Pain Relief Chiropractic

The cover story of the June 12th issue of Time magazine, entitled Ending the War on Fat, begins with: “For decades, it has been the most vilified nutrient in the American diet. But new science reveals fat isn’t what’s hurting our health.”
There is one word that sums up those two sentences: WOW! If you are on Facebook, then you probably saw many of your friends liking or sharing this story. For most people, that cover photo of the stick of butter and those two sentences were about all information they got from the article. But there is much more to this story than those 23 words and a catchy image concerning what you should or should not eat, including fat.
There are advocates for nearly every conceivable diet out there, but two that are very popular (and feuding) right now, in very general terms, are: (1) the low fat “non-meat” group and (2) the meat and fat eaters.
Each have experts, researchers, doctors, marketers, etc. working to “prove” and popularize why their way of eating is healthier and superior to all your other options.
When you consider that the nutrition and diet industry is worth BILLIONS OF DOLLARS, you better believe that a lot of what you read, even from experts, researchers, and doctors, is based on profit.
That’s why weeding out fact from fiction in the diet and nutrition arena is more difficult than keeping a tight grip on a piglet smothered in grease.
There is not enough space in this newsletter to cover everything in detail, but there are some basics you should understand. If you do, it should help you live a healthier (and slimmer) life.
To make sure this all makes sense to you, here is a great example from the fitness world…
Research studies have recently been published indicating that too much exercise is bad for you. In other words, the old belief that “doing some exercise is good, so more is better” does not seem to be true.
In fact, some of this new research shows that too much exercise may increase the risk of death from heart attack or stroke in patients with existing heart problems.
This study was published in the journal Heart and tracked 1,000 people who were previously diagnosed with stable coronary heart disease.
According to CBS News: “The researchers found those who were most sedentary were around twice as likely to have a heart attack or stroke as those who were regularly physically active. They were around four times as likely to die of cardiovascular events and all other causes.
“But more surprisingly, those who did the most strenuous daily exercise were also more likely to die of a heart attack or stroke than people who engaged in more moderate activity.”
It looks like Confucius was correct all those years ago when he said, “To go too far is as bad as to fall short.” Doing too little exercise is no good. Doing too much exercise isn’t good either. The trick is finding the correct amount for YOU. You are an individual who may be similar to others, but you are not the same.
Eating right is no different. The first thing to understand is there is no simple answer and there is no magic bullet or cookie cutter approach that works for everyone.
You are an individual and your body will react to foods differently than the way other people’s bodies will react to the same foods.
But, there are basic principles you can use to help find which foods work best for you.
The first, and probably most important, is understanding that processed foods are generally bad for you.
America launched the war on fat back in the 1970s and started producing and eating massive amounts of processed foods with “low-fat” and “non-fat” promises on the packaging.
Not only were people eating these processed foods, but they were eating a lot of them — probably because foods that were labeled as “fat-free” were thought to be safe. In fact, the daily caloric intake for the average person went up from 2,109 calories a day in 1970 to 2,586 calories a day in 2010.
During this time, vegetable consumption did not go up. In fact, the amount of calories Americans consumed from vegetables dropped 3% during that time. When you consider that vegetables do not have a lot of calories (a handful of broccoli contains about 30 calories), 3% is a lot.
Without getting into the great fat debate, there is no doubt, eating a lot of vegetables is good for you and eating too many calories is not.
In other words, you can cut out all the fat you want, but if you eat a lot of processed food and no vegetables, you will not be as healthy as you could be.
So, one simple thing anyone can do is to cut out processed foods and eat a lot of vegetables. Just doing those two things can have a drastic effect on your health and life.
Should you be eating a lot of fat? That is another topic without a simple answer. There are different kinds of fats from different sources. If you are interested, check out diets like the Mediterranean diet and read up on the pros and cons of the various types of fats from trans fats to the omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA and make a decision for yourself (or consult with your doctor).
But don’t think you can eat a pound of butter for breakfast every day because you saw the Time Magazine cover and read the headline on a social media site.