Meals limited by portion control can feel so skimpy.
Run-of-the-mill diets focus on controlling the amount you eat by limiting portions. This is an attempt to fit a manmade, arbitrary concept (“serving size”) into a natural biological system (your body). While this strategy may work for some people for a short time, the long-term outcome is often counter to health and weight goals.
The USDA’s Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2010 is typical. Some of the serving sizes this report lists include:
• Bread: one slice
• Cooked rice: half a cup
• Cut up vegetables: half a cup
• Fruit: one medium piece
• Cooked beans: half a cup
• Milk: one cup
• Cooked meat, poultry, or fish: one ounce
• Soft margarine: one teaspoon
• Sugar: one tablespoon
Here are six reasons that portion control ultimately will not succeed in getting you to a trim weight and (more…)
Nuts for Nutrition and Health: It’s All In How Much You Eat
Few foods are as simple, delicious, and filling as a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Be sure to enjoy yours on whole wheat bread. Peanuts are not really tree nuts, but have very similar nutritional properties.
Are you looking for a tasty snack that won’t boost your weight? How about a recipe ingredient that will add crunch and flavor? What if only a handful of this food could diminish your risk of having a heart attack?
Nuts were once thought to be fattening and unhealthy due to their high fat content. In 1992, researchers were intrigued when a large-scale study found that adults who regularly ate small amounts of nuts actually had lower risk of coronary heart disease than those who did not eat this food.
Since then, dozens of additional studies strongly support the conclusion that nuts boost heart health. The research is consistent. Nuts lower total and LDL (“bad”) cholesterol and this is (more…)
No matter how well you eat, you may worry about your diet. You may doubt you are getting enough of certain nutrients. Iron, zinc,
With a superstar team, all players work together to win. Similarly, for whole foods, the benefit of all nutrients together is more than each taken on its own.
calcium, protein, omega-3 fatty acids…concern about these may hinder enjoyment of your food. Or maybe you are reluctant to begin a plant-based diet, because you are not sure if some critical nutrient is lacking.
We do not benefit from dissecting our foods into proteins, fats, carbs, calcium, iron, individual vitamins, and other components. The modern practice of taking food apart and worrying about each piece separately has led to bizarre eating patterns.
You may fret about lacking protein, or eating too many “carbs,” or not having enough “good fats.” So instead of eating whole foods, you then choose protein powder, neatly wrapped food bars, or bottles of oil. These foods narrowly focus on one or a few nutrients, leaving out most of the goodness of the entire plant.
Think of these manufactured foods as similar to a demolished building. You can live in an intact house, but won’t find shelter in a pile of bricks. Similarly, you won’t find the nutrients you need in (more…)
A Whole Foods Diet Does Not Have to Be Bound to a Clock
Meal plans are a hallmark of most diets. You are expected to get hungry on cue, and wait until a specific time to eat again. If you
Soup is ideal for not-meals. You can eat a cup or a bowl, depending on how hungry you are.
are famished between meals, you might be allowed a small snack – probably not enough food to satisfy.
Meals are a human invention. These prescribed times to eat serve to carve up the day, leaving long stretches to be devoted to work. Everyone gets synchronized on pretty much the same rhythm. This may be good for societal functioning, but is not so good for your body.
Hunger is a fundamental instinct and need. Your ancestors, foraging in nature, undoubtedly ate when they were hungry and food was available. Wild animals, living as nature intended, will eat off and on the entire time they are awake.
Your naturally perfect body knows when you need fuel and nutrients. Our understanding of nutrition and physiological
functioning is still far from complete. To second guess your body’s signals to eat is a recipe for failure in the long-run, and often even in the short-run.
The Perfect Formula Diet eating plan urges you to eat when you are moderately hungry and stop when you are full. If you wait until you are famished to eat, you are far more likely to let your appetite get out of control. The end result is that you stuff yourself with too much (more…)
Your body operates according to biological laws you can’t simply wish away. All the food plates and pyramids, diet books, and media outlets in the world cannot change the fact that you are meant to thrive on a whole foods, plant-based diet. Good nutrition is simple, just the way nature meant it to be.
Burritos and brown rice are great whole foods on the Perfect Formula Diet. Enjoy.
Every trip to the supermarket or restaurant gives you three choices. You can select animal foods, manufactured foods, or Perfect Foods.
Animal foods are the muscles, organs, reproductive materials, and secretions of animals
Manufactured foods are factory products made by processing or genetically modifying plants. Some manufactured foods skip the plants altogether and are simply chemicals
Perfect foods are whole plant foods in their natural form or else cooked and combined in someones kitchen
The Perfect Formula Diet gives you a specific method to combine six kinds of whole foods to assure (more…)
Stumped for what to give your friends and family that already seem to have everything? Or even if they genuinely need another sweater, maybe you have different tastes. What if giving health were as easy as giving a package with a nice bow?
The prestigious New England Journal of Medicine just published a study showing that, as a country, we are losing ground to obesity. People are smoking less, which is great. Yet the hastening of death from obesity more than wipes out the gain from reduced smoking.
On average, because of being over their ideal weight, people will live a full
You can give the gift of health to yourself and others!
year less! Of course, this is an average. Normal weight people will not lose any of their allotted years, but obese people will lose a lot more.
Would you give your family or friends cigarettes as a holiday gift? Of course not! So why would you give them food that will shorten their lifespan as much or more?
If you are giving food as a holiday gift, choose yummy whole foods. Think about a fruit basket, dried fruit in nice packages, fancy nuts, or gourmet dark chocolate.
If you are serving food over the holiday or bringing a dish to a potluck, there are thousands of whole food recipes your party will enjoy. Check out the newsletter archives at Dr. McDougall’s site or the fat free vegan site with fantastic plant-based recipes. Not only will you be boosting health for one meal, but you will be educating all those enjoying your cooking. Maybe you’ll even set them on a path to permanent weight loss. Let them grab back that year that obesity is robbing them of.
The gift of health is truly the best, and yes, you can give it. Your example of your own healthy choices paves the way, educating and motivating others all year long.
Intrigued? Now you can use our Whole Foods Blog Finder to target informative, fun postings on plant-based nutrition. Quick information at no cost!
Blog posting by Janice Stanger, Ph.D. Janice authored The Perfect Formula Diet, the smart person’s nutrition book built on sustainable food choices. Enjoy six kinds of whole foods for permanent, hunger-free weight loss and health.
It’s True – Something this Good Can Also Be Healthy
Okay, healthy in moderation only, but who wants to quibble. Let’s not dissect our chocolate. This incredible food, in its most unprocessed forms, contains over 350 biologically active compounds. As in all whole foods, the total effect is greater than the sum of the parts.
Theobromine, one of the best known chocolate constituents, is a mood enhancer and mild stimulant. Flavonoids are plant chemicals, strongly represented in chocolate, with numerous beneficial effects:
Anti-oxidant
Help balance inflammation
Protect the circulatory system and help prevent blood clots
None of these benefits have much to do with why I start my week with a large chunk of dark chocolate. On Mondays, the week seems endless. The weekend, already past, beckons strongly. A bit of pampering is irresistible. The health benefits are only a nice add-on.
So first thing Monday morning, I breakfast on whole grain cereal topped with fruit and two tablespoons of ground flaxseeds. This is my usual fast weekday breakfast. The Monday difference is using chocolate soy milk, not the usual vanilla, over the cereal.
About 9:30 or 10 am, it’s time for another dose – this time half a dark chocolate bar. My favorite way to relish this Monday chocolate is in small
Dark chocolate bar - don't settle for less
pieces, dipped into some soy yogurt stirred with nuts. I love everything about this hard dark chocolate: the aroma, the taste, the texture, how it makes me feel. I sniff my chocolate deeply before consuming. Anyone walking by might wonder what I was up to.
After finishing the chocolate, I still have a bit of soy yogurt and nuts to enjoy. Hot green tea is the last necessity of this weekly ritual. The rest of Monday just streams away, and soon the rest of the week as well.
Half of a 3.5 ounce chocolate bar is enough for the desired effect. My favorite is Equal Exchange Chocolates, mint flavor, which is both organic and fair trade. This delightful product is 67% cacao, which means that chocolate is the main ingredient.
Dark chocolate is REAL chocolate. The milk version, aside from the issues with dairy foods, dilutes the chocolate, making it almost flavorless compared to the real thing. Also, be aware that Dutch processed chocolate, in order to remove this food’s bitter edge, also strips many of the beneficial chocolate components.
Learn to love slightly bitter chocolate – you’ll get used to this flavor faster than you think. There’s no pay-off in tricking your body with common candy bars that have more milk, sugar, and chemicals than they do chocolate.
Dark chocolate is gourmet on a budget, feel-good without later mood crash, circulatory enhancer without prescription cost or side effects. Read the label to eliminate brands with milk or butter. Have fun trying all the others – new possibilities grace store shelves as more and more people discover dark chocolate as the best occasional junk food treat.
You actually will benefit from and enjoy dark chocolate most when you choose moderate amounts. Half a bar a week – any day you’d like – should be enough to reward yourself without gaining weight. Okay, maybe twice a week, but then treat yourself with other whole foods instead….
Intrigued? Now you can use our Whole Foods Blog Finder to target informative, fun postings on plant-based nutrition. Quick information at no cost!
Blog posting by Janice Stanger, Ph.D. Janice authored The Perfect Formula Diet, the smart person’s nutrition book built on sustainable food choices. Enjoy six kinds of whole foods for permanent, hunger-free weight loss and health.
Leo Tolstoy's observation encapsulates the idea of Perfect Body in one sentence.
The Secret to Permanent Weight Loss Was No Secret to Tolstoy
You could spend hard-earned dollars on a coach, personal trainer, or nutritionist. You could subtract hours from your day driving to the gym or weight-loss organization meetings. Or – you could find your perfect weight loss partner in your own home.
Actually, your best weight loss partner is…your own Perfect Body. Centuries ago, a creative genius described how this works.
Leo Tolstoy, the brilliant author of War and Peace and Anna Karenina, still
Partner with your naturally perfect body
lives on in his profound novels, short stories, and essays. In the 1800’s, Tolstoy penned the insight that sets the stage for The Perfect Formula Diet.
Tolstoy realized: “Our body is a machine for living. It is organized for that, it is its nature.” Artificial foods and chemicals, invented long after Tolstoy left this life, are not the proper fuels for your living machine.
Your body wants to attain perfect weight and health. Your body knows how to get there. All you need to do is get out of your own way. Eat the nourishing foods that your body needs and chuck the toxins from your food, home, and personal care products.
Does this seem hard? You can do it, one step at a time. Just ponder another Tolstoy quote: “True life is lived when tiny changes occur.”
Intrigued? Now you can use our Whole Foods Blog Finder to target informative, fun postings on plant-based nutrition. Quick information at no cost!
Blog posting by Janice Stanger, Ph.D. Janice authored The Perfect Formula Diet, the smart person’s nutrition book built on sustainable food choices. Enjoy six kinds of whole foods for permanent, hunger-free weight loss and health.
