Eat Real Food

(Part of our January series on S3 Weight Management - Systematic, Stratified and Sustainable)

The simplest and most profound change you can make for your health is to eat real food or put another way:

• Stop eating CRAP - calorie rich and processed foods.

Simply put - our bodies were not designed for the processed foods of modern life.

As with most most behaviours there is an evolutionary mismatch between what the environment that we evolved into and our modern world.

From an evolutionary perspective we are omnivores and were hunter/gatherers until about 10,000 years ago.

Our bodies are designed for nutrient dense but calorie poor foods with lots of fibre NOT nutrient poor, calorie dense, fibre free processed food.

This change in foods hijacks our appetite control and leads to overconsumption. This phenomena was best illustrated by the 2019 Kevin Hall study that showed people over- eat by over 500 calories per day on an ultra processed vs whole food diet.

The combination of excess calories, high fat, and high refined carbs (or sugar) sets you up for insulin resistance (IR) - the process underlying Type II DM - where your body produces increasing amounts of insulin to store the same amount of glucose. Insulin is a storage hormone - so high levels lead to increased fat storage and decreased ability to burn fat.  

In effect with insulin resistance you get one-way fat storage - ‘a moment on your lips, forever on your hips’.

So processed foods—-> overconsumption ——> weight gain —-> insulin resistance ——> weight gain - a truly viscous cycle.

Fortunately we can stop this cycle by eliminating/reducing the processed foods, refined carbohydrates, added sugars by eating real foods

What is processed food?  (Food Engineering Definition) 

• has to be mass produced
• has to be consistent batch to batch
• has to be consistent country to country
• specialized ingredients from specialized companies
• virtually all macronutrients are pre-frozen (which means that the fibre is usually removed)
• has to stay emulsified (fat and water do not separate)
• has to have a long shelf-life or freezer life

What is processed food?  (Nutritional Definition)

• 3 things too little​
  • fibre
  • omega-3 fatty acids
  • micronutrients (often removed along with the fibre)
• 8 things too much  ​
  • trans-fat (now being removed)
  • branched chain amino acids - (good if you are building muscle, but in excess get turned into liver fat)
  • omega-6 fatty acids - essential, but too many leads to a pro-inflammatory state
  • food additives
  • emulsifiers (polysorbate-80, carboxymethylcellulose) - these are detergents - not good for the gut
  • salt (15-20% of us are salt sensitive, and excess leads to hypertension)
  • nitrates (processed red meats - linked to colon cancer)
  • sugar - this dwarfs everything else in terms of impact!

Applying the 'better' mindset and decreasing the processed food in your life may be the single biggest thing you can do to take control of your health

For other posts in this series:

• S3 Weight Management - A systematic, stratified and sustainable approach
• Taking the First Step

On January 22nd - we will launch a new group program - fully covered by MSP (for those with a BMI >30 or a BMI between 27 and 30 and a weight related diagnosis).

During the month of January - we will be posting about the foundational behaviours for sustainable weight management - stay tuned.

If you would like to learn more about the S3 program and whether you are eligible please check out our Sustainable Weight Management program page.