Tips to improve your diet

Quit the Processed Food

If it comes in a box, plastic bag, and/or has a shelf life of over a year, it’s probably not the best for your health. Cakes, cookies, candy, pies, muffins, chips, crackers, the list goes on. Many of these foods are devoid of the nutrients that keep you full and energized. They are just empty calories that don’t create any long-term satisfaction. On top of that, there have been dozens of studies published in recent years that are showing that ultra processed foods have been specifically designed to hijack your brain’s reward centers. They are designed by food scientists in a lab to be addictive. You need to see these products for what they are. They are not real food. They are industrially produced edible substances. Stick to single ingredient, minimally processed, real foods. Food someone from 100 years ago could recognize. Shop the perimeter of the grocery store. Whole fruits, vegetables, meat, fish, eggs, milk, potatoes, nuts, seeds, and legumes (beans, peanuts, chickpeas) are what you want to stick to. If it has a label, read it. If it has more than 5 or 6 ingredients and you don’t know what half of them are, you probably want to think twice about consuming it. Pay attention to the sauces you’re using as well. They can be loaded with added calories. I’m not saying you can’t use any. Just don’t go nuts. Don’t drown your chicken in ranch, Maybe a little dab on the plate. Maybe cut back a little on the thousand island dressing on the salad. 

Don’t drink your calories

Liquid calories, especially those coming from a heavily processed products, are some of the worst things you can consume for your health. The more refined, the worse they are. Ditch the soda, fruit juice, and energy drinks. These foods usually contain a ton of added sugar, processed fillers, colorings, and artificial flavors. These foods are rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream and send your blood sugar on a rollercoaster ride, which can lead to unstable energy and sugar cravings. Stick to water, with a little lemon if you need some flavor. At the very least go for diet drinks. However, there is emerging evidence showing that certain artificial sweeteners (which diet drinks are full of) could potentially contribute to heart disease. There is also evidence showing that they may be having a negative effect on the microbiome, meaning they could be having downstream effects on human physiology we do not yet understand. 

Milk can be a little bit of an exception. Whole milk is packed with protein, healthy fats, and lots of micronutrients like calcium. Milk can also be pretty filling for a drink. My recommendation is to be cautious with milk. This may be something you need to test for yourself. Some people may need to avoid it if it causes excessive cravings. Others can include it and reap the benefits. I wouldn’t recommend low fat varieties of milk. There is emerging evidence that full fat varieties of milk and dairy products in general are better for satiety, weight loss, and overall metabolic health. So indulge in the full fat varieties, in moderate amounts. (this does not mean ice cream, I am still referring to single ingredient whole foods here) If you do find you need to avoid it, swapping it with greek or bulgarian style yogurt (without added sugars) or cheese can be a great alternative. 

 Alcohol falls into this category as well. Alcohol is quite calorically dense and is often mixed with fruit juices or soda, which are just sugar bombs. On top of this, alcohol impairs your cognition, making that 2am pizza run a lot harder to resist. Alcohol also negatively affects metabolism and can contribute to insulin resistance, fatty liver, diabetes, and a whole host of metabolic issues. 

 Focus on Protein

Protein is the most filling and important macronutrient. You are made of protein and your body can’t function without it. These are the structural building blocks of your body, and the higher quality the protein is, the higher qualify you will be. Protein should be your priority in each meal. 30 grams of protein minimum, and somewhere more like 40 or 50g should be the goal. Foods like greek yogurt, chicken breast, lean beef (90% or leaner), fish, and eggs should be your staples. I recommend 1 gram of protein per lb of ideal body weight per day. Which is 100lbs for women and 110 for men for the first 5 feet of height, then 5 lbs per inch after that. (ie a 5’10” male would be 160lbs and a 5’3” female would be 115lbs. For those examples they would want to eat 160g and 115g of protein respectively, regardless of what they weigh now.) There are some studies suggesting even a higher amount of protein like 1.1 or 1.2g/lb can be helpful for weight loss and maintaining lean body mass. 

 Get More Fiber

Most people in the western world do not get even half the recommended amount of fiber. Fiber is another way to add bulk to meals and keep you full. It also acts as food for the millions of bacteria that call your digestive tract home. These microbes, when properly fed, will release beneficial compounds that your body can absorb to combat stress, reduce inflammation, fight off illness, among other benefits. Fiber is also just a proxy measurement for the amount of fruits and vegetables you are eating. Make fiber a priority. Not only will your meals be more filling, but you will be reaping the other antioxidant and micronutrient benefits of the fruits and veggies. Some of my favorite sources of fiber are fruits such as berries or apples, sweet potatoes, nuts, seeds, vegetables such as carrots, onions, celery, and leafy greens such as spinach or arugula. Add 1-3 servings of these to each meal to boost satiety and add some complexity. I would be careful with grains. Some whole grains can be a good source of fiber, but grains can be very easy to over consume and aren’t as satiating per calorie compared to fruits and veggies. Food manufacturer are also prone to adding a bunch of junk to grain based products to increase shelf life and make them taste better. If you want grains, stick to whole grains and check the label for added ingredients. Your bread should say something like wheat flour, salt, yeast. Anything else added you may want to pick a different brand. Fiber goals should be around 20-25 grams of fiber for women and 30-38 for men

Stop Snacking

Eat during your main meals and not in between.  If you get hungry between meals, you’re not going to die. You can make it a few hours. If you really need to snack, eat protein. A chicken breast, some protein powder, a hard boiled egg or two. If that doesn’t sound appetizing, you’re probably not actually hungry.  Drink some water, you might just be thirsty, maybe with a little salt to help with hydration. Mindless snacking is weight loss suicide. One of the biggest changes you will need to make is being aware of what, when, and why you’re eating. Just getting a handle on what you’re eating and why can make such a big difference. So ditch the doritos while watching tv, the hot dog from the gas station when you stop for gas, and the handful of m&ms you mindlessly grabbed and didn’t even remember eating an hour later. When you do eat a meal, sit down to eat, be mindful of what you’re doing. Eat slowly, and enjoy it. Don’t mindlessly watch TV or scroll on your phone. Pay attention to when you are actually hungry. Once you are full, stop eating. You don’t need to finish everything you made. Save it for later. 

Remove Temptation 

If you struggle with temptations, sometimes it's best to just get rid of them entirely. Willpower is a finite resource that you can only rely on for so long. If you have a problem with cookies or ice cream late at night, just throw them out. Stop buying them. Stop making the conscious choice of even giving yourself the ability to give in to your vice. I understand this can be a challenge for someone with a family who does not share your health concerns, but this may be applicable to other areas of life, making this a useful strategy to battle other vices you may be trying to kick. It is a lot easier to simply avoid temptations entirely than relying on sheer willpower. 

Be Careful When Eating Out

Restaurants are in the business of making good tasting food, not necessarily food good for you. And the way they do this is by adding a bunch of unnecessary sugar and/or oil. Many dishes can have twice the amount of calories they may have if you were to cook it at home. A simple steak dish may be cooked in two or three times more butter than you would ever consider using at home. The dressing on your salad may add 700 calories to it. Those free chips or breaksticks they give you as an appetizer could total an extra 500 calories if you eat the whole basket. Most restaurants these days have calories counts for most dishes posted on their menus. Use these as a guide and pick something sensible. 

Have a Small Treat Every Day

Plan and look forward to a small treat every day. It could be as simple as a single square of dark chocolate or 4-5 m&ms after dinner. This goes back to the willpower piece. Constantly restricting yourself will eventually fail at some point. So go ahead, have a couple m&m after dinner. But you have a few m&m’s or a single piece of chocolate and stop. Enough to just satisfy the craving. Letting yourself splurge a little bit is better than never letting yourself have anything “bad” and then eventually caving on the weekend and downing an entire pint of ice cream. This can be a slippery slope for some people. If you are someone that cannot have 1 or 2 m&ms without it turning into the whole bag, maybe you really do need to restrict yourself entirely for a while until your relationship with food improves. Give it time and be easy on yourself. 

Learn to Cook

Cooking your own meals is the best way to control what goes into your body. You get to choose what you consume, how much, and how it is prepared. No sneaky ingredients or funky additives. There are a plethora of online tutorials and recipes online that you can take advantage of, If you never learned, now is the time to start! I have a page of my website dedicated to some of my favorite recipes if you need some pointers. 

Plan ahead

This goes hand in hand with the learning to cook piece mentioned a second ago. While cooking your own meals would be the ideal, unfortunately, real life often gets in the way. Travel, work schedules, and commitments to family and friends can force you into suboptimal eating environments. In this situation, it can be helpful to plan ahead for what you will be eating. If you work in an office, spend some time on the weekend meal prepping for yourself so you’re not forced into a “vending machine” lunch. If you’re traveling, look up restaurants or other meal service options that fit your goals. If you’re forced to eat take out every once in a while, that’s ok. It’s when it becomes a habit that it becomes a problem. This also goes along with the temptations piece we spoke about earlier. If you already have planned out and/or packed food for yourself, that makes those temptations less easy to fall for.

Get Moving

This isn’t necessarily related to diet, but it’s so important for overall health. Go for a walk after dinner, it will help with digestion. Go out in nature. Get some sunlight. It’s good for you. Maybe get a step counter if you want to go the extra mile. Give yourself a step goal and slowly increase it. See how many steps you can get in a day and see if you can beat your old record. Find a way to get active that you enjoy. Go swimming, play some basketball, if simply walking in the park is what you enjoy, do that. It’s also simply easier to maintain caloric balance if you can burn some of what you ate off. Limiting yourself to only your maintenance calories means you don’t have a lot of margin to play with.

Food Quality Over Calories

While calories do matter, thermodynamics is at play here, focusing on food quality is a better approach. If you put your effort into food quality, you will often find the calories take care of themselves. When you invest in food quality, your body’s natural hunger and fullness cues become more aligned. You will find it requires less willpower to eat healthy. High quality food is more satiating, is more nutrient dense, and will better fulfill what your body requires for optimal health. 

Extra credit - Get Tracking - “What gets measured, gets managed.”

This one is 100% optional, but if you want to go the extra mile, go out and buy a food scale. This is the one that I use

Weight out your food and log it in a food tracking app or website. I like this one in particular because it estimates micronutrient levels (things like iron, zinc, vitamin D, etc.) as well as macros (protein, carbs, fats)

You don’t need to do this forever, but I would recommend doing it for at least a week. It can give you really good insight into what you’re eating and how much. People would be surprised at how much they actually eat. Most people don’t actively think about this. Simply seeing it all out on paper can be helpful. Again this goes back to the mindfulness piece. It’s hard to make a change if you can’t even wrap your head around the problem to begin with.

What I would recommend doing at first is to not even change anything. Just track what you typically eat for a few days to get a baseline. Just learn what your eating habits are like. Are you even eating consistently day to day? Or are some days totaling to 2 or 3 times as much as other days? Pay attention to when you are eating as well. Are there days where you don’t eat until well into the evening? Once you see this, then you can start making changes. The goals here should first be to fix any erratic eating behavior. Try to eat a similar amount of food each day, at similar times of day. If you want to skip breakfast or lunch there’s nothing wrong with that, just be consistent about it. 

Other goals to strive for include 1 gram of protein per lb of ideal body weight, like we mentioned in the protein section. Also shoot for 20-25 grams of fiber for women and 30-38 for men as mentioned in the fiber section. Fats and carbs can be set to preference within your calorie needs. Your caloric needs will be something you may need to figure out for yourself. If you’re serious about tracking, I would track for a week and weigh yourself every day. Average your weights over the week. Then track yourself week to week to see how your weight is changing. If you lose 1-2 lbs per week, you’re on track. If you’re not on that goal, you may need to add or subtract calories to get a rough estimate of your needs. Unless you are very overweight, losing weight faster than 1-2 lbs per week can negatively impair your metabolism, so adjust accordingly.

Key takeaways:

• Avoid processed food whenever possible. 99.9% of the time whole foods will be better

• Stay in caloric balance - tracking food can help but is not mandatory

• Focus on protein and fiber. These will keep you full and minimize cravings. You should be striving for the most satiety per calorie. Eat the lowest calorie/most filling foods you can. 

• Plan ahead and be conscious of when, what, and why you eat.