Things I’ve Learned About Society’s Attitude Concerning Weight and Healthy Eating by Talking to People About My Weight Loss and Healthy Eating Experiences

Phew! That’s quite the title, I know. I tried to come up with a shorter way to get the same point across but it just wasn’t having the same effect, so super long title it is.

I find myself talking to people about how I’m eating healthier or how I’ve lost a good amount of weight fairly often. Part of this is because I’m nearly always thinking about food – either planning out what I’ll eat for the day, talking about things I want to eat, or talking about things I shouldn’t/won’t eat because I don’t have the calories for them – and part of it is because when I’m not talking about food I’m often talking about running instead, which then tends to naturally bring itself around to talking about weight loss.

Anyway, after spending all this time talking to people about these topics I’ve noticed that, most commonly, I get one of two responses. And if you think about those responses for long enough, it’s a fascinating look into how our society feels about weight and healthy food choices. So here are some of the most common responses I hear, and what I’ve extrapolated from them:

Teaching Nutrition!

I get to do something really exciting tomorrow! A women’s empowerment group at my office is hosting a healthy holiday recipe potluck and, because I’m about two days away from being a Certified Nutrition Coach, I get to spend a whole hour talking about nutrition and healthy eating!

My actual presentation will only be about half an hour, and then there will be half an hour for questions, but I am very, very excited to have my first opportunity to share everything I’ve learned with a broader audience than… boyfriend, really. See my beautiful presentation at this link. 🙂

(There aren’t a whole lot of words in it, because I believe that’s bad presenting, but it *is* mostly self-explanatory and also really pretty, so there’s that.)

Nutrition Fiction: Low-Carb Diets Are Best (/Carbs Are Evil)

I have to start this post with a biology lesson. You probably already know that there are three macronutrients: carbohydrates, protein, and fat. These are our bodies’ sources of fuel, but they are not all treated equally.

The article I linked to above explains this quite well, and in more detail than I’m going to, but the short version is that carbohydrates are your body’s primary fuel source, largely because they are the easiest to break down. While your body can and will break fats and proteins down into energy, it takes longer than breaking down carbs and therefore, as a less efficient process, is not preferred by your body in most cases.

Fat contains the most energy potential per gram, so it is also commonly used by the body as a source of fuel – either in low intensity exercise where it has the time to break the fat down, or during endurance exercise in an attempt to preserve glycogen (sugar), which comes from carbs and is used by your body to create energy.

Finally, the least preferred source of fuel is protein. It is used in late stages of endurance exercise, when glycogen (sugar) runs really low and the body is forced to break protein into amino acids for fuel. However, this is not ideal because protein is much better used for other purposes – specifically muscle build and repair functions.

So that brings us to how low carb diets work.

Open-Faced Apple Chicken Omelette

I had another busy weekend full of cooking! This time, though, the results were substantially healthier. Which is good. Cause now that my week of exercise and nutrition break is over (I kicked off the beginning of my return to healthiness with a 6.3 mile run Saturday morning), it’s time to get serious again.

So speaking of getting serious, omelets are a really great healthy breakfast because they’re filling, adjustable in size, easily modified for lots of variations, relatively easy to make, and (depending on what you put in them) very nutritious! I actually almost feel silly giving a recipe because omelets are so easy that really all I probably need to do is say “hey, make an omelette and put this stuff on it.” But alas, I will provide the entire recipe anyway. Here’s mine:

And here’s how to make it:

Helping People

Ok, I know, a ton of people say they’re passionate about helping people. And that’s awesome, because frankly people need a lot of help, but I’m taking this in a slightly different direction. Actually, “Helping People” probably wasn’t the best title for this post, but if I change it now I’ll have to erase this entire paragraph and start over again, so I’m sticking with it.

What I really mean is – I think I’ve discovered that I really enjoy sharing my knowledge, which will hopefully then ultimately help people. Or put less abstractly, now that I’ve learned so much about nutrition/weight loss, experienced so much of my own success, and watched my sister go through a really phenomenal beginning to the same process, I really just want to teach everyone everything I’ve learned.

In retrospect, starting a blog with the intention to share much of what I’ve learned (among other things) probably should have been a good hint that that’s the case.

Ok Internet, We Need to Talk.

So as I’ve been increasing my interest in both cooking and healthy eating, I’ve spent a fair amount of time searching the internet for healthy recipes I can try. As a result, I’ve noticed something: a significant portion of the internet has no idea what healthy means.

Now in some cases this is understandable; for example, I recently found an entire blog dedicated to healthier recipes for baking. She does a really great job making recipes that are significantly healthier than a typical, comparable recipe, and I intend to make a huge number of things on her site, but there is a limit to how healthy things can be when you’re baking. And that’s fine.

What’s not fine is when people post things like “extra super cheesy bacon squash mac and cheese” and pretend that it’s healthy because they used squash instead of wheat pasta. I’m sorry, internet, but that’s just not how it works. You don’t get to pretend that unhealthy dishes are suddenly healthy just because you took out the gluten; gluten isn’t even bad for you, unless you have celiac disease.

Healthy, Easy, and Delicious Chicken Avocado Melt

I originally intended to write a post about nutrition today, but then I made this amazing creation for dinner last night and it was so delicious that I felt it would be a crime against humanity not to share it, so here it is. Nutrition will have to wait until Friday.

This was honestly one of those most amazing things I have ever cooked. I ate everything you see in that picture above and as soon as I finished it I was both stuffed and disappointed that I couldn’t eat more. If I’d had another avocado I probably would have made more. AND it only took like twenty minutes to make, start to finish. PLUS for one of the chicken breasts you see in that picture it’s only about 300 calories. Amazing.

But enough talking. Here’s the recipe:

Homemade Alfredo the Low Cal Way

So I was craving some alfredo sauce this evening, but unfortunately, the problem with alfredo is that it generally has a lot of calories since it’s based in heavy cream, butter, and cheese – all very fatty things. Also I didn’t have any. So, to solve this problem, I decided to take a crack at making my own.

I know, it doesn’t look very appetizing, but bare with me for a moment cause it was actually pretty good. If it helps, it looks much better this way: