I was looking at a post someone had put up on Instagram today with a list of “healthy” foods that benefit the body and “unhealthy” foods that they felt made you unwell or took something from you health-wise. And people were going mad in the comments because they disagreed with the unhealthy foods list…
I could actually see it from both angles, because, yes on the face of it, there are some foods that are clearly giving us no health benefits like crisps, sweets, ultra processed foods etc. But also, we have to live our lives and enjoy ourselves and obsessing over eating healthy foods to an excessive degree is now a recognised eating disorder (called orthorexia if you were wondering).
So what do we do? We want to be healthy right? But we don’t want to live a life that is zero fun, is overly restricted and starts to limit what we can and can’t do.
Well, if you’re about to embark on your health journey (and assuming that your relationship with food is in a mentally healthy space), my advice to you would be to know that if you focus on the following, you’re not going to be too far off the mark –
- Get plenty of fibre into your diet, focus on veg, fruit, beans, pulses etc. Your gut will love you for it.
- Eat the rainbow. We’re told this for excellent reasons and our gut loves colour. Different microbes in the gut actually feed off different colours!
- Don’t be scared of carbs.. yes white carbs aren’t good for you, but there’s carbs in a lot of foods and if you’re making healthy choices (like brown rice for example), they’re not the devil’s work.
- Limit your sugar but know that you have to live your life.. if you want a cheeky chocolate bar because its a Friday afternoon – go for it. Sometimes the little dot of joy it brings you is more valuable than the fact you’ve had a blob of sugar.
- Don’t forget about protein, but don’t obsess about it either – the average adult needs about two portions per day of protein (a portion should fit roughly into the palm of your hand); this could be meat, fish, nuts, tofu..
- Know that BALANCE, as always, is key when it comes to our “naughtier” foods. If you want a glass of wine, a bag of crisps, to eat chocolate cereal – remember every day is not a good plan, but here and there provided 80% (or more) of the rest of your food is nutritious is a great place to start.
Ultimately, you are human. You want to be well and healthy, but you also want to enjoy your life, the meals out with friends, your kid’s birthday party, going on holiday.. and restricting yourself to the point of anxiety is never going to be a fun place to be.
I talk to all of my clients about REDUCING the bad, and INCREASING the good, but I am also realistic and I want you to be happy and to give you advice and a way forward that is totally do-able for you. Because ultimately, if you make things too hard, you won’t do it anyway, or you will do it but you’ll be miserable and that, in itself, is not good for your health.
Lucy x
