Nutrition principles

09 Jun, 2023

My primary motivation for maintaining healthy nutrition stems from scientific findings demonstrating the manifold benefits of a balanced diet. It can enhance physical health (affecting skin, liver, and more), fortify the immune system, and mitigate the risks of cancer and heart diseases. Moreover, for athletes, proper nutrition accelerates recovery times and unlocks greater potential than what can be achieved with suboptimal nutrition.

Key Principles

Here are the key principles I strive to incorporate into my everyday life to enhance my nutrition:

1. Shun artificial sugar, particularly sodas. Hydrate primarily with water.
2. Curb intake of saturated and trans fats. Try to maximize your consumption of unsaturated fats instead.
3. Trim down on simple carbs and starches, favoring complex carbs and fiber.
4. Increase vegetable intake.

Applied to Daily Meals

Breakfast:

• Best choice: A smoothie containing spinach, nuts, ginger, apple, carrot, and lemon (remember to keep the fiber!).
• Default option: Oatmeal (made with oats, granola, and nuts) complemented by fruits and milk.
• Occasional option: Eggs with avocado and whole grain bread.

Lunch: (Avoid Processed Food)

• Best choice: Vegetable-based soup with nuts serving as a protein source.
• Ideal options: Whole grain rice or pasta, vegetables, beans or lentils, and a salad generously sprinkled with nuts.
• Fast options: Whole grain pasta with pesto, an omelette with vegetables, canned beans mixed with warmed rice.
• When cooking: Swap meat for tofu, lower simple carb usage, increase vegetable content, and opt for olive oil.

When Ordering Food:

• Steer clear of fried food.
• Mediterranean: Most options are excellent, although try to control your falafel intake.
• Mexican Cuisine: Choose dishes that incorporate guacamole, rice, beans, and vegetables.
• Asian Food: Opt for curries and soups.
• Italian: There's no straightforward healthy choice here.

Dinner:

• Revisit the guidelines for breakfast and lunch.
• Decrease portion sizes to promote better sleep.

Source

Main source of this post was "Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy: The Harvard Medical School Guide to Healthy Eating (English Edition)" by walter willett M. D., P.J. Skerrett. Below I have listed some of the most important takeaways from the book.

• It isn’t an isolated finding but rather stands with findings from many studies of various designs conducted by many investigators around the world. Based on the concordance of this work, I’m confident we can be guided by this overall picture of dietary fat: Choose foods rich in polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats, like nuts, salmon, and avocado, over those rich in saturated fats, like red meat. And don’t eat those that contain artificial trans fats.

• you want to have the healthiest breakfast, though, a combination of oatmeal, nuts, and berries, perhaps with a topping of yogurt, would lower your LDL cholesterol and be better than a “neutral” egg-based breakfast.

• They recommend: • maintaining a stable, healthy weight • eating plenty of vegetables and fruits • consuming more unsaturated fats, less saturated fat, and no trans fat • eating whole grains and foods made from them in place of refined grains • choosing healthier sources of protein by trading red meat for nuts, beans, chicken, and fish • drinking water, tea, or coffee instead of juice or sugar-sweetened soda and, if you drink alcohol, keeping it moderate (no more than two drinks a day for men or one a day for women) • taking a daily multivitamin for insurance

• the traditional diet in these Mediterranean countries was mostly plant-based foods: fruits, vegetables, breads, a variety of coarsely ground grains, beans, nuts, and seeds. Olive oil was the main source of dietary fat. People regularly ate dairy foods—mostly cheese and yogurt—but not in large amounts. Fish, poultry, and red meat were eaten on special occasions, not as part of the daily fare. People, usually men, often drank wine, but typically with meals. Keys concluded that the Mediterranean diet was an important reason for the low rates of heart disease in that region.

• foods linked to greater weight gain included: • soda (overall, the most important food or beverage for weight gain because it was consumed so often) • potatoes in all forms • red meat • refined grains • sweets • fruit juice. Foods related to less weight gain included: • vegetables • fruits • whole grains • nuts • yogurt.

• In 1956, a University of Minnesota scientist named Ancel Keys began an international survey called the Seven Countries Study. It suggested a connection between saturated fat and heart disease: in general, the higher the amount of saturated fat in a country’s diet, the higher the rate of heart disease. Interestingly, Keys and his colleagues didn’t find any connection between the total amount of fat in the diet and heart disease. In fact, the area with the lowest rate of heart disease in the study, Crete, had the highest average total fat intake: about 40 percent of calories—mostly due to liberal use of olive oil. At around the same time, the Framingham Heart Study started tracking the health and habits of more than 5,000 men and women living in the town of Framingham, Massachusetts. One of its early findings was that high levels of cholesterol in the bloodstream were often an early signal of impending heart disease. These important studies and others pointed to diet as a key element in the path to heart disease.

• Milk (both whole and low-fat) and diet soda weren’t appreciably linked to weight gain.

• Lifestyle and physical activity. If eating represents the pleasurable, sensuous side of the weight change equation, then metabolism and physical activity are its nose-to-the-grindstone counterparts. Your resting (basal) metabolism is the energy needed just to breathe, pump and circulate blood, send messages from brain to body, maintain your temperature, digest food, and keep the right amount of tension in your muscles. It typically accounts for 60 to 70 percent of your daily energy expenditure. Physical activity makes up most of the rest. If you work a desk job and do little more than walk from your car to your office and back again, you may burn ridiculously few calories a day.