Healthy Diet Tips

More than two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese and only 23 percent meet the bare minimum of physical activity that’s recommended per week.

That’s the current state of fitness in the United States, which is as fucked up as everything else in this country, from the crumbling infrastructure to the democratic instructions that are under slow erosion to the failing education system that’s failed you so wonderfully that you can’t even identify that the nation is in decline.

Well, getting in better shape and health doesn’t have to be as hard as you opening a history book to see how other empires have collapsed from similar situations.

Nope, getting in better shape and health doesn’t have to be hard at all with these healthy diet tips!

PRACTICE MODERATION

To lose weight, all you have to do is move around more. Sounds like sage advice, huh? Well, while it’s true, it’s not exactly true. Yes, you’ve been lied to!¹

The truth is that you can do all the exercise you want but you won’t see the results you’re after if your mouth is nothing more than a trash compactor. As dire as it sounds, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to dump tacos, ice cream, ice cream tacos, and all that other crap in favor of blah “diet food” carbs are evil and fat is bad.² Nope!

You can still have tacos, ice cream, ice cream tacos, and all that other crap. You just have to watch how much of that crap you’re eating so it agrees with your daily caloric needs and macronutrient requirements. I believe this thing that’s being described here is called “moderation”. But hey, if food moderation isn’t your thing because you just can’t do that willpower shit and control yourself, then yeah, eliminate a food or whole food group.

DRINK WATER

I’m sure you know the importance of water in the diet. But let’s pretend that you don’t for the sake of me insulting your intelligence. Are you game? Good!

*ahem*

My poor ignorant friend who doesn’t know how important water is and who I now have to enlighten, it should be known that water is necessary for fat burning. Yup, the first stage of lipolysis, or the breakdown of stored fat, can only occur when water molecules interact with triglycerides to create fatty acids and glycerol that can then be oxidized and used as energy. But not only does water have fat-burning powers, it also appears that cold water in particular helps with calorie burning because the body has to expend energy to warm the water up to the body’s internal temperature.³ The last of water’s powers from a weight management perspective is its filling effect. Much like fiber, water stretches the stomach and prompts the brain to register fullness. As such, consuming water before a meal can help reduce calorie intake.

EAT PROTEIN

Want to lose some flab or not put it on? Then you’re wasting your time if you’re not pairing exercise with a calorie-restrictive diet. That roll isn’t going anywhere if you’re taking in more calories than you’re burning, no matter how many half-assed burpees you do. But not everyone has the self-government to eat less. Some people absolutely refuse to exercise even a little moderation. If you fall into that group, the one thing you should do then is eat protein. Lots and lots of it!

It turns out that you’ll experience a reduction in body fat instead of seeing an increase in fat mass when eating above the recommended daily intake of protein. Yes, lose fat despite continuing the gluttony by taking in a shitload of excess calories! The exact reason is unknown why overeating protein isn’t as deleterious as overeating carbs and fat but it’s speculated that it has to do with protein having a higher thermic effect than the other two macronutrients. Simply put, your body burns more calories digesting protein than it does carbs and fat, thus boosting the metabolic rate. So yeah, you can’t be bothered with cutting down your intake of food? You know, doing something that shows that you give a semblance of a solitary fuck? Then at least eat protein.⁴ Lots and lots of it!!!⁵

EAT FIBER

How much fiber are you getting in your diet? If you’re like most people in developed societies, you’re not getting much. You should change that. Pronto!

It would do you well to increase your fiber intake because foods that are rich in fiber are bulky and take up space in the stomach so you get full faster. In addition, the feeling of satiety lasts longer after a meal with fibrous foods because fiber helps slow the absorption of glucose by the body, as well as by delaying the rate in which contents leave the stomach.

Fiber sure does sound like a big deal, huh?!?! So much of a big deal that I bet you’re eager to find out how much of it you should consume! Well, if you’re a woman, your daily fiber intake at the minimum should be 21-25 grams per day. The daily recommendation for men is no less than 30-38 grams. Yeah, that’s a hell of a lot more fiber than the measly 15g you currently get, making me right when I guessed that your fiber intake was going to be on par with the average person’s. So what can I say for myself, other than I knew that because you’re as average as average gets? Well, in full disclosure, there’s the teeny-tiny fact that I’m psychic and stuff!

SUBTRACT ADDED SUGARS

Sugar by itself isn’t bad for you. But added sugar is. And added sugar is in almost EVERYTHING!!!

Why eating too much sugar is a problem is because we can only store so much sugar as glycogen in the liver and muscles before it’s converted into fat. On top of that, sugar spikes the hormone insulin and leads to high blood sugar levels. When blood sugar remains elevated over a prolonged period of time, the body becomes resistant to insulin, which allows for sugar to much more easily get stored as fat instead of getting absorbed for use as immediate energy.

So if too much sugar is bad because it has the potential to contribute to weight gain, then sugar-free alternatives like sucralose, aspartame, and saccharin should allow you to satisfy your sweet tooth without worrying about that shit. Right? Ha, that might be the case if we lived in a logical universe. The problem is that this clearly isn’t a logical universe. For instance, how could it be logical when a reality TV star was voted into the highest office in the land by claiming he’s a populist despite his billionaire status and over 40 years of history in the public eye saying otherwise? Like, seriously, how could the universe be logical after this same man still has a legion of followers willing to vote for him to return to the presidency despite running on a platform of law and order while being found guilty of sexual abuse in civil court, having multiple felony convictions, and committing treason by inciting a failed coup attempt in subversion of democracy upon the loss of reelection? Riddle me that, bucko! Anyway, that’s enough politics…

Moving along, it appears that zero- to low-calorie sugar substitutes help with the opposite of weight loss.⁶ I know, how can that be?! I’ll be darned if I have a definitive answer for that rhetorical question, as the reason isn’t known why there’s a link between artificial sweeteners and an increased risk for weight gain, in addition to diabetes and heart disease. That, however, doesn’t mean there aren’t any fucking theories!

The most popular theory has to do with artificial sweeteners being a hundred to a thousand times sweeter than sucrose, or natural sugar. For instance, Neotame is about 13,000 times sweeter than real sugar. Given the extreme sweetness, it’s theorized that eating or drinking products containing sugar substitutes activate the taste buds and make you crave sweeter items. This in turn causes you to fall into temptation and exceed your daily calories. That’s just a guess, though!

REDUCE SODIUM

The standard American diet is loaded with sodium. The average person eats way too much of the stuff. That’s bad for a number of reasons. For one, excess sodium causes you to retain water. Not only does increased water retention make you look puffier but it also places extra pressure on the blood vessels and forces the heart to work harder to pump blood. Thus, raising the risk for hypertension and stroke. As for sodium’s effect on weight, it can (1) increase your appetite and (2) blunt the mechanisms that tell you to stop eating.

(1) Contrary to the popular belief that salty food makes you thirstier, research suggests that it doesn’t. Rather than causing you to drink more fluids to flush the excess sodium out, the body instead elevates glucocorticoid hormones. This hormonal response triggers the breakdown of fat and muscle to release water, a metabolic process that requires energy and makes you hungry. As a result, you eat more, with you consuming more calories than were needed to offset what was burned to deal with the salt.

(2) The body has mechanisms in place to tell us when to stop eating. In most people, those mechanisms are activated by the taste of fat. Well, excess sodium blunts those mechanisms, leading to an increase in appetite. And because most foods that are high in sodium are also high in calories, you end up eating significantly more calories as you continue eating. And what happens when you eat more calories than you should on a regular basis? Yup, weight gain!

For the outlined reasons, reducing sodium is probably a good idea. That means eating out less and avoiding packaged and processed foods, such as canned soups, frozen dinners, and lunch meats, as well as certain sauces, condiments, and marinades. It also means not grabbing the salt shaker and going all Ying Yang Twins by shaking it like…ummmmm…a salt shaker!⁷ Instead, flavor your food with herbs and spices and other flavor enhancers like citrus juice, lemon peel. brown sugar, vinegar, peppers, and sesame oil.

DON’T FILL UP ON EMPTY CALORIES

When you hear the term “empty calories”, what comes to mind? Are you thinking of food with calories that have little to no effect on you because the calories are…ummmmmmm…empty? If that’s the case, then boy are you in for a world of disappointment!

Empty calories are known as such because while they do provide the body with energy like calories do, they provide the body with little else nutritionally. Examples of items with empty calories include pizza, chips, cake, cookies, candy, soda, and ice cream. Yeah, all the goodies you’ve heard to steer clear of or enjoy in moderation but you still make a habit of inhaling like Kirby, which is why you’re as round as that video game character.

See, empty calorie foods contain added fat and sugar, making them foods high in calories. Also, added fat and sugar has the effect of making you crave more fat and sugar. And because these foods are lacking in nutrients such as fiber that help with satiety, you’re more likely to succumb to the food industry’s dastardly plan of eating even more junk food to satisfy your cravings. Lastly, the saturated fat and refined sugar that’s pumped into processed food can impair mitochondrial function and spike insulin. Know what that means, right? Yeah, a fucked up metabolism!

All three of the knocks against empty calorie foods result in fat gain and difficulty losing weight, which you can avoid by simply not inhaling food like Kirby. What you should eat instead are foods that provide satiety with a small amount of calories. That generally means consuming fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts, seeds, and whole grains, as well as lean protein sources like beef, pork, poultry, seafood, and tofu.

Fruits and vegetables are high in water, which increases the weight of food and helps stretch the stomach. Fiber also has a similar effect, as certain forms of the nutrient absorb water and expand to create a gel that takes up space in the gut. That particular type of fiber is the soluble kind and it’s found in produce, plus other plant-based products like beans, nuts, seeds, and whole grains. Another feature of fiber is its ability to slow down the rate in which food empties out of the stomach. As for protein, it controls hunger by taking a long time to digest. In addition, protein releases hormones that regulate the appetite. Together, these nutrients promote fullness and because foods that are rich in them are less energy dense than calorific foods that aren’t as filling, including them in your diet can keep you satisfied on fewer calories for longer, thus driving down your total calorie intake without having to monitor it nor feel deprived of food.

READ FOOD LABELS

The secret weapon to weight management? Take a guess. Nope, it’s certainly not that! TRY AGAIN!!! Nah, that’s not it either! You know what, screw it. The secret weapon to weight management is — drum roll, please — literacy. Yup, you read that right. That is, assuming you know how to read, of course!

The gift of literacy is what can help you trim down from beached whale status or save yourself from even getting there. If you’re puzzled how, you shouldn’t be. The reason why is quite simple.

The nutrition facts panel provides information on the amount of calories, fat, carbs, protein, and other nutrients in a particular product. That’s info you can use to portion out your meals so they align with your calorie needs and macronutrient requirements. Also, because you’re less likely to eat bad food if you don’t have bad food in your house, you should read food labels to…ummmmm…read the calories, sodium, fat, sugar content, and ingredients of the shit you want to buy so you can figure out if it should be placed into your shopping cart or remain on the shelf.⁸

WEIGH YOUR FOOD

What good is reading food labels to find out the exact serving size if you don’t accurately portion out the correct serving size? That’s why you need to measure your food. Oh, but you already do with measuring cups or spoons, do ya? Ha, now that’s adorable!

By saying that you use measuring cups or spoons, what you mean to say is that you don’t accurately portion out your food. That’s because those instruments are wholly inaccurate, seeing as to how people have a tendency to overfill them, which results in them eating way more calories than they actually think they’re eating.⁹ It’s for this reason that you should weigh your food with a kitchen scale. A digital one, to be accurate.

Now, I should tell you to turn the scale on before trying to use it and to make sure to press the TARE button so the plate, bowl, or container that you’ll be placing the food item on for measurement isn’t factored into the weight. However, I’m not going to tell you that because I’m not trying to weigh you down with minutia, let alone insult your intelligence. Nope! All I’ll say is that when I say that you should weigh your food, I mean that you should weigh everything — E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G!!! — that you plan on putting into your mouth, from solids to fluids.

TRACK YOUR FOOD

How can you make sure that you’re eating the exact amount of food to satisfy specific macronutrient targets for the day? What about meeting your total daily calorie goal to lose or maintain your weight? Rather than doing either by guessing, you can do so by tracking your food intake in a food journal, log, diary, or whatever you want to call it. That’s one benefit of writing down everything you eat and the quantity. Another is that tracking helps build awareness by providing a record that you can look at to make changes and adjustments to not only your intake but also your eating habits. This ability to look back at your choices and the permanence of documentation also fosters personal accountability.¹⁰

The benefits of tracking are clearly wonderful. However, as wonderful as the benefits of tracking happen to be, I know what you’re thinking, which is that you don’t have the time to put pen to pad to record everything that you eat. That’s where you’re wrong, bucko!

Researchers have found that logging food doesn’t take as much time as people think. Instead of being a major time commitment that gets in the way of more productive endeavors, it takes people a little under 24 minutes a day to maintain a food journal when they begin. That comes out to almost 5 minutes per feeding opportunity if you eat 3 meals and 2 snacks per day. That’s more than manageable. Further, the length of time it takes to input food into a log lessens as people develop the skills and become more efficient at it. Whatever the case, less than half an hour a day isn’t that much time to commit to doing something that’ll have profound effects, as research has also found that people who monitor and self-track their food intake lose double the weight of those who don’t.

The traditional way to keep a food journal is with a paper notebook but spreadsheets and food tracking apps work just as well. Regardless of the method, the inconvenience factor is small. If, however, it’s too much of a disruption to your schedule to take a few minutes to exercise your fingers by writing or typing your food intake, you can take pictures instead. Found to be as effective as tracking food by way of words and numbers, taking a second or two to snap photos is a viable alternative. All you have to do is photograph everything you eat and drink. From there, you have two options. The first is to keep the pics on your phone for your private review. The second is to post them on social media for extra accountability from others seeing what you’ve eaten.

EAT FROM SMALL PLATES

Remember that bullshit I’ve said countless times about eating in moderation? Of course you don’t, but just say you do!

Okay, now that we’ve established that you have a wonderful memory (and are also a liar), what if I told you that one of the best ways to stop eating like an asshole is to do this thing called “portion control”. This involves reading food labels to know the serving size, weighing out your food as you eat it, and prepping meals and snacks in advance with the right amounts. Oh, but you’re too busy for any of that jazz, you say. Then just eat your food from smaller plates.

When there’s a large amount of food in front of you, you’re likely to eat more than you would have had so much food not been present. That’s why you can reduce your food intake by doing something as simple as eating meals from salad size plates instead of traditional dinner plates. The reason for this is that the larger the plate is, the more food you’ll serve to fill the empty space and if that space isn’t filled, the less food your brain will think you’ve eaten and result in you possibly going back for more food than your body actually needs. By eating from a smaller plate, you not only reduce the portion size but also trick your brain into thinking it’s eaten more food so it’s satisfied with fewer calories. So yeah, stop eating from plates the size of manhole covers!

TAKE LONGER TO EAT

Taking the time to chew your food rather than inhaling it can reduce the amount of calories that you eat in a meal. Is it because chewing your food more thoroughly turns the food into tinier and tinier pieces with less and less calories? While that’s a mighty fine guess, the answer is absolutely fucking not!

The reason to slow down is that when you eat, hunger hormones send signals to the brain to tell it when you’re full. It takes about 15 to 20 minutes after you’ve started eating for the brain to pick up on those signals. When you eat too fast, your brain doesn’t have enough time to catch up with the cues from the stomach that it’s had enough food, resulting in the consumption of excess calories. Conversely, eating slowly gives the brain time to receive the signals in question so you only take in as many calories as necessary. For this reason, don’t shovel food into your mouth before you’ve had a chance to fully chew and swallow what’s already in there. Instead, put your fork, spoon, sandwich, whatever down between bites and chew the food thoroughly to prolong the amount of time it takes to get through a feeding.¹¹ Other options to prolong eating time include cutting your food into tiny pieces and eating with your non-dominant hand.

DON’T SKIP MEALS

There are people who avoid eating on purpose, like the goody two-shoes at your office who thinks the way up the ladder is to bury their head in their paperwork rather than break with everybody else for an hour-long lunch.¹² Others may avoid eating in order to bank calories for a later feast or to make up for overdoing it at a prior sitting. Some people just don’t have food available or the time. And then there are people who simply forget to eat.¹³

Whatever the case, skipping meals is no bueno if you’re trying to make your body less unappealing than it currently is. Nope, not because skipping meals slows down your metabolism, as you’ve probably heard. Sorry, but it’s two-thousand and something. Step into the 21st century, why don’t ya!

The new science says that skipping meals has no impact on your ability to burn calories. That, however, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have an impact on weight control. See, when you skip meals you’re more likely to make up for those lost calories by overeating at a later sitting and consuming foods high in fat and sugar. The reason for this is quite simple: your blood sugar plummets if you go without food for an extended period of time, resulting in you not only feeling hungry but also craving the packaged and processed deliciousness that you know is bad for you.

Skipping meals can make you hungrier later and more susceptible to cravings so that when you finally do eat, you’ll have a greater chance of making poor food choices and/or eating more than you would’ve had you eaten earlier. That’s one reason why skipping feeding opportunities is counterproductive for weight management. Another is that going without food for a long enough period can leave you less energized. Why that’s bad is because a lack of energy decreases the likelihood that you’ll be active and burn calories through regular movement or intentional exercise, both of which can help supplement weight control. It’s for these reasons why you should eat small meals and snacks frequently throughout the day instead of thinking that you’re better off by not eating.

DON’T FAKE IT

You should avoid pretend “health” foods. To be clear, items like French fries and Oreos fall into the vegan category, automatically making them “healthy” foods to some people by virtue of their not being animal-based. That, however, isn’t what’s meant here by pretend “health” foods. Instead, what’s meant are foods that read: low fat, fat free, low calorie, and reduced fat. Foods labeled with that and other healthy sounding shit are fugazi!

See, many of the twice expensive foods with the aforementioned buzzwords on their packaging have substitutions in them that make them worse alternatives than the regular version. For example, fat provides texture and flavor. To compensate for the lost taste and feel, manufacturers often add sugar and other ingredients, a replacement that results in the item with less fat containing even more sugar and calories than the unhealthy item it’s supposed to be an improvement of. But hey, at least it has less fat, right?!

BE BORING

There are good reasons why you should eat a boring diet. And by “boring”, I’m not talking about eating boring diet food, like oatmeal, asparagus, and dry chicken breast!¹⁴ Instead, a boring diet refers more to eating the same shit all the time, regardless of what it is. There are good reasons why your diet should be boring in that sense. Why, to match your personality? Good guess, but no!

The reason to eat a more boring diet is because people who eat the same shit every day eat less calories and lose more weight than people with more varied diets. Other than eating the same shit every day stopping you from having to think about what to eat and possibly making a poor decision, the explanation why a boring diet is better than a varied one is quite simple. The answer has to do with this thing called habituation.

The more you’re exposed to something, the less of a kick you get out of it. That’s what habituation is. And it’s thanks to habituation that you find someone’s story funny the first few times you hear it but you get closer and closer to choking them every time they tell you the same story whenever they see you and you have to sit through it pretending that you’ve never heard it before…because the person is your boss and you desperately need a job. Oh yeah, and because you can’t afford another felony! How does that relate to food?, you ask. Truthfully, I don’t know what your criminal record has to do with it. Oh, wait, duh!!! You meant what does habituation have to do with food!!! My, that’s embarrassing!

Well, we know that weight gain and loss is a matter of calories in and calories out, irrespective of food quality. That’s to say that you can eat all the healthy food you want but you’ll gain weight if you consume more total calories than you should. It also means that you can eat all the junk food you want and lose weight if you consume less total calories than you should. With that understanding, let’s now suppose that you take a flexible dieting approach in management of your weight, which gives you license to eat whatever your little heart desires as long as all the calories add up to satisfy your total requirement for the day. Now, what habituation says is that if you eat a slice of pizza for lunch EVERY…SINGLE…DAY, then your desire to overeat pizza diminishes, which is in contrast to opening the door for a binge by eating pizza less frequently. So yeah, keep your diet boring!¹⁵

GO EASY ON THE BOOZE

Not only do you have to watch what you eat but you have to watch what you drink as well. And that’s not only with soda, juices, specialty coffee, and other beverages with shitloads of sugar! No!!! That also includes alcohol! Yes, A-L-C-O-H-O-L!!!

It’s not that alcohol itself is fattening. In fact, alcohol doesn’t get stored in the body as adipose, or body fat. What it does is slow down fat burning, as the body diverts resources from that activity to instead metabolize and rid itself of acetate, the product that alcohol gets converted into. That’s what alcohol has going for it, in addition to it boosting appetite and making you hungrier. Not only that but alcohol also has the effect of loosening inhibitions so some stranger’s genitalia isn’t the only thing you’ll be stuffing your face with in the bathroom at the bar, club, wedding reception, wherever.¹⁶ In fact, alcohol weakens the ability to resist temptation so much that it ranks ahead of TV watching and sleep deprivation when it comes to increased food intake and its encouragement.

This is all to say that if you’re trying to lose weight or manage it, then drinking alcohol regularly might not be the smartest thing to do because it kinda gets in the way of the whole eating less thing.¹⁷ That, however, doesn’t mean that your alcoholic ass should become a teetotaler.¹⁸ All it means is that you have to account for alcohol like you have to account for E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G else that goes inside your mouth and down your throat.¹⁹

CATCH SOME ZZZs

Most people — millions of ’em! — don’t get enough sleep. If you’re among the many who toss and turn at night from the dread of having to wake up the next day to deal with their problems, then you might not want to do that because inadequate sleep is bad for your weight in a number of ways.

With sleep, the proper amount of rest helps secrete natural growth hormone, a fat burner and essential building block of muscle, which is the body’s calorie-burning tissue. Sleep also plays a role in the body’s use of insulin, a hormone responsible for the storage of fat. When you have adequate rest, thus prompting high insulin sensitivity, fat storage is prevented from occurring thanks to fat cells removing fatty acids and lipids from the bloodstream. When you become sleep deprived and insulin sensitivity drops — making you insulin resistant — fats circulate in the blood more freely and are ultimately stored in and around the abdominal organs. In addition, the body loses the ability to regulate insulin production. So with you pumping out insulin and fat getting stored in all the wrong places, such as tissues like your liver, you become (or stay) overweight and develop type II diabetes.

Lack of sleep can also negatively influence hunger-controlling hormones like leptin and ghrelin. Sleep deprivation causes less production of leptin, which makes your stomach feel empty. Conversely, lack of sleep raises ghrelin, which gives you the feeling of hunger.²⁰ What all of this means is that when the normal production of the hunger hormones goes awry, sound decision-making gets compromised and the chances are heightened that you’ll eat foods that you know you shouldn’t eat but scarf down anyway because of the hunger pangs. Either that, or you’ll consume more calories during or between meals than you ordinarily would because you feel less satisfied. Another possibility is a combination of straying from nutritious foods and overeating.

Sleep is pretty important with regard to weight. So yeah, unless overweight livin’ is your goal, then don’t make sleep a priority. Instead, keep your beta ass up all night to prolong having to face your problems because you’d rather have them eat away at you in your head for a couple of hours than confront them sooner via the fast-forward button known as sleep.²¹

Glossary: adipose, calories, diet, dietary fat, exercise, fat, fitness, gym, hormones, metabolism, moderation, muscle, priority, results, work out, workout

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Monster Longe

Monster Longe is a personal trainer in San Diego. He has been lifting weights for +25 years and training clients in the gym and online for about half of that time. When not working with clients or making content that's easy to read, understand, and apply to everyday life, he enjoys long walks and leaving buildings crushed and entire city blocks decimated in his wake.