What to Eat to be Healthy

Firstly, I’m not a dietitian, doctor, or have any formal training in nutrition, so take what I have to say with a grain of salt.

The “Perfect Diet”

I would say that the optimal diet is probably all organic whole foods. With that said, who is going to strictly follow that? How many “health points” do you lose if you enjoy a pizza? What about a candy bar on occasion? There isn’t anything that you should necessarily completely remove from your diet, but we all know what is good and bad food. Fruits and vegetables are good, sugar and processed foods not so much, etc. It’s about what you do consistently in the end.

Artificial Sweeteners

Some people think that diet pop will make you fat or you’ll get cancer from artificial sweeteners. As Greg Doucette says, “No calories, no problem”. There little evidence to support the claim that artificial sweeteners will cause cancer. I have, however, experienced stomach problems in the past and after I stopped using stevia, they stopped. I can currently drink multiple diet pops in a day with no ill effects. What I’m getting at is, don’t be afraid of sweeteners, but if you notice something is off look into it. Replacing hundreds of calories of sugar with sweetener will give you the same sweetness and kill your cravings.

What I Eat/Recommend

Eat the good foods you enjoy. Everyone has some healthier options they like. What I feel like eating changes a bit from week to week, but in general grass feed/finished ground beef with fruits and vegetables makes up most of my diet. I would suggest you try to eat mostly whole foods and mix in less healthy options in moderation. Fruits and vegetables have a variety of vitamins, minerals, and fiber, so ideally you’ll eat a wide spread of them. There’s a decent chance a multivitamin would do you some good, if you aren’t eating a variety of wholefoods. I honestly can’t tell you how much benefit you’ll get from one though. Again how much “health points” a multivitamin provides is beyond me. I would suggest that you either eat three servings of fatty fish a week, salmon is great, or take omega-3 fish oil capsules. Omega-3 offers a host of health benefits and is something that we are deficient in, unless we seek it out. I also recommend a vitamin D supplement, for all too many people are stuck inside most of the day.

Fad Diets

Keto, OMAD, intermittent fasting, Atkin’s, whatever it may be, isn’t the answer, UNLESS you like them. There isn’t any magic to these diets. If fact, many of them cause you to remove food groups and thus vitamins/minerals you need. If you do follow a restrictive diet, do your research to know how you can do it safely and be healthy. A huge problem is you can find hundreds of resources about any diet that seem to give you proof that it’s the holy grail of health and fat loss. When conducting research take information from multiple sources to avoid bias and make your own conclusions.