How many meals should we be eating a day?

I get asked this question from time to time so I thought I would explain my views on how messed up America's eating habits are.

When I was a kid, we ate 3 meals. Breakfast, lunch, and an early dinner (by 6 pm). If we were hungry at 8pm we had a choice of fruit or to wait until breakfast. Somehow since then it has become fashionable to eat 6 smaller meals a day. Where this came from I am not really sure, but it is definitely an American-made concept.

I have tried this at least a few times and have stopped almost immediately because I felt like the only thing I was doing was eating- all day long! It was like I spent so much time managing when I was going to eat that it was annoying and I felt like I couldn't get anything else done because I was always eating.

Since attending nutrition school, I have come to think that not only is eating 6 times a day a little ridiculous, it is completely unnecessary, and actually detrimental to losing weight (which is the argument that trainers use when they tell you to eat smaller meals more frequently).

In a nutshell, your body will not burn fat if it is constantly getting fed. Fat is stored to be used as energy, but it only burns it if there is no food in sight. So if you can train your body to go longer between meals you actually have a shot at burning your fat stores for energy.

This brings up another aspect of eating 6 meals a day: night eating. Inevitably if you are eating 6 meals a day, you are more than likely eating later than you normally would to get that last meal in. Night eating is the worst thing you can do if you are trying to lose weight. It's ideal to go to bed on an empty stomach (slightly hungry but not starving) because then your body burns it's fat stores all night long. Everyone is different, but the ideal time for me to stop eating is 6pm, and I usually eat a large lunch and smaller dinner. When I do not eat a large lunch I go into the late afternoon starving, ravenous, and capable of eating everything. This is what I have been working on...eating my big meal during the day.

I have been chipping away at this over the past few months, and have seen tremendous results (along with all the juice I drink). I gave up the idea that I need to kill myself at the gym everyday and little by little have changed my eating habits. I have seen more weight loss from changing my eating habits than I ever did from spending hours at the gym. Now, a few times a week I go for a six mile walk (more like stroll most days) and an occasional run if I do not have the time to walk.

Changing one's eating habits is tough stuff, especially if you are addicted to sugar, caffeine, etc., but I promise if you just start where you are and make little baby steps you can see lasting weight loss without killing yourself at the gym.

And the most important thing to remember is: IF YOU ARE NOT HUNGRY DON'T EAT! (regardless of what you think you have to do...you don't have to do anything...you are an adult...eat ONLY when you are hungry!)

My advice to college girls

Ladies... as someone who was able to party her way through college and grad school and still get almost straight A's, unfortunately I was not able to party my way through college and avoid gaining weight. I have some advice for you that I wish someone had told me when I was in college. While I know that there are so many fun things that involve drinking, nothing is fun about how long it takes to loose weight. 

• Everyone will notice that you don't look as hot as you did when you graduated high school- but no one will be nice enough to give you a heads up so that you can start working out. People talk about other people. That is a fact of life...and I would rather know that they are talking about how good I look instead of how much weight I've gained.
• You absolutely CANNOT try to keep up with guys when you are drinking. They will try to peer pressure you, but nothing good comes of trying. Guys do not gain weight like we do (nor do they get drunk as fast as we can). They can drink beer all day long, go for a quick run, eat pizza and still look hot. 
• If you have a spare tire that sticks out as much as your boobs do- GO TO THE GYM! And absolutely DO NOT wear tight shirts until that S-H-I-T is taken care of.
• Alcohol is processed by our bodies differently than food and other liquids. We do not get any nutrients out of it so it just depletes us and makes us tired, hungover, and FAT. 
• If you do not want to workout, join a club or something that is activity oriented. It will get your lazy, hungover ASS off the couch. Or...DON'T DRINK LIKE AN ANIMAL!
• If you start cooking for yourself, experiment with a lot of vegetables. Eat a lot of fruit in general. The more raw foods you eat, the easier it will be for you to keep the weight off or loose it. If you have a meal plan, and all of the food is over-cooked or greasy, eat all of the salads, vegetables, and fruit that you can. 
• Designate at least an hour a day for working out (at least a few times a week). This will ensure that you are working off all those beers. 
• Everyone is capable of gaining weight- even the "hot" ones you went to high school with.
• Once you get out of college, all of a sudden your free time dries up and your motivation to workout after a long day at work is close to zero (if not negative). It is that much harder to loose weight. Trust me, I am still working on it and I have been out of grad school for 4 years now. 

At one point during college my Nani said to me 'Jessie, you are finally not skinny anymore." That should have been my cue to hit the gym and change what I was eating. But I thought she was just being an asshole. Well when I look back at pictures from high school and college there is a HUGE difference- and it's called my ass. 

You will know you are gaining weight if:

• Your belly hangs over your jeans when you sit down
• You constantly have to pull your shirts down to cover your stomach
• You are white and getting hit on by black guys
• You start to feel like you are stuffing yourself into your clothes
• You used to be an athlete, but now it's uncomfortable to workout because your jiggly parts are getting in the way 
• You have jiggly parts

Not only is gaining weight disastrous for your self-image, self-esteem, and level of attraction, it is also really bad for your health. I know your health isn't even in your radar right now because you think you will always be young and invincible, but trust me you won't. Time is going to start going faster and faster and all of a sudden you will be creeping up on 30 and realize that being slim, healthy, and beautiful is even more important to you. 

It is much sexier to take be hot and care of yourself than it is to impress guys with your record breaking keg stand. AND...most importantly, it is much easier to maintain being thin than it is to loose weight. Just saying...I wish I had someone who wasn't my mother's age tell me what's up. It isn't really believable when your mother is telling you these things. (sorry Mom)

Do you have any other advice for college girls?

Food vs. Food Like Substances

Author Michael Pollan talks about his rules for eating food vs. food like substances (what most of Americans eat) and some of his thinking behind his convictions. I just finished one of his books, In Defense of Food and it is was a great awakening to me that WE DON'T EAT FOOD...WE EAT THE PRODUCTS OF FOOD SCIENCE! 


Food is:

• Fruits
• Vegetables
• Whole Grains
• Beans
• Legumes
• Fresh Dairy
• Humanely-raised Meat
• Herbs
• Spices

Food Like Substances are:

• Gogurt Portable Yogurt
• Protein Bars
• Lucky Charms Cereal
• Entenmann's Apple Puffs
• Oreos
• Frozen Dinners
• Easy Mac Macaroni & Cheese

I have been in the process of changing over my diet from food like substances to food for the past year. These are some easy ways to make small changes quickly that will make a huge impact in the way that you feel.

• Buy organic dairy. This ensures that there are no hormones or antibiotics fed to the cows which end up in your body after you eat their dairy products.
• Buy grass-fed or humanely raised meat. This ensures that these animals are raised on their natural diet and allowed to exhibit their natural behaviors. The animal is healthier, the meat is healthier.
• Do not buy anything containing hydrogenated oils or high fructose corn syrup. These are two toxic food additives that harm you every time you eat them. HFCS makes everything taste sweeter which feeds your cravings for more sweets, and hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils make food like substances last for years on the shelves (gross!).
• Replace one meal with a fruit and vegetable smoothie. Any blender (you know... the one you bought to make margaritas and mudslides) will do. I buy a huge batch once a week (usually no more than $30-$40 worth) and it lasts me just about all week. I try to put at least 5 different fruits and/or vegetables in my smoothies. I find that when I make a healthy choice in the morning it ripples through my food choices for the rest of the day. Plus you will find it will make you feel amazing!
• Do not stress about eating healthy all the time. Or you may become ORTHOREXIC! Just kidding. Make healthy choices as often as you can, and when there is absolutely no possible way of eating something healthy (fruits, veggies, food that is not heavily processed, or covered in gobs of cheese) just think of it as your free pass to indulge in something you would not normally eat but you enjoy.

If you make only these 5 changes you will start to feel the positive effects. You don't have to "go to extremes" like eating only raw food, eating no meat, or not accepting dinner invitations because you know they will not be serving "healthy" food. These 5 upgrades will make a positive change in your life. 

Am I ORTHOREXIC?

I have heard this term a few times lately, and just read this article about how healthy eating that becomes an obsession is called Orthorexia. Well, read the article below, and wanted to share. While you are reading it keep in mind that 70% of Americans are overweight, and I believe if I have my statistics correct 30% are considered obese. Our country spends billions of dollars on sick people.

Orthorexia: Too Much Of A Healthy Thing?

“Eat healthy!” is a trope we’re all used to hearing -- and with good reason. Obesity has reached epidemic levels in the United States, we are consistently inundated with ads for overly-processed junk foods and busy schedules push people towards stopping off at McDonalds instead of cooking a meal at home. But what about the other side of the spectrum? Can you have too much of a good (eating) thing?

In some cases, the answer seems to be yes. Orthorexia -- or an obsession with healthy eating -- is a term that was coined by Steven Bratman, M.D. (a specialist in alternative medicine) in 1997 and has received an increasing amount of media (and scientific) attention over the last few years. Most recently, the TODAY show's Savannah Guthrie sat down with resident nutritionist Madelyn Fernstrom and psychotherapist Robi Ludwig to discuss the issue.

Orthorexia is not a clinical term, and it has not been officially defined as a mental disorder or been given a place in the American Psychiatric Association’s DSM-IV. This, coupled with the lack of clinical studies that have been conducted on the subject (we could only find two) make orthorexia a difficult subject to address with any sort of certainty. A couple of the nutritionists that we reached out to had never encountered this type of disordered behavior and remarked that most of their clients had the opposite issue. However, a growing number of nutritionists, dietitians and psychologists are acknowledging that a focus on healthy food does have the potential to cross the line into obsessive -- and unhealthy -- behavior. “We have no specific criteria [for orthorexia], but we know it when we see it,” registered dietitian and co-founder of AppforHealth.com, Julie Upton, told The Huffington Post.

Dr. Bratman, who published a book on the subject in 2004, entitled “Health Food Junkies,” explained the definition to WebMD as such: “The whole issue is obsession. This is about the obsession with eating to improve your health.” It is this obsession that marks the distinction between making well-informed, careful, healthy decisions and engaging in potentially harmful behavior.

Upton, who works predominantly with an athletic population, says that she sees individuals on a consistent basis who cross the line into health-food obsession. In her experience, athletes tend to be natural candidates for orthorexia as they are involved in industries that are inherently body and food-conscious. Some typical “red flags” that Upton encounters include: spending all day planning out meals, never eating food served at parties and other social events, and targeting very specific ingredients in foods -- regardless of the portion size of the ingredient and whether said ingredient has a real effect on the overall diet. Orthorexia is often characterized by a rigid restriction of some sort, although the type of restriction varies widely person-to-person.

And while education about nutrition is unquestionably a positive, it may be this very environment that encourages the development of disordered behavior in individuals predisposed to these type of conditions. “Within our environment today, we have the opportunity to know so much about the food that we get,” says Roberta Larson Duyff, registered dietitian and author of the “American Dietetic Association Complete Food and Nutrition Guide.” “There’s enough editorial copy out there that the environment can feed on that kind of obsession for those who … do not have a more rounded, realistic view of food.”

While most cases of obsessive behavior regarding healthy food lead to more psychological stress than physical -- namely social isolation and a loss of the joy traditionally associated with eating -- individuals who take orthorexic behaviors to an extreme may end up harming their bodies as well as their minds. “Once you start eliminating food groups and large categories of food, you run the risk of losing out on essential vitamins and minerals,” says Katherine Brooking, registered dietitian and co-founder of AppForHealth.com. She also spoke to the seeming contradiction between a culture of obesity and a culture of health food obsession. “There’s a whole contingent of the population who is paying very little attention to the quality of their food … [but] you also see [people] starving themselves,” she told The Huffington Post. “Our society is very prone to those kind of extremes.”

Ultimately, orthorexia is an issue that seems to merit further research and discussion. However, in the process, Duyff cautions that we shouldn’t be too quick to label or demonize people. “We need to be careful to look at where there is compulsive behavior, and when there is a genuine interest in food and trying to make … strides toward healthy eating.”

Brooking says that for her the bottom line is that making healthy choices should be simple -- not anxiety-producing: “If people feel that they are experiencing anxiety, obsession or stress [over healthy eating], that is something that should be addressed with a health care professional.” Original Source: Aol Healthy Living

WebMD provides a comprehensive list of 10 questions that individuals should ask themselves when trying to identify orthorexic behavior. So what constitutes Orthorexia?

• Are you spending more than three hours a day thinking about healthy food? (YES, I'M GETTING CERTIFIED AS A HEALTH COACH)
• Are you planning tomorrow's menu today? (SOMETIMES, I LOVE TO COOK)
• Is the virtue you feel about what you eat more important than the pleasure you receive from eating it? (NOPE)
• Has the quality of your life decreased as the quality of your diet increased? (NO WAY!)
• Have you become stricter with yourself? (YES IN A SENSE)
• Does your self-esteem get a boost from eating healthy? (YES) Do you look down on others who don't eat this way? (NO)
• Do you skip foods you once enjoyed in order to eat the "right" foods? (YES, I USED TO ENJOY OREOS & EASY MAC...TAKE A LOOK AT THOSE INGREDIENTS AND TELL ME IF THEY SHOULD EVEN BE CALLED FOODS)
• Does your diet make it difficult for you to eat anywhere but at home, distancing you from friends and family. (SOMETIMES)
• Do you feel guilt or self-loathing when you stray from your diet? (NOPE)
• When you eat the way you're supposed to, do you feel in total control? (I NEVER FEEL IN TOTAL CONTROL)

So according to WebMD and my answers....I AM ORTHOREXIC!!


Can I tell you how I really feel about this topic? Good.

First of all, I wouldn't normally diagnose myself from WebMD. I think a lot of people freak themselves out looking up their symptoms. Second, of all of the so-called eating disorders (I believe for sure that people suffer from them) the one that I wouldn't be upset if I had is Orthorexia. I do not think being "obsessed" with eating healthy is a problem if you are getting positive results. I understand where they are coming from, because obsessions are not a good thing, but seriously? I hardly thing this country should be worrying about people who are too healthy!

They should be applauding people who make it a priority to be healthy. How much money does a chronically sick person cost the healthcare system? I don't have that number, but I can tell you from my experience with Nani's chemotherapy that it was $6000+ a month. And that is just one aspect of one cancer patient! There were the doctor's visits, tests, additional medicines, hospital stays, hospice.

Just think of all of the millions with heart disease that go under the knife. Or all of the obese people on insulin because they gave themselves diabetes. Which brings me to another thing that astonishes me. Since I have started researching this topic, and thus made significant changes in my diet, I have heard from numerous people "Just don't go to extremes!" I find it ironic that people think eating less meat, cutting out high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, and soy products, and eating mostly fruits and vegetables is considered "going to extremes". When in this country alone, millions of people have their chest's cut open to have bypass surgery where they take an artery from your leg and bypass one of your clogged arteries in your heart. THINK ABOUT IT! Which seems more extreme to you?

THIS?

OR THIS?

Orthorexia is ridiculous!


Until this country starts shrinking back to healthier proportions, stops needing surgeries, and gets off of insulin, I would suggest the doctors focus on more important things. Many of our problems can be solved with diet. I am in a situation right now where many people my age do not think that they will ever need a bypass or will ever gain weight as they get older. I was one of them until a year ago! But we have time on our sides which is one of my biggest motivations. I can do this now so that (hopefully) I will never have to have my chest cut open. But you know what? Even if I do, or if I get cancer or some auto-immune disease...AT LEAST I CAN SAY I TRIED!


I'm done ranting. Just had to get it out of my system.