. I have converted the statistics to teaspoons of sugar and sticks of butter to drum the facts home. Do you really still feel hungry?
1. Burger meal
Burger meal (large burger, fries and cola)
Pizza (medium deep pan pizza)
Spaghetti (300g serving)
Chinese takeout (sweet 'n' sour pork with special fried rice)
Hot breakfast (2 scrambled eggs, 3 slices of bacon, pancakes, hash browns and a tall café latte with whole milk)
Steak dinner (8oz sirloin and baked potato with butter, sour cream and chives)
Nachos (6 nacho chips smothered in cheese with chili, sour cream and guacamole)
Ice cream (chocolate, with chunks of brownies and walnuts)
Chocolate chip cookies (8)
Hot dog meal (1 hot dog on a bun with ketchup, large fries and large Coke) Now for the scary part: these are everyday foods that a lot of people consume regularly as part of their diet. What if you started your day with a lovely cooked breakfast, had a burger for lunch and went out for a pizza in the evening? (Don't forget I am not even counting snacks or drinks, just three meals.) Your totals would be:
• calories: 3877 • protein: 160g • carbs: 400g • fat: 182g • fiber: 31g Normal daily average calorie intake is 2550 (17,850 per week) for men and 1940 (13,580 per week) for women. The above is almost double the recommended figure for women and over 11/2 times for men. It is the equivalent of eating twenty cotton candies a day and half of a block of lard. Start to add in the between-meal snacks, drinks, alcohol and not enough exercise and you become a ticking bomb of potential heart disease, diabetes, stroke, high blood pressure, digestive tract problems. Choose your poison - or as I hope, don't!
Let's get something straight here. Conventional and traditional fad diets usually do not work. Calorie-counting diets, the "point system diet" or even the high-protein foods diet with no carbs - in my opinion these will all fail you and, even worse, most of them are tedious, pointless and downright dangerous to the body. Sure, they might help you to lose some weight in a few weeks or even in a few months. In the long run, though, you won't be able to continue with these fad diets because ultimately you will gain the weight back, and you won't be doing your body any favors. Fad diets operate on restricting you, and in effect will usually starve you of something important that your body needs. For example, the extreme high-meat protein/low-carb diet craze is fundamentally, scientifically and nutritionally flawed. Every living human being must have complex carbohydrates to function, to think, for energy, for good sex and for a positive attitude. Complex carbohydrates include the important grains like brown rice, millet, quinoa, rye, barley and buckwheat. My patients who stopped eating complex carbohydrates for mostly high-protein foods started to seriously suffer from constipation, mood swings, anger fits, dizziness, headaches, stomach cramps and depression - even the most happy-go-lucky types. And in the long run, they had to come back to my lifestyle program for the most successful results. In addition, most fad diets restrict the intake of essential fatty acids (EFAs). Again, this is bad science and it's bad for you too! EFAs actually help the body to dissolve fat. So to cut out foods high in them is like cutting out fat-burning agents. I call my program the Diet of Abundance, which is about not cutting out foods. Go on and eat those avocados, and those brazil nuts, almonds, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds and walnuts, and the list goes on and on. A "diet" to me is not about starving yourself, but rather a new lifestyle with an abundance of healthy foods. You Are What You Eat works better than anything else that has ever been tried, because my plan is based on scientific study from around the world, clinical research and biochemistry in the lab. Choose from a wonderful range of foods and embark upon the Dr. Gillian McKeith Lifestyle. My aim is for you to make simple changes that will begin to take effect almost immediately and will last for life.
These foods will:
When it comes to heart disease, a healthy diet is the prime player. It can:
There are countless other benefits, and it would be impossible to name them all. But my message here is loud and clear: Healthy food choices can make you look and feel great. Basically if your diet isn't healthy, you won't feel healthy and you won't lose weight.
These foods will:
Copyright © 2005 by Gillian McKeith. All rights reserved. This excerpt, or any parts thereof, may not be reproduced without permission. About the Author Gillian McKeith, Ph.D., is the internationally acclaimed clinical nutritionist and director of the renowned McKeith Research Centre in London. Her extensive clientele includes professional and Olympic athletes, members of the royal family, and famous celebrities. Dr. Gillian is the presenter of You Are What You Eat, a smash hit prime-time TV show in the UK, and the author of the number-one bestselling book You Are What You Eat, which is now being translated into other languages around the world. She is also the author of Living Food for Health (Piatkus/Basic). Raised in Scotland, Gillian now travels extensively, giving lectures and seminars to packed audiences. More by Gillian McKeith, Ph.D. |
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