Hi 🙂
Today I want to share with you something that I think has the potential to transform the life, health and wellness of every single person on the planet.
I know that may sound like a really strong statement, and that is because it is a really strong statement 🙂
I have been working in the health and wellness field for over 10 years now, so I have seen my fair share of diet journals. I have worked with a very diverse group of individuals with very diverse issues. Even though most of my clients haven't had much in common with one another with regards to lifestyle, health issues and goals - they almost ALL had/have this one health misconception in common.
This one little thing has been enough to totally derail everyone who practices it. It did not matter how committed they were, how many resources they had, how set up for success they were - if they did this one thing it always threw them off track.
I am willing to bet that if you are struggling to meet your health and weight loss goals, that you are most likely making this mistake too.
So what is it?
You Are Restricting Your Intake Of Healthy, Whole Foods
This is the absolute most common thing I see in my practice, and in general being someone who works in the healthy and wellness community. It is also a mistake that I made, many many times.
I think the root of this issue is pretty deep - and I think the most important factor is just how disconnected as a society we have become from our food, our bodies and what is natural for us. Processed foods have really done a number on our thinking, and on our bodies in general.
Processed Foods Have Messed Us Up:
I feel that processed foods and food science have made us look at food with fragmented vision - as a collection of macronutrients, micronutrients, phytochemicals and so on - rather than as FOOD. It has also skewed our perception of portion sizes, how to tell when we have eaten enough, how to tell when we have eaten too much and so on.
Remember - the purpose of eating is to provide your body with the tools it needs to function - which are energy, water and other micro and macro nutrients that are there to support the bodies chemical processes. We also have to remember that nature did a really good job designing food. She put food together in  a way that naturally supports our health because the nutrients whole foods from the earth contain work synergistically with one another and with our bodies. The bottom line is - our food scientists have not out done nature. And they most likely never will.
A Comparison:
For instance - we may look at a doughnut - which on average has around 200 calories. It is jam packed with processed grains, processed sugars, processed fats and is a dense source of calories while at the same time is a very sparse source of nutrients. Meaning it has a low nutrient:calorie ratio. A doughnut is rather small by volume and will not fill you up.
By comparison you could eat two bananas - also equalling 200 calories. A banana is nutrient dense, meaning it has a high nutrient:calorie ratio, it is fibre rich, water rich and will fill you up. You can eat two bananas and feel much more satisfied than eating one doughnut.
Food Is Nutrients:
Your body is looking for nutrients when you eat. When you eat foods that have low nutrient density - meaning they are high in energy/calories but low in nutrition - not only do you have to eat more to fill your belly, your brain is going to cause you to crave more and more food, because the nutrients it was expecting to receive from your food did not come.Â
This is beautifully demonstrated by the fact that most overweight Americans and Canadians are actually UNDER NOURISHED. That is to say they are eating lots and lots of food, but they are not getting the nourishment their bodies need to thrive.
I truly believe that your body, my body, and everyone else's body is designed to thrive. We are all capable of a level of health we most likely don't even have a perception of at this point.
All this is to say that we cannot look at processed foods and whole foods through the same lens. We can no longer afford to look at whole foods in terms of calories, nutrients and so on.
A Little Biology Lesson:
The simple truth is this: Your fat cells are more than just excess energy storage sites. You certainly do have a base line of necessary fat stored in your cells in order to maintain health. This is normal and natural. But when you start to store fat beyond what is healthy for your body it is usually because your body is full of toxins, not that you are consuming too much energy as we have been lead to believe.
The Liver:
Your liver has to process every substance that enters your body. When you ingest what are referred to as 'toxins' or substances that your body cannot use/will harm your body, your liver must filter them. Your liver has two detoxification pathways - phase one and phase two. During these two phases your liver will convert any toxic substance from a fat soluble substance into a water soluble substance.
Most toxins are fat soluble meaning they do not dissolve in water, only in fat - this is a problem because it means that your body cannot excrete them easily. Fat soluble toxins must be converted into water soluble toxins in the liver in order to be released from the body. If this does not happen they stay in your body - causing damage.
If your liver is not receiving the needed nutrition in order to properly complete its detoxification tasks OR if there are too many toxins being ingested the liver will attach a buffer molecule to your toxins and store them in your fat cells.
You can see the nutrients your liver needs here:
Your liver stores toxins as fat because:
1. Those toxins are fat soluble so they must be stored with fat.
2. When the toxins are in your fat cells they are as far away from your organs as they can possibly be. This means they are less likely to cause damage. If your body stored them near your organs they would be continually causing damage, making you much sicker much faster. This is one of the reasons why belly fat is so much more dangerous for your health than leg or arm fat.
So, excess weight in your fat cells is not only due to excess energy consumption ie. excess calories. It is due to inadequate nutrition to support your bodies detoxification processes, and it is due to excess toxic consumption.
Processed Foods Are Toxins To Your Body:
The second thing you must realize is that processed foods contain nutrients that the body does not recognize as nutrients. Whole foods are easily recognizable by your body. Your body knows how to assimilate and use the nutrients they contain. Processed foods are another story. There have been many studies done and we know that man made nutrients do not behave the same way in your body as naturally produced nutrients. The processed foods you eat are seen as toxins by your body. If you eat enough foods that are foreign to your body, you are essentially ingesting a large amount of toxins your body will either have to work very hard to process or will choose to store in your fat cells, safely away from your organs.
When your liver is over run with toxins that it cannot fully deal with, or if it is not receiving the necessary nutrition in order to carry out its complete detoxification processes, it will attach a buffer molecule to those toxins and shuttle them off to your fat cells. Even if you are restricting your caloric intake of processed foods, it is possible to continue to gain weight because the body will still be viewing what you are consuming as toxic.
Look how long it is!
Lastly your digestive system is very long, and your stomach has satiety receptors at the top. This means we were meant to eat high volumes of food. The reason we were set up to eat high volumes of foods is because whole foods contain large amounts of water and fibre. This means we need to eat large volumes of them in order to get adequate nutrients and calories. Processed foods on the other hand are calorie dense, with low volumes of water and fibre. This means that you can eat 600Â calories of a doughnuts and still be very hungry because doughnuts do not have the water and fibre you need to fill you up. Processed foods will always leave you feeling hungry because they do not have the volume you need in order to fill your stomach. Whole foods do.
To sum up:
When you are consuming large amounts of processed foods, the following is taking place:
1. You are under nourished because the nutrients found in processed foods are not as easily utilized by your body as natural nutrients. There are also fewer of them per calorie. Thus you will be over fed and while being malnourished.
2. You will be messing up your hunger and fullness signals because your stomach and your satiety censors were designed to alert you to fullness based on whole foods which are much denser in water and fibre than processed foods generally are.
3. You will be set up to crave more and more food because your body will be expecting nutrients from your food that are not delivered by processed foods. Thus you may eat adequate calories and still feel the need to eat more.
4. You are flooding your system with unrecognizable fat soluble substances that the liver must either process or store. IF you are simultaneously under nourished your liver will not have what it needs to do its detoxification work, and thus it will opt to store your toxins in your fat cells.
Your body is designed to thrive on whole foods. Under eating on whole foods will not lead you to the healthy, lean, fit body you want. Also, it is nearly impossible to really, truly over eat with whole foods. You will find that as you start to include more and more whole foods into your life, you will naturally find where your body wants to be. It is most likely starving for nutrients at this point, which means you may need to eat MORE FOOD that usual to get your needs met in the beginning. Â The bottom line is this: If you look at whole foods like we have been trained to look at processed foods you will never be healthy.
Tomorrow we will look more at WHY we tend to under eat on whole foods, and how you can turn your thinking around!
