Nutrition, Evolution, and Having a Healthy Diet
Judith Schwader

Nutrition has everything to do with health. This isnt news, exactly, but looking around at the crazy information on the market, one wonders if anyone actually makes the connection: what you eat affects how you feel. Its that simple. Your health depends on the food choices you make in both the short and long term.

Take a pill, and all youve done is treat a symptom. Change your eating habits, and create a lasting change in your well-being. There are so many approaches to eating, however, and so much conflicting information that its come down to this simple question: does whatever youre eating right now make sense?

Well, sense isnt common, and it does depend on some good information. So here is something to consider: what kind of foods are humans evolved to eat? Cheetos? Dont think so. Thats a no-brainer, but what about some others that we counted as healthy staples until recently, like bread and pasta. Go way back in your imagination, to hunter gatherer days before agriculture and the obesity which followed for the first time among humans and consider what would be part of our ancestors normal diet. If youre about to pop something into your mouth that wasnt around before agriculture, (a relatively recent development in human history), then eat it knowing its not considered a normal food by your body. Foods your body considers normal contribute to your health, other foods are either neutral or harmful. How simple is that?

A well-known exploration of this concept that certain foods help our bodies thrive is Dr. Peter DAdamos book, Eat Right 4 Your Type, in which he bases his lists of what to eat and avoid on blood type. DAdamo asserts that type O is the oldest type, and the newer A type didnt show up on the scene until agriculture. So, Os should eat lots of meat and veg because that blood type doesnt know how to handle too much grain. Type As can eat grain, but not dairy. Dairy is a category reserved as a normal food only for the yet more recent human blood type, AB. (Maybe well evolve a new type that can handle Cheetos and red licorice, my personal favorite abnormal foods).

DAdamo supports his blood-type theory with all kinds of careful research, and so what? Does it make sense that humans should rely primarily on foods that occur naturally? Absolutely. If youre going to eat a grain like wheat then, eat it whole, or dont eat it at all, and dont eat much of it anyway because humans pretty much made wheat up! Im not going to take the, Does it occur naturally? debate too far, because its time to look at another researchers take on the food and evolution connection.

Dr. Phillip Lipetz wrote The Good Calorie Diet, a book for the weight loss market, but he also has supported his theories with all kinds of careful research. His describes how the human response to starvation that was developed during the ice age carries on today. Ironic, isnt it, that the food available to us today – rich and sweet and abundant – causes our bodies to behave as though starvation is at hand.

The short story for how this works is that up until the ice age, humans ate whatever was readily available, like roots, plants, fruit, and a little tasty carrion now and then. Along came the ice ages, and those foods became scarce. Now humans were forced to hunt, but it was dicey and the weapons were primitive, so spans of time occured between kills. The result: our ancestors evolved ways to make the most of the conversion of excess blood sugar into stored nutrition in the form of body fat. When they starved, they lived off stored fat.

Todays diet mimics the ice age diet: high fat and high protein, and our genetic programming says, Uh oh, were facing starvation again. Better store up some fat. Lipetz goes into convincing detail about food combinations in his book. He describes some that cause the creation of excess fat, such as butter on bread. More useful are his combinations that actually inhibit fat formation, like lean meat with most vegetables. In a society where obesity and its attendant health issues are rampant, these food combinations are helpful places to focus our attention. Yet the single most useful bit to remember from his research is that foods which cause our bodies to create excess fat all have one thing in common: they werent part of our ancestors normal diet.

Armed with this overview, next time youre about to pop something in your mouth – whether your focus is health or weight you dont need to have a bunch of rules and whacky information in mind. Just use common sense. Ask whether its a food that was around before the advent of agriculture. If it was, go for it. If it wasnt, then consider that your body wont consider the food normal, and in both the long and short run, thats got health consequences.

© 2004 Judith Schwader

Judith Schwader holds a Master’s degree in Education, and has written extensively on health. She has a background in social science and addressing chronic health conditions through nutrition and life style. Judith’s articles appear in: http://QandAHealth.com, and http://masteringyourtime.com.

This article may be reprinted in its entirety so long as this paragraph and the authors credits remain intact.

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3 Surefire Ways The South Beach Diet Exercise Can Work For You

Some of you may have heard of the south beach diet exercise, especially if you have been known to stay up to date on the health industry. For those of you who are a little less familiar with exactly how the diet has grown to be so successful, its actually a really easy concept. The diet mainly works by doing one simple thing. It slowly starts to reduce the amount of bad carbohydrates and fats that you are currently consuming and replaces them with good ones. Perhaps the fact that this concept is so basic and almost common sense, is the same reason that it getting so much attention lately. Due to the fact that it is a rather new trend in the health industry, there are not many great resources available for people that can afford professional help. Luckily, for this very reason we have put together the following guide to show you exactly how the south beach diet exercise can work for you.

Tip#1: I know what your asking yourself, What foods can we eat? right? Well this is perhaps the best part of this diet. The foods that it allows you to eat are actually reasonable sized portions of foods that you are bound to already be eating. Some of the foods include fish, chicken, beef, turkey, shellfish, nuts, eggs, cheese, and vegetables. The south beach diet exercise suggest to eat three meals a day consisting of these foods as well as garden salad. The garden salad should only use 100% olive oil as a dressing. The diet is split up into three phases. All of the phases consist of eating these foods. The first phase however will get you to cut out a lot of the foods that are high in sugar including all baked goods, ice cream, beer and alcohol as well as foods like bread, rice, potatoes, and pasta.

Tip#2: The best way to get your body to stop having cravings for foods that are unhealthy is to train it to crave other foods. By following the steps in tip number one and phase 1 of the south beach diet exercise, you can effectively train your body to crave the recommended foods. Some people think that this might take a long time, however in most cases this process will only take about two weeks which is the entire length of phase 1 of the diet.

Tip#3: After completing phase 1 you can now move on to phase 2. The second phase of the south beach diet exercise, unlike the first phase, does not have a suggested time period. This is because the second phase should be continued until you reach your desired weight. The most important part of this phase is continuing the diet and training that you completed during phase 1 of the south beach diet exercise and as well as exercising self control for foods the foods that you cut out during phase 1. This means that phase 2 allows you to occasionally have some of the foods you cut out during phase 1 only if you feel that you can exercise self control. The good thing is that the first phase will already have conditioned your mind and body, making phase 2 extremely easy.

Tags: Bad Carbohydrates, Baked Goods, Common Sense, Cravings, Diet Exercise, Eating Habits, Fats, Fruits And Vegetables, Garden Salad, Great Resources, Health Industry, Healthy Diet, Losing Weight, New Trend, olive oil;, Pasta, Phase 1, Potatoes, Shellfish, Sized Portions, South Beach Diet, Surefire, Tip Number, Turkey;, Vegetables Diet —

Looking for easy ways to lose weight? Want to do it with a minimum of hassle or sacrifice? Want to do it pretty quickly too? If so, keep reading. I may have just the weight loss plan for you.. .and if you do it the way you are supposed to, it is totally healthy too.

Now, it’s time for my disclaimer: I’m not a doctor or nutritionist so I can’t advise you medically. So you need to talk to your doctor before you start any weight loss or diet plan. He can tell you what you can do, what you can’t do and what you should do.

Make sure your weight loss is done safely, there really isn’t any other way.

Now, I will tell you about the “diet” plan I used and I lost almost a pound a day.. in was a healthy plan too. And, in case you are wondering the word diet is in quotes because that word can really conjure up the wrong ideas.

For the purpose of this article I use the word diet to mean what I eat and how much and how often. I don’t mean diet in the terms of starving myself or hardly eating anything at all and feeling hungry and deprived (which is a dumb method and doesn’t work for the long term anyway).

So, here is the easy ways to lose weight that I used and I lose 6 pounds in one week:

1. First, I ate more food during my day! Weird huh? But I didn’t just fill up on high calorie low nutritional value food. I ate food that fueled my body. Food that kept my metabolism burning hot.

That means that no matter what I was doing; watching t.v., sleeping, etc. I was burning more fat. My metabolic “furnace” was just going and going and going.

2. I ate between 5 and 6 times a day. Most of my meals and snacks consisted of the same types of food: some lean protein such as chicken, fish or seafood, some fresh vegetables such as spinach or a salad, and some small amount of carbs such as a little rice or small portion of pasta.

I would also have fruit during the day. Mostly I concentrated on what I was putting into my body. I tried to concentrate of foods that were going to provide my body with needed nutrients, not just useless calories.

3. During the first week I love 6 pounds and at that time I wasn’t doing anything different except eating these small, nutritious meals throughout the day. I hadn’t increased my exercise at all. I did make sure to drink more water too.

I’ve never been a big fan of all the weight loss pills, potions and gadgets. I think easy ways to lose weight are really just about giving your body what it needs, in the right quantities and at the right times. That is what my “diet” is all about.

Tags: Calories, Diet Plan, Easy Ways To Lose Weight, Eating Habits, Fruits And Vegetables, Furnace, Hassle, Healthy Diet, Lean Protein, Little Rice, Losing Weight, Metabolism, Nutritional Value, Pasta, Sacrifice, Small Portion, Snacks, Spinach, Types Of Food, Value Food, Vegetables, Ways To Lose Weight, Week 1, Weight Loss Plan, Word Diet —

There are so many different diets out there that it’s nearly impossible to figure out which ones not only live up to their claims, but which ones would qualify as healthy eating plans. A big thing to look for is moderation. That’s because the more wild fad diets tell you to eat as much of one food as like (cabbage soup, anyone?), avoid whole groups of foods (stay away from those carbs!), or both. Therefore, a good rule of thumb for finding a good diet is to see how moderate it is; not only in the foods you can eat, but also the quantity of the food you eat.

While the idea of gorging yourself on cheeseburgers, pizza and bacon may sound like the perfect diet. Low-carb eating plans aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. Sure, you may enjoy eating all of those foods, but the novelty will wear off sooner than you think. Not only that, but you will also crave carbohydrates like never before. Imagine not having ice cream, bread, certain vegetables or pasta. You might lose some weight at first, but once you can’t control your cravings, you will gain it all back (and probably more).

Even assuming you could lose weight, and keep it off by being on a diet high in protein and fat, you still need to question the long-term effects on your health. Researchers are still learning about how the food we eat impacts our health, but one thing most of them agree with is that too much saturated fat isn’t good or you. So it stands to reason that a diet that lets you eat all the saturated fat shouldn’t be counted along with other healthy eating plans.

If you stand back from it and look at it objectively, it should be easy to see that such a diet couldn’t possibly be healthy…even if you lose weight. But that’s why so many diets make amazing claims. It gets you excited about the possibilities and then your brain shuts off its ability to reason. This is not your fault! These people are professionals at convincing people to try new diets. But once you learn some of the basics and know what to really look for, you don’t have to worry about falling for the hype ever again.

As mentioned earlier, it’s all about moderation. You should, of course, eat healthy foods like fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean protein and good fats. The closer foods are to their natural source, the better. But you can also enjoy the occasional treat. There is no need for you to give up your favorite foods, as long as you don’t overdo it. You can also find some very good recipes that will reduce the calories in your favorite foods. Either way, healthy eating plans don’t have to be complicated. Find a few you would like to try, then see how well they work for you.

Tags: Atkins, Bacon, Basi, Brain, Cabbage Soup, Calories, Carbs, Cravings, Diet Plans, Eating Habits, Fad Diets, Fruits And Vegetables, Health Researchers, Healthy Diet, Healthy Eating, Losing Weight, Low Carb, Moderation, Pasta, Pizza, Possibilities, Protein, Rule Of Thumb, Stress, Vegetables —