Eat Fresh*

Listen, you have enough to feel guilty about.  You don't call your parents enough, you watched American Idol instead of studying for your midterms, maybe you ate a sleeve of thin mints just because.  


However it is time to start feeling guilty about what you eat.  I'm obviously not a dietitian but I do try to watch what I'm putting in my body.  Here are 7 simple rules I think anyone could and everyone should live by:

Don't be like this guy.

1.   by 2015, 75%(!!!!) of Americans will be overweight.  I don't care what their standards are, that's a staggering number.  My rule is:  if you think you're overweight, you could stand to lose some weight (provided that you have a healthy body image, please don't take that the wrong way).


2.   I'm not bitching about Subway because I personally don't like it (I don't), I'm bitching about it because we have been brainwashed into thinking it's 'healthy'.  WAKE UP!  Just take a step back and think about how Subway works.  Do you smell them mixing up dough and making bread in those stores?  Even if they do, does it look good?  Even if it does, do you think paying $5 for an entire loaf of it and the meats leaves any room for that bread to have any nutritious value?  It is 'just bread' after all, but why not eat some bread that might give you some whole grains or least a little dietary fiber.


3.  You have the ability to decide what you eat, and that decision should not be taken lightly.  I am sometimes questioned about my decisions about where to patronize, my way is not perfect but just take a minutes and think about what you think you should be eating.  Actually making an informed decision is the first step.  It is also the thing we have gotten away from as a society thanks to mass advertising and the wide availability of food in our country.

4.  Water is the absolute best hunger killer.  Your brain has two main methods of determining when to tell you your body is hungry.  When your stomach starts to contract (similar to how your body tells you it has to pee) and when your blood sugar starts to drop.  You can combat hunger not with snacks but by drinking A LOT of water.  Way more than you think you should drink.  Like, 8 water bottles a day.  Your stomach will be full and then you only have to deal with the hunger signals triggered by low blood sugar.  You will have to pee constantly but you won't feel hungry and that's half the battle when trying to cut back on calories.  Also, Americans' brains are conditioned to send out hunger signals when blood sugar drops from around 125% normal levels to 110% normal levels, so just keep that in mind next time you feel "hungry".  Try waiting half an hour and then see how you feel.

5.  We don't know how things effect us completely yet.  High fructose corn syrup, highly processed flours,  artificial leavening chemicals, most kinds of preservatives, we have only a limited knowledge of their long-term effects on our bodies.  SO DON'T BE A PART OF THE EXPERIMENT!!  Just avoid that stuff.  A soda every once in awhile won't kill you but if you need the sugar try something else like fresh fruits and drink a lot of water (see rule #4).  Or chew some mint gum or something to stay alert.  (The other part of all of this is that decreasing your dependency on caffeine and sugar will give you more bang for your buck when you do decide you need a little boost.)

6.  EAT. LOCAL.  It sounds like a hipster thing but that food has spent less time on a truck, therefore will likely have less preservatives AND you're contributing to your local economy, so everyone wins!  (Except those millionaire executives in New York, Chicago and Texas, where most fast food places are headquartered).  There is a great site called http://www.dineoriginalscolumbus.com/ that has a list of all...well original Columbus restaurants (duh!).  If you can't afford that kind of stuff, keep shopping at Kroger (it's headquartered in Cincy) where most of the bakery items are baked in-store or at a plant in Columbus.  The deli slices cold cuts by the pound and you can get a huge variety of stuff for a pretty good price.  Then you should supplement your trips to a big grocery store to trips to smaller grocery stores.  

7.  Don't be a zombie.  Don't just let yourself be sold to like a perfect little slave to the demographics.  I don't mean you shouldn't order pizza every once in awhile or you shouldn't get drunk food when you 'need' it.  I mean don't automatically think "McDonald's" when you're on a road trip and you need something to eat.  Don't let ANYTHING be your "first choice".  Try new things, be a little adventurous and don't let anyone prey on your ability to decide what you want for yourself.  Out of everything I've written here I feel most strongly about this.  For those who are frugal with their money, it makes no sense to let someone else tell you where or where not to spend it.  Appreciate the fact that if you're going to pay a little extra for something, it should taste better and make you feel better instead of just being more calories.  Free yourself from the National trends in any way you can, or you may end up on a national trend toward tipping the scales, and that's the whole point of this anyway, right?




Be ready to defend yourself when you say you don't want to get Subway for lunch, be ready to make your friends feel guilty too.  The culture we live in dumps all kinds of guilt on us, it's how we learn and improve ourselves.  If you can't handle that then I'm guessing you haven't made it to the end of this rather long and ranting post.  If you have, good for you, you've got what it takes!

Citations:



http://www.naturallyintense.net/blog/healthy-nyc-restaurants-reviews/is-the-food-at-subway-really-healthy/