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#at least my body also rejects this many calories in our system too
oliverphisher · 3 years
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Graeme Simsion
Graeme C. Simsion is an Australian author, screenwriter, playwright and data modeller. Prior to becoming an author, Simsion was an information systems consultant, co-authoring the book Data Modelling Essentials, and worked in wine distribution.
Graeme Simsion is the internationally bestselling author of The Rosie Project, The Rosie Effect and The Best of Adam Sharp. He also co-authored Two Steps Forward with Anne Buist.
What are one to three books that have greatly influenced your life? 
I’ve long forgotten the name and author of a book about career planning I read more than forty years ago when I was at university. The author spent all but one chapter describing in painstaking detail how to build and execute a career plan, and how to stay on track in the face of setbacks and changes. The last chapter was written by someone else: an alternative approach, based on opportunism. ‘Winging it,’ he called It and it was the first time I’d heard the expression: have broad goals, but be prepared to change the plan as opportunities arise; be willing to take on something for which you’re unprepared and learn as you go; invest in new skills as they’re needed. It was a revelation—and the philosophy has defined my professional life.
I was running a thriving consultancy business when I read film critic Joe Queenan’s The Unkindest Cut, his often hilarious account of his attempt to make an ultra low budget movie. I was hooked, and followed in his footsteps, dragging my partner and friends with me, undeterred by my utter lack of experience in any facet of filmmaking. The movie was forgettable (and best forgotten) but the screenwriting seed was planted. Within a year I had sold my business, and went on to enrol in a screenwriting course while I supported myself with freelance consulting work. That was the beginning of my transition from consultant and business owner to full-time writer.
What purchase of $100 or less has most positively impacted your life in the last six months (or in recent memory)?
The answer’s always going to be a book; I’ll try to look beyond that. So…a backup battery for my phone. I’ve hardly ever used it, but it’s eliminated low-battery anxiety.
How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? 
I spent five years studying screenwriting and—throughout that time—working on a screenplay for a romantic comedy. It won a prize but the step to production for an unknown screenwriter with an original script was just not going to happen. I should have realised that from the start: most mainstream movies are adaptations of novels—generally bestselling novels. The studios let the publishers and public sort out the winners before they invest.
So I re-wrote The Rosie Project screenplay as a novel. At first it was a means to get the screenplay noticed, but I quickly became immersed in the novel as a work in itself (which was surely necessary if it was going to be successful). And now I’m a novelist first and only an occasional screenwriter.
Are there any quotes you think of often or live your life by?
Pay it forward. It’s the social contract, a basic principle to live by. In the context of writing, I’ve had a great deal of luck, and I do what I can to help others who are trying to break in. So teaching, talks, mentorship, endorsement, contributing to blogs... I encourage those who might benefit from such help to do the same for others in turn. I have a book on novel writing underway—I doubt it’ll make me money, but hope it’ll be helpful to at least some aspiring authors.
You never understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it. – Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. In other words, practise empathy. I taught consulting skills for many years, and if consultants could do this with their clients, most of their problems would disappear. In writing, you need to be able to do it for all of your characters—if you can’t answer the character’s question ‘What’s my motivation?’ with something deeper than a stereotype (‘he’s just a boss’) or a label (‘she’s a histrionic’) he or she has no substance. That said, when I’m writing, I don’t explicitly think about my readers!
What is one of the best investment in a writing resource you’ve ever made? 
I bought my first computer in 1984, and since then I’ve always typed; I can barely hand-write. You write differently when you use a word processor—and, unlike some of my generation, I’m well used to it. And I learned to touch-type—an undervalued skill.
Right now, I’m beginning a 10-day hike, and my i-Pad (with keyboard) will repay the weight it adds to my backpack: writing tool, research tool, communication tool (plus all the non-writing-related functions). For writers seeking the lightest computing solution, at present what I’m using seems to be it. 
What is an unusual habit or an absurd thing that you love?
I still buy CDs and have a pretty big collection of them. I’ve got a bit of vinyl too, and that’s probably even more absurd but more fashionable. Plus the high-end turntable. I suspect it’s about being able to afford things that I couldn’t when I was younger. Our kids find my consumerism pretty distasteful, but they’re reacting against growing up with it, whereas I grew up having to save for that 7-inch single of Hey Jude…
In the last five years, what new belief, behaviour, or habit has most improved your life? 
A year ago, my partner bought me an Apple Watch (I’m sounding like a shill for Apple here, with the iPad and all). I set the ‘move’ goal (calories / kilojoules burned each day) to the highest setting and aim to hit it every day. I feel better; I’ve lost weight; I’ve been motivated to get back to the gym. I’m sure it won’t work for everyone, but so far it’s worked for me.
What advice would you give to a smart, driven aspiring author? What advice should they ignore? 
Get published. As you’re starting out, write a few short stories. Get them into competitions, submit for magazines, anthologies, whatever. Agents will be less quick to dismiss you if someone has rated your work. And it’ll improve your writing. That final look at the manuscript before it goes in the envelope frequently prompts another improvement.
Join a class and / or writing group. I’m a supporter of creative writing classes: there’s a body of knowledge relevant to writing and you should know it. Why should writing be different from every other trade or profession in this regard? Plus, you need feedback—and to get used to dealing with it. Critiquing others’ writing will improve your understanding of what works and what doesn’t.  And the group or class will help you keep to deadlines and connect with the industry.
Plan. OK, some writers write by the seat of their pants, but if it’s not working for you, plan. If it is working for you, meaning that you’re finishing novels, not just getting a great 30,000 words down, keep doing what you’re doing. Otherwise, do what just about every other profession does and introduce an element of top-down development i.e. plan.
Draft like it doesn’t matter. Don’t get it right, get it done. If you’ve a plan to follow, it’ll make sense, it just may not be pretty. But you’ll have a massive sense of progress and of satisfaction in getting it done.  You can then come back and apply your creativity to the sentence level. 
Rewrite. You should know that, but in the euphoria that accompanies the completion of a first draft, it’s easy to forget and to start sharing your work of genius. Don’t. Let it sit. Rewrite. Repeat until satisfied. I always go over what I’ve written the previous day before starting on the fresh work of the day. I can always improve it.
The best way for most of us to deal with rejection is to have more irons in the fire—another publisher to send to; another short story in competition; the new novel we’re working on.
Ignore, or take with a big grain of salt, advice on writing from anyone who isn’t a successful writer (defining ‘successful’ in the way that you yourself define success).
What are bad recommendations you hear in your profession often? 
Write every day. I don’t. But I work on my novel or other work-in-progress almost every day. That work may be writing, but it could be research, planning, editing, thinking about the opening sentence, solving a plot problem, reflecting on the writing process.  And yes, promotion. If you’re down to participate in a public debate in the evening, don’t expect to get a lot of writing done during the day. If you want to write every day, do it, but it’s not for everyone.
Build your presence on social media (see below). I mean, sure, if you want to, but it’s got nothing to do with being a good or successful writer.
Read this book – or movie or TV series that’s in the same space as what you’re writing. You’ll be intimidated (you’re comparing a final product with a first draft), feel you’re not original and become paranoid about stealing ideas. I’ve never watched The Big Bang Theory – any overlap between Sheldon Cooper and Don Tillman is entirely coincidental.
In the last five years, what have you become better at saying no to (distractions, invitations, etc.)?
I’ve become slightly better at saying no to requests for endorsements. I’ve had to. I feel a responsibility to read new books (especially by debut authors) but it’s easy to become overwhelmed. If I don’t write myself, a blurb from me won’t have much cred anyway! 
What marketing tactics should authors avoid?
‘Buy my book’ messages on social media. In fact, with a few exceptions, using social media as a marketing tool at all. I’m an old data guy, and I’m here to tell you that Twitter doesn’t sell books. Your time will be much better spent writing a better book. In fact most ‘marketing’ effort on the part of authors would be better devoted to writing. Even book tours (especially in the US which is massively over-serviced by touring authors) generally have little impact.
Broadcast media is a different thing. If you get a chance to be on radio or TV, drop the computer and grab the microphone with both hands.
I know I’m out on a limb here, but I challenge any marketing people reading this to show me figures to disprove it.
What new realizations and/or approaches have helped you achieve your goals? 
It’s human, and often helpful, to be unsatisfied, to want to stretch further. We dream of being published, but when it happens we want to be a bestseller. Then we’re not happy until we’re number one on the NYT bestseller list. And then, what about the Pulitzer? Yes, this sort of thinking will drive us onwards, but it can also drive us nuts. When I was offered a publishing contract, I reminded myself that I had achieved my goal. Anything more was gravy. There’s been a lot of gravy, and as The Rosie Project sat at no. 2 on the NYT bestseller list, I was dreaming of that ‘No 1 NYT bestseller’ blaze on the cover. It didn’t happen (The Goldfinch kept me out) and I was disappointed, but only for about ten minutes. How lucky was I? So I’ve learned to enjoy the roller coaster ride (notably with movie adaptations) and not to pin too much on external achievements.
And, perhaps paradoxically, being sanguine about success has helped me achieve it; by not dwelling on failures, but moving forward with what I want to do.
When you feel overwhelmed or have lost your focus temporarily, what do you do? 
I don’t often feel overwhelmed. I spent a long time running a business, and you learn how to deal with overload: in my case, make a list and (in order) dump; delegate; defer; do.
And focus…hold on. I’m probably one of the more goal-driven, businesslike, organised writers around, but I’m hesitant to apply the rather American motivational model to what I do—and especially to recommend it to others. I lose my focus, I do something else. That’s a little glib, but I’m not driven by writing goals; I’m driven by a desire to write. There’s a huge difference.
That said, and being practical, I frequently find I have to force myself to sit down to the day’s writing (editing and planning are not so hard for me) but I’m soon into it. It gets easier the more you do it and have the feedback of it working. And ‘do something else’ can mean research or that blog that someone’s asked you to contribute to. It’s not an excuse for going to the pub.
Any other tips?
My most important advice to aspiring writers is that it’s a profession. Approach it as you would any other profession in terms of the amount of learning you’ll need to do and how long it will take to become expert. If you’ve worked in another profession, there’s your benchmark; if not, look to that friend who wants to be a neurosurgeon. There are more jobs for neurosurgeons than novelists. But if you have a modicum of ability and put in that level of work, you have a very good chance of success.
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helloaisyahh · 4 years
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TKConcern for National Park
1st & 2nd February 2020
It’s not exaggerating at all to say that I am a city girl. I have been living in the capital city in my country since I as long as I could remember. But then, ever since I entered the IB and got myself involved in CAS, I find myself indulging unintentionally to things I am never used to such as this. A CAS experience in the forest. Not going to lie, I wasn’t too nervous but I wasn’t too ecstatic either. Perhaps I’m never ecstatic about anything nowadays. But this CAS experience really changed my mind.
The journey to National Park was a long one. Some of us even got a bit of sickness in the bus. I didn’t, though. Since I slept most of the time. When we arrived, we were briefed by the owner of the resort to tell us about the rules when entering the forest, the name of the rangers that will be leading our ways and assisting us. The first activity had us going to an indigenous village to see and acknowledge the skills and lives of the indigenous people. There, I learnt to use blowpipes to shoot darts like how they do to hunt food. I was definitely not the best shooter but I internally applaud myself for being brave enough to try. I was a bit sad, though. I thought all of us would be communicating with the indigenous people but instead, we spent almost an hour for the briefings of their life before it started to rain. However, I am grateful still because I got the chance to learn so many things and even witness the making of the shooting darts. Rapid shooting came up next. It’s just another route from the indigenous village back to where we came from but with 7 rapids. Crazy, right? I didn’t brace myself enough. Truthfully, at school, we were told that it wouldn’t be so wet. Just some small splashes here and there, I wasn’t wearing anything crucial for the rest of the trip like a scarf so I was kinda safe on that side because small splashes were actually maddening water splashes. Everybody got wet contrary to the dry state we were in when we first came. But I won’t complain because it was very fun. There’s always fascination about the rivers.
During the night, night walking is usually up in the bucket list for every trip. It was simple but memorable. This was when we first entered the actual National Park, in the forest. On the way in, there was a boar lurking around the nearest resort and not going to lie, I seemed calm, “don’t make a noise that can be a provoke and just walk” but on the inside, I was totally freaked out because it was so huge. I don’t think I can ever forget its look although the warm lights of the resorts were dimmed. In the forest, we walked while trying to find any ‘night creatures’ (animals that live off during nights), even stopped by a hut to observe but there was none. The rangers did tell us that the probability to encounter these night creatures depend on our luck. If say, a lot of groups have already entered before us and whatnot, animals might have already run away because they have been spotted. I was lowkey giving up already, At least I burned calories and walked in the forest at night but then, we saw something that looked like a monkey from a far but wasn’t. It was a slow Lori using hand-to-hand movement from branches to branches, since it was slow, it was cute to see. I also can’t forget when we saw a scorpion using UV light in which the body of the scorpion glows in the light. That’s when I first knew that scorpions had something on their body that can make them glow under ultraviolet. Really interesting.
The next day had peaks of the activities, we climbed Teresek Hill up to the top. Before the hiking trek started we were given 2 choice, either to go by stairs or on the ground. Majority voted for stairs so we went by but I think it doubled the tiredness. However, when I look back to it now, all of us successfully escaped leeches because of this. So there is a silver lining. Going up there felt like forever, but the satisfaction to reach the top was worth the efforts. Canopy Walkway followed by next, I had no trouble with heights, but I won’t say I’m particularly confident with it either, I’d reject a skydiving offer. But then, it wasn’t too high, I think. The bridge was shaky but I trusted the ropes and nets so I was able to enjoy the breezy wind and the view of the forest on the top. It felt like I was on the top of a very tall tree.
This trip is priceless and will always be cherished. What impacts me the most throughout the whole 2 days is the realization of how important the ecological system is for the humankind. The National Park is one of the biggest oxygen contributors to the nation indeed because of the government’s perseverance in preserving it, but I think if we, with humanity and concern do the same thing with the nature around us, we can do the same thing too. Preserve and cherish with what is close to us sounds insignificant but the value it holds will always make a big change in the future.
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Keto diet: weight loss and disease treatment
New Post has been published on https://bestrawfoodrecipes.com/keto-diet-weight-loss-and-disease-treatment/
Keto diet: weight loss and disease treatment
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At first, the cravings were like “a drug withdrawal,” Jay Wortman recalls.
Lying on a hotel bed in Ottawa one night, he’d had to white-knuckle his way out of eating Ferrero Rocher chocolates he’d spirited off a flight. A recent Type 2 diabetes diagnosis had prompted the Vancouver-based family medicine doctor to cut out nearly all carbohydrates — sweets, pasta, bread, even fruit — in an attempt to manage his blood sugar while he waited to start medication. But he couldn’t stop thinking about those chocolates, or his favorite breakfast: waffles doused in syrup. “I think I was a full-fledged sugar addict,” he says.
Four months later, the sugar pangs had eased. He got through the early weeks by stocking up on artificial sweeteners and focusing on how much his 2-year-old son needed a healthy dad. With sugar off the table, he says, all that was left was “the non-carby foods” — bacon, eggs, steak, and vegetables. Soon, he started sleeping better and feeling less fatigued. Weight was coming off at the rate of a pound a day, until he was down 30 pounds and no longer overweight. “I had to get my pants taken in,” Wortman says. “And then I had to get them taken in again.”
More than 16 years later and still following the ultra-high-fat, low-carb regimen that’s become popularized under the name keto, Wortman has never taken a diabetes drug. He hasn’t needed to. He feels stronger and is skiing the most ambitious slopes of his life. “At 68, I’m far fitter than I was at 52 when [my diet] started,” he says.
Transformation stories like his — and the thousands of seemingly hyperbolic claims of dieters losing dozens of pounds, complete with Instagrammed before-and-afters — have made keto the biggest diet phenomenon today. The most Googled diet of 2018, it has eclipsed household names like Weight Watchers (now known as WW) and the other low-carb regimens, Atkins and Paleo.
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Keto is a Silicon Valley life-hacking fixation (see author Tim Ferriss’s keto videos), a Hollywood trend (see Kourtney Kardashian’s and Halle Berry’s keto journeys), and fodder for numerous online communities. Devotees can meet at low-carb keto cruises, keto conferences, and keto cafes. While there’s no leading figurehead, a cadre of evangelists sell books and pseudo-medical supplements and devices to help dieters check whether they’re truly in “ketosis,” the holy grail fat-burning state keto dieters are after.
Beyond all the hype, the chance that keto — a minimalist variation on the diet promoted by cardiologist Robert Atkins — can solve the obesity crisis is vanishingly slim. On average, low-carb diets look a lot like others when it comes to long-term weight loss: Most people can’t stick to them. There’s tremendous variation in how humans respond to nutritional and dietary tweaks, and let’s not forget that the promises keto boosters now make are reminiscent of the overhyped claims that fueled the recent gluten-free craze.
But how do you explain results like Wortman’s? He expected that avoiding carbs would help manage his blood sugar in the very short term, not that his other diabetes-related symptoms — thirstiness, frequent urination, and blurred vision — would vanish. And he definitely didn’t anticipate that the diet would allow him to control the disease long-term, without any medication.
Keto might not be an obesity panacea, but it would be a mistake to dismiss the diet as just another fad, in part because of results such as Wortman’s. Along with all the dubious keto supplements and the weight loss books has come a growing body of science exploring keto as a potential foil for Type 2 diabetes and other illnesses. It’s part of a fascinating broader examination of how we might use nutrition to treat disease.
“It’s anti-establishment”
Keto isn’t just low-carb — it is practically no-carb. Its followers avoid ice cream and pizza, as well as whole grains, fruits, and legumes such as brown rice, apples, and lentils. No bakery-fresh bagels, homemade apple pie, birthday cake, or even juicy watermelon.
But what people eat in America — and around the world — is carbohydrates. They account for roughly half the calories on average in the American diet, come highly recommended in national nutrition guidelines, and feature prominently in the traditional diets of everyone from pasta-munching Italians to rice-loving Indonesians.
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According to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, of the world’s more than 50,000 edible plants, “Just three of them, rice, maize and wheat, provide 60 percent of the world’s food energy intake.” All three of those staples are carbs.
To follow a keto diet is to reject this culture and history. And while keto forbids processed junk foods — something common to just about every diet — it also severely limits the fruits, grains, and legumes suggested by the US Department of Agriculture as essential parts of a healthy diet. Keto adherents believe the conventional nutrition wisdom is not only wrong but actively harmful.
This rejection of mainstream thinking helps explain why keto went viral at this moment, and why it’s more than just a diet. It’s a cultural identity.
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Take Wortman. He’s been on two of Jimmy Moore’s low-carb cruises, sailing across the Caribbean, downing steak after steak. His wife started keto shortly after he did and remains on the diet. He calls their daughter, who was born seven years into their keto lifestyle, “a product of a keto gestation.”
The diet didn’t just change Wortman’s life; it changed how he thought about medicine and nutrition. He believes there’s a conspiracy by a “matrix of agendas” to promote a plant-based diet. The “whole fiber thing is a myth,” he tells me. He also thinks the concerns about a meat-heavy diet’s impact on the planet — that cows produce too much methane — are hugely overblown (they aren’t), and that the link between cardiovascular disease and saturated fat has been “debunked” (it hasn’t).
In a time when black is white, up is down, and discussions of fake news dominate the news cycle, it’s no accident that keto went viral, says Alan Levinovitz, a James Madison University religion professor who studies diet beliefs. “It’s anti-establishment,” mirroring other strains of rebelliousness in our politics, he says. He experimented with the carnivore diet (a form of keto) and says he experienced no health improvement.
Americans are living in the aftermath of the low-fat experiment — where the public learned about guidelines and studies that have often been muddied by food industry interests. With its emphasis on fat, keto is the antidote to the Snackwell’s era. You can gorge on butter and bacon and stay in ketosis. It’s the perfect fuck-everything-you-know-about-nutrition diet.
A diet to heal disease?
Keto’s potential to heal has captured the imagination of people like Columbia University oncologist and author Siddhartha Mukherjee, who has been studying the diet’s effects on cancer. “We are trying to steer clear of any diet crazes,” he says. “For me, it’s thinking of the diet as a tool or drug,” one that may work when used in tandem with traditional cancer medicines in “a very particular population of cancer patients.” Keto’s effects on insulin and glucose levels — and how they may interfere with cancer cell growth — are what intrigue Mukherjee and other scientists.
He’s only tested the cancer hypothesis in mice. And he has other concerns, echoed by many in the medical field, including that keto may not be safe for the cardiovascular system since it can drive up cholesterol levels.
Wortman, the keto evangelist, is gratified that other doctors are at least opening their minds to keto as a therapy, something he didn’t expect to happen in his lifetime. After his high-fat and -protein diet controlled his blood sugar, he started reading about keto in Atkins’s books and scientific papers and became convinced of its potency.
The diet’s potential for treating Type 2 diabetes is the aspect of keto that has long obsessed Wortman. More than a decade ago, he started lecturing on the subject at medical conferences, only to be lambasted. Other health professionals believed the high-fat regimen would damage people’s kidneys, arteries, and brains.
Wortman felt vindicated when, this spring, the American Diabetes Association came out with a consensus statement — intended as guidance for doctors across the country — suggesting a very low-carb diet could be a nutritional treatment option for some patients with diabetes.
Today, Wortman prescribes keto to all his patients who have Type 2 diabetes. (The standard medical interventions include weight loss, exercise, medication such as metformin, and insulin therapy, as well as regular blood sugar monitoring.) He’s even experimented with using the diet to treat northern British Columbia’s aboriginal people, who are disproportionately diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. Though he never published anything on the experiment in a scholarly journal, it was the subject of a 2008 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation documentary. “People lost weight, improved their diabetes, and got off their medications,” says Wortman, who does not profit from advocating for the keto diet.
“The obvious failure of the conventional approach has also been getting too big to ignore,” he adds. “I often say to my patients and colleagues now, ‘What’s the most important thing you do about your health? It’s your diet.’”
The burning question
The reason for shunning sugars is that eating more than the equivalent of a slice or two of bread each day can knock dieters out of ketosis. Dr. Atkins reportedly liked to say that ketosis is “as delightful as sunshine and sex.” (With his four-phase plan, he promised to help people “stay thin forever” by eating more fat and fewer carbs — the same way the now-popular Keto Reset Diet book promises to “burn fat forever.”)
To understand how ketosis works, consider how the human body uses fuel. On a typical high-carb diet, we’re fueled primarily by glucose (or blood sugar), much of which we derive from carbohydrate-rich foods. When we eat a bagel or a bunch of grapes, for example, the glucose levels in our blood rise, and the pancreas secretes insulin to turn glucose into an energy source, moving it from the blood into our cells.
But the body only evolved to store enough glucose to last a couple of days. So if we forgo eating carbs, it finds other ways to keep going.
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One of those ways is a process called ketogenesis. In ketogenesis, the liver starts to break down fat — both from food and from the reserves stored in our fat tissue — into a usable energy source called ketone bodies, or ketones for short. Ketones can stand in for glucose as fuel when there’s a glucose shortage. Once ketogenesis kicks in and ketone levels go up, the body is in ketosis and burning fat instead of the usual glucose. (Whether this actually leads to increased calorie burn or fat loss is a matter of scientific debate.)
There are a couple of avenues into ketosis. One is through fasting: When you stop eating altogether for an extended period of time, the body will ramp up fat burning for fuel and decrease its use of glucose (which is part of the reason people can survive for as long as 73 days without food).
Another way to reach it is by making your body think it’s fasting — by eating only about 20 to 50 grams of total carbs per day. At the low end, that’s equivalent to a slice of bread or a small potato.
People on a keto diet generally aim to get about 5 percent of their calories from carbohydrates in foods such as berries and salad, about 15 percent from proteins like salmon and sardines, and 80 percent from fats including coconut oil and avocado. And ketosis is a quantifiable state. Dieters can measure their ketone levels with blood tests, breathalyzers, and urine strips (with varying degrees of accuracy — blood tests are considered the gold standard for now).
This data-driven aspect is part of what appealed to Ethan Weiss, a University of California San Francisco professor of cardiovascular research. Initially, he was skeptical when he was invited to consult for Virta Health, a company selling lifestyle counseling on ketogenic diets for Type 2 diabetics. A second-generation cardiologist, he says his family had “nothing that resembled fat in the house” when he was growing up.
The more he learned about keto, however, the more intrigued he became. He says he was excited by “the idea that we can give [patients] an option that’s going to get them off medication reliably. The only other intervention that’s done that was bariatric surgery,” he says.
Eventually, Weiss co-developed a breath sensor, called Keyto, to help people track how their diet affects their ketone levels. Playing around with the prototype, he realized he’d made the diet a kind of game. “I was trying to see if I could get my ketone levels to go up. And because I’m naturally competitive and like games, I got obsessed.”
Within two months, he dropped nearly 16 pounds he hadn’t intended to lose and saw his blood sugar levels, which had been high, normalize.
Still, he concedes there’s a lot we don’t know about the effects of the diet. “There are two questions: Is it safe to be in ketosis long-term? And is there something else about this diet that’s potentially dangerous or harmful long-term? We can’t really answer either one in a rigorous way today,” he says.
One concern is that some people on keto will see their cholesterol levels increase, which is linked with a heightened risk of heart disease. In a recent op-ed criticizing low-carb evangelists for their “cheerleading,” Weiss wrote of the cholesterol problem: “It’s a classic issue of balancing benefits and risks, one complicated because it isn’t clear if, how much, or in whom an increase in cholesterol even matters. That’s why there is general consensus that rigorous clinical trials are needed to answer this critical question.”
Other doctors, writing in JAMA Internal Medicine, list “keto flu,” cardiac arrhythmias, constipation, and vitamin and mineral deficiencies among keto’s documented side effects in the pediatric scientific literature. But the diet’s greatest risk, they write, may be the opportunity cost of not eating enough high-fiber, unrefined carbohydrates.
I ask Weiss why he’s so excited about keto, even willing to promote it, given those risks, and the fact that sustained weight loss on keto doesn’t look all that different from other diets. “[We] can’t let perfect be the enemy of great,” he answers. “That is, what we are doing now sucks.”
The frontiers of keto science
Oncologists are also looking past keto’s big unknowns and exploring the potential benefits of the diet as part of cancer therapy. While they warn that it’s far too early to prescribe the diet for any specific cancer type, they’re excited about the possibilities.
For a study published in 2018 in Nature, Mukherjee and his co-authors tested whether PI3-kinase inhibitors — a class of drug used to treat cancers, which has the side effect of driving up blood sugar and insulin levels — would perform better in mice when they also ate a keto diet or took a drug that suppressed insulin levels. The idea they wanted to test, Mukherjee explained on Weiss’s keto podcast, was: What if “the drug causes a physiological side effect — high sugar, high insulin — and that high insulin is now what is bringing the tumors alive again … like a malignant circuit.”
In the study, the combination of the drug and the diet shrank 12 types of tumors in mice — even pancreatic cancer, which is very difficult to treat in humans. But keto caused the leukemia to worsen, meaning researchers still need to work out where the diet is helpful and where it’s harmful.
Marcus DaSilva Goncalves, a co-author on the study and endocrinologist at New York’s Weill Cornell Medicine, says we’ll learn more from a human trial, scheduled to start later this year, that will build on the mouse research.
For now, it’s way too early to know whether this research will translate to humans, despite all the YouTube videos and blogs suggesting that sugar “feeds” cancer. “We are in the Stone Age of understanding which diet is best for each type of cancer site,” Goncalves said.
He’s also concerned about heart health. “We don’t know what it’s doing to cardiovascular risk factors. But cancer’s unique — people are willing to accept a more hazardous condition in order to cure the cancer.”
Much better-established are keto’s effects on epilepsy. For nearly a century, doctors have been prescribing the diet to treat epilepsy, an idea that came about in the 1920s, when researchers observed that people who fasted experienced fewer seizures. Researchers still aren’t sure why the diet can work, but a few mechanisms have been proposed, including making neurons more resilient during seizures. And today, studies have shown that children and adults whose epilepsy doesn’t respond to medications seem to experience a pretty large reduction in seizures when following a ketogenic diet.
That doesn’t, however, mean that the diet works for other conditions. There are still many questions about even the most talked-about keto applications, such as keto for Type 2 diabetes. While researchers have found the diet can reduce people’s hemoglobin A1C (a measure of blood sugar) and their reliance on medication, the effects tend to wane after one year.
Virta Health, the keto counseling company Weiss consults for, recently published data from a two-year evaluation of the Virta program. Through telemedicine, Virta’s clients get nutrition support and health coaching about how to prepare low-carb foods and stick to the diet. In the trial, people’s A1C and weight crept up between one and two years — but 38 percent saw their diabetes reverse and 15 percent were in remission. “Those results are dramatically better than anything else anybody’s published at two years with diet or lifestyle regimen,” Steve Phinney, a founder of Virta who has been studying (and living on) keto for decades, says.
Skeptics, such as the cardiologists turned diet gurus Dean Ornish and Joel Kahn, argue that keto’s potential heart risks are too great. Others note that it’s not clear whether it’s the keto diet itself or the weight loss it can induce that helps control Type 2 diabetes.
To begin to answer the latter question, Phinney and his colleagues ran a study that cycled 16 patients through a low-carb (keto), moderate-carb, and high-carb diet during four-week periods, with two-week reset periods in between. During the diet, the participants were fed enough to keep their weight stable. At the start of the trial, they all met diagnostic criteria for metabolic syndrome, a constellation of conditions — excess fat in the abdominal area, high blood sugar, low HDL (or “good”) cholesterol, and high blood pressure — that are linked to an increased risk of heart disease, stroke, and Type 2 diabetes.
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The results were just published in the journal JCI Insight. After one month on the high-carb diet, one of the 16 people no longer met the criteria for metabolic syndrome. On the moderate-carb diet, three of the 16 reversed their metabolic syndrome. On keto, that number rose to nine out of 16. This suggests that it’s carbohydrate restriction, not weight loss, that helps control metabolic syndrome, including high blood sugar.
The study will have to be replicated. It’s also worth noting the high-carb group ate a lower-quality diet (with foods such as marshmallow fluff and barbecue sauce) while the lower-carb groups stuck to whole foods, which could have muddied the results. And it was funded by a grant from Dairy Management Inc. and the Dutch Dairy Association, and co-authored by researchers with a financial stake in showing keto’s benefits.
But Phinney believes the work is nothing short of revolutionary. “A guy named Thomas Kuhn pointed out that scientific revolutions don’t happen overnight, they happen over time,” he says. “We’re using a non-pharmaceutical, very powerful tool to hopefully halt and turn back an epidemic that is threatening our ability to provide health care because it’s such a dramatically expensive disease.”
And there are other ways the diet may be used. Researchers are currently exploring the benefits of keto for Type 1 diabetes. There’s preliminary research suggesting an ultra-low-carb diet could have a role in treating neurodegenerative diseases, like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. A lot of the brain research, however, was done in mice or cells, so we still need evidence of human response. When we have better studies, keto might look as ineffectual as gluten-free — or maybe it’ll be the diet miracle we’ve been hoping for. That is, if we can stick to it.
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Source link Keto Diet Diabetes
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xeniosfitness · 5 years
Video
youtube
How To Find Your Maintenance Calories (AVOID THESE MISTAKES) A lot of people may know how to lose weight, but it’s just difficult to do. But for many people who have the guts to do workouts, may it be through light diet or intensive program, I think it’s more difficult for them to know how to find their maintenance calories to lose weight effectively. It can be somehow tricky at first, but you’ll get used to it, and you’ll realize that it isn’t that difficult at all. Subscribe here https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgXSdvSlKhbUYZQS1GwDUeQ?sub_confirmation=1 Need help reaching your fitness goal? Apply for your complimentary consultation call here https://ift.tt/2Cqa2BP (In order to qualify you to need to watch our free training) About this video: The first step in finding your maintenance calories is to FIGURE OUT HOW MANY CALORIES does your body requires to maintain your weight. Why? Because it would be difficult for you to go on a caloric deficit if you don’t even know the number of calories you need to burn each day. Typically, an average woman should eat 2,000 calories to maintain her current weight and 1,500 calories per day to lose one pound weekly while it would be 2,500 calories to maintain weight and 2,000 calories to lose weight for an average man. In finding the calories your body requires, you can use a calorie calculator where you need to input your details such as gender, age, weight, height, and some of the usual activities you do. You can visit the website https://ift.tt/2NGi7sd to try it out yourself. Once you’ve finally found out your maintenance calories, then you can just do the math. Subtract 500 calories to lose one pound per week, and of course, the more calories you burn, the higher the chance to lose fat fast. However, you need to be consistent with it. If you input into the calculator that you’re performing an intense exercise 6-7 times a week, then follow it. Otherwise, you need to make some adjustments just to get the results you want that is equivalent to the details you’ve given. Doing this the other way around will affect your maintenance calories. Also, the nature of your work should be considered in finding your maintenance calories. If you’re doing an active job, then the lesser calories you need to burn. Those who are in office work who sits almost half of the day will require to burn more calories. Now, some are too excited to see changes in their shape that they jump right away into losing weight. Don’t do this. The last step before you go on losing weight or engage in a caloric deficit is to make sure that you test your maintenance calories. Do this for at least two (2) weeks. You would know your maintenance calories are correct when you didn’t gain or lose weight. After that, you can now go on light or intensive workout to start losing weight. But be sure to be consistent. Once again, keep in mind that CONSISTENCY BEATS PERFECTION. In conclusion, you need to find out first the calories you need to maintain your weight, then test it at least two weeks, and if it is correct, you can now start losing weight by being consistent with your routine. #weightloss #loseweight #fitness ▶ How did everything start? My name is Xenios Charalambous, and I help busy people lose weight and sustain their results. I started my fitness journey when I was 13 years old, after a rejection I had from a girl at school. I was skinny (103 lbs, 47kg), unhealthy, depressed, addicted to video games, and I had no self-confidence. I struggled through my teens, and I realised that the only person who is responsible for my life's direction is me... so I took action. After years of trial and error, I cracked the code, and I finally transformed my body and mind, but that wasn't enough... I decided to challenge more myself by applying for the special forces. I successfully completed the 2 years training and took my mental strength into a whole new dimension. I shared my story on youtube, went viral all around the world (over 6.7 million views), and my fitness company was found. After getting known worldwide, I moved to London where I was coaching A-List celebrities, partnered with companies like X-Factor, Google, Morgan Stanley and Amazon to train their executives. I now specialise in helping busy individuals lose weight with a proven sustainable system. Since 2013, I've helped hundreds of people worldwide transform their life. Check out my website for more information https://ift.tt/1X5Bnh1 Instagram: https://ift.tt/2KjraQI Facebook: https://ift.tt/1JoGEMN - https://ift.tt/1X5Bnh1
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brandyfields66-blog · 6 years
Text
What Is Intuitive Eating? A Nutritionist Weighs In On This Popular Anti-Diet
In this day and age, it seems like a trendy, new diet makes headlines every couple of weeks. But there's one eating plan-not a diet, its founders are quick to point out-that's had some serious staying power. The term intuitive eating was coined by Evelyn Tribole, RD, and Elyse Resch, RDN, in the 1990s; since then, they've written several books and participated in numerous research studies on their method. Their most recent publication, The Intuitive Eating Workbook, was published last year. 
In short, intuitive eating means breaking free from the on-and-off cycle of dieting and learning to eat mindfully and without guilt. There's no calorie counting or restrictions on certain foods, but there are some guidelines-10 principles, to be exact-that make up the core philosophy of this method.
Health spoke with intuitive eating co-founder Evelyn Tribole, who has a private practice in Newport Beach, California, about her method; we also asked our contributing nutrition editor, Cynthia Sass, RD, to weigh in on the pros and cons of ditching the idea of structured dieting completely. Here's an overview of intuitive eating's 10 principles, and why you might want to give them a try.
1. Reject the diet mentality
Tribole says she and Resch wrote their first book on intuitive eating after watching their patients constantly struggle with dieting. “We were sick of the insanity they were going through: They'd restrict themselves and lose weight, but then they'd gain it back and they'd blame themselves,” she says. “These were intelligent, successful people, and so we really took a deep dive into the research to figure out what was going wrong.”
The bottom line, Tribole says, is that dieting isn't sustainable. So the first principle of intuitive eating is to stop dieting-and to stop believing society's messages that quick-fix plans can deliver lasting results. That includes throwing away diet books and magazine articles that promise fast weight loss, and rejecting any meal plans that dictate what or how much you can eat.
RELATED: 7 Inspiring Things Celebrities Have Said About Why They Don't Diet
2. Honor your hunger
One reason dieting doesn't work, Tribole says, is because it can leave you feeling deprived and physically hungry-which can trigger binging and overeating. So instead of counting calories or watching portions, she says, simply pay attention to your body's hunger cues.
That means eating a sufficient amount of calories and carbohydrates to keep your body “fed” and satiated. Once you learn to recognize these signals in your own body, Tribole says, it becomes much easier to trust your instincts and repair unhealthy relationships with food.
3. Make peace with food
“When you're on a diet, certain foods are promoted as being forbidden-which tends to make them even more tempting,” says Tribole. “Then when you finally eat those foods, you binge and feel guilty, which creates a vicious cycle." That's why one principle of intuitive eating is to give yourself “unconditional permission to eat.” It may sound like a recipe for all-out gluttony, but Tribole says it almost never plays out that way.
“A wonderful thing ends up happening when you give yourself permission to, say, eat chocolate doughnuts for breakfast,” she says. “You stop and ask yourself, 'Do I really want this now?' Not just, 'Will I enjoy it in the moment,' but also 'Will I feel good when I'm finished?' And often, people realize they don't really want that food that was forbidden before; they just got caught up in society telling them they couldn't have it.”
RELATED: How to Deal With Friends Who Are Obsessed With Food and Weight
4. Challenge the food police
Intuitive eating describes the “food police” as those voices in your head that tell you it's good to eat fewer calories and it's bad to eat dessert; in other words, it's your psyche's way of monitoring all of the dieting rules you've heard again and again over the years and making you feel guilty for not following them to the letter.
These food police can be real people, too, says Tribole: friends, family, and acquaintances who offer up judgment and “advice” about what and how you're eating. In either case, she says, “chasing them away” is an important step in embracing intuitive eating.
5. Respect your fullness
This goes hand-in-hand with principle #2. Yes, it's important to eat when you're hungry, but it's also important to stop when those hunger cues are no longer present.
It can help to pause in the middle of your meal or snack to assess your current state: How full do you feel? Are you still eating to feed your hunger, or are you eating out of distraction, boredom, or stress? “We all have the power to listen to our bodies in this way, but many people don't realize it,” says Tribole.
RELATED: What to Do When Anxiety Is Driving You to Overeat
6. Discover the satisfaction factor
The satisfaction factor has to do with noticing and appreciating the taste and texture of food, but also the environment in which you're eating. “This is the hub of intuitive eating,” says Tribole. “If we start here and aim for satisfaction, everything else falls into place.”
Getting satisfaction from your food is about truly understanding what feels good and what doesn't. “Most people have never asked themselves the question, 'What do I like to eat? What feels good in my body?'” Tribole says. “When you can bring the pleasure and joy back to eating, you can truly feel satisfied after a meal and move on and enjoy the rest of your life, rather than continue to eat for other reasons.”
To put this into practice, Tribole recommends starting with just one meal a day. “Make it a sacred time in which you eat without distraction,” she says. “Place your awareness on one aspect of the food, whether it's the texture or the taste or the visual aspect.” If even that sounds too difficult to do with your busy schedule, concentrate on just the first bite, the middle bite, and the last bite.
7. Honor your feelings without using food
Speaking of “other reasons,” Tribole says that people often overeat because of anxiety, loneliness, boredom, anger, or stress. That's why it's important to get to the root of these problems, and to find ways to nurture yourself and resolve those issues without turning to food.
“It's not always big, extreme emotions that are causing overeating, either,” says Tribole. “Sometimes it's as mundane as being bored because you're eating while distracted.” But being more mindful in all aspects of life-with your food and with your emotions-can help you sort out those overlaps.
RELATED: The Mindful Eating Hack That Helped Me Stop Obsessing About Food
8. Respect your body
Intuitive eating is also about body acceptance: That means feeling good about your “genetic blueprint” and the body you were meant to have-not striving for unrealistic expectations about how much weight you can lose or what size jeans you can squeeze into.
It's also important to understand that intuitive eating is not a weight-loss plan, although Tribole says that some women do lose weight (and keep it off) once they leave behind their unhealthy history with dieting and food restriction.
9. Exercise: Feel the difference
You don't have to go to the gym every day while following an intuitive eating approach, but it is important to move your body on a regular basis. “It's not about finding the exercise that burns the most calories or the most fat,” says Tribole. “It's about finding something that's sustainable and that you enjoy.”
Exercise has many benefits that even the healthiest eating plan can't convey on its own, Tribole adds: It's been shown to boost mood, strengthen the heart and cardiovascular system, and increase lean muscle mass, to name a few-all things that can help you feel comfortable and powerful in your own skin.
To get our top stories delivered to your inbox, sign up for the Healthy Living newsletter
10. Honor your health with gentle nutrition
Despite the fact that intuitive eating preaches an “eat what you want” mentality, that doesn't mean its founders don't care about good nutrition. In fact, their final word of advice is to make food choices that honor your health, as well as your taste buds.
“This last principle is probably the least controversial one, so it doesn't get talked about as much,” says Tribole. “We're not throwing the baby out with the bathwater: We still encourage healthy eating, but we know that comes naturally when you embrace the other principles first.”
In other words, eating “intuitively” should still involve more fruits and veggies than ice cream. But at the same time, a diet doesn't have to be perfect to be healthy, and you shouldn't beat yourself up every time you make a less-than-perfect meal or snack choice.
Health's nutritionist weighs in
So can intuitive eating really help people establish a healthy relationship with food and with their bodies-and is it really okay to kiss dieting goodbye, once and for all? Tribole says yes.
“One of the biggest misconceptions is that, without a structured diet, people will start to be unhealthy,” she says. “But if you look at the research, it's clear that intuitive eaters have higher self-esteem, higher well-being, and they also tend to have lower body mass indexes. They eat a variety of foods, they have more trust in their bodies-it's really rather lovely all of the good that comes out of this.”
Sass agrees that there are a lot of great things about intuitive eating, and she incorporates many of these principles into her recommendations to clients. But she also thinks that some additional structure isn't a bad thing.
“In my experience, intuitive eating can free someone from a dieting mentality that has kept someone stuck in a vicious good/bad cycle-and breaking that pattern is a very good thing,” she says. “But I have also seen intuitive eating lead to imbalanced eating and confusion about what really does feel balanced.”
Yes, it's true that humans are born with an instinctive sense of balance, which is why babies eat when they're hungry and stop when they're full. "But as adults, we're faced with a number of social and emotional eating triggers on a daily basis," Sass points out. And today more than ever, it can be difficult to tease out which messages are coming from our bodies versus our brains or outside sources like peer pressure or the media. 
That's why Sass believes a hybrid approach may work best for many people. She agrees that tuning into hunger cues and embracing the idea that no food is forbidden are both crucial for long-term health and weight management. “However, I do believe in marrying that with education about balanced meals, appropriate portions, food quality, and strategic meal timing,” she says.
“In other words, it doesn't have to be either intuitive eating or dieting-those aren't the only two options,” Sass adds. “I believe that a blend of intuitive eating and nutrition education can work very well together, and I don't think they are contradictory.”
0 notes
reynoldslevi10-blog · 6 years
Text
What Is Intuitive Eating? A Nutritionist Weighs In On This Popular Anti-Diet
In this day and age, it seems like a trendy, new diet makes headlines every couple of weeks. But there's one eating plan-not a diet, its founders are quick to point out-that's had some serious staying power. The term intuitive eating was coined by Evelyn Tribole, RD, and Elyse Resch, RDN, in the 1990s; since then, they've written several books and participated in numerous research studies on their method. Their most recent publication, The Intuitive Eating Workbook, was published last year. 
In short, intuitive eating means breaking free from the on-and-off cycle of dieting and learning to eat mindfully and without guilt. There's no calorie counting or restrictions on certain foods, but there are some guidelines-10 principles, to be exact-that make up the core philosophy of this method.
Health spoke with intuitive eating co-founder Evelyn Tribole, who has a private practice in Newport Beach, California, about her method; we also asked our contributing nutrition editor, Cynthia Sass, RD, to weigh in on the pros and cons of ditching the idea of structured dieting completely. Here's an overview of intuitive eating's 10 principles, and why you might want to give them a try.
1. Reject the diet mentality
Tribole says she and Resch wrote their first book on intuitive eating after watching their patients constantly struggle with dieting. “We were sick of the insanity they were going through: They'd restrict themselves and lose weight, but then they'd gain it back and they'd blame themselves,” she says. “These were intelligent, successful people, and so we really took a deep dive into the research to figure out what was going wrong.”
The bottom line, Tribole says, is that dieting isn't sustainable. So the first principle of intuitive eating is to stop dieting-and to stop believing society's messages that quick-fix plans can deliver lasting results. That includes throwing away diet books and magazine articles that promise fast weight loss, and rejecting any meal plans that dictate what or how much you can eat.
RELATED: 7 Inspiring Things Celebrities Have Said About Why They Don't Diet
2. Honor your hunger
One reason dieting doesn't work, Tribole says, is because it can leave you feeling deprived and physically hungry-which can trigger binging and overeating. So instead of counting calories or watching portions, she says, simply pay attention to your body's hunger cues.
That means eating a sufficient amount of calories and carbohydrates to keep your body “fed” and satiated. Once you learn to recognize these signals in your own body, Tribole says, it becomes much easier to trust your instincts and repair unhealthy relationships with food.
3. Make peace with food
“When you're on a diet, certain foods are promoted as being forbidden-which tends to make them even more tempting,” says Tribole. “Then when you finally eat those foods, you binge and feel guilty, which creates a vicious cycle." That's why one principle of intuitive eating is to give yourself “unconditional permission to eat.” It may sound like a recipe for all-out gluttony, but Tribole says it almost never plays out that way.
“A wonderful thing ends up happening when you give yourself permission to, say, eat chocolate doughnuts for breakfast,” she says. “You stop and ask yourself, 'Do I really want this now?' Not just, 'Will I enjoy it in the moment,' but also 'Will I feel good when I'm finished?' And often, people realize they don't really want that food that was forbidden before; they just got caught up in society telling them they couldn't have it.”
RELATED: How to Deal With Friends Who Are Obsessed With Food and Weight
4. Challenge the food police
Intuitive eating describes the “food police” as those voices in your head that tell you it's good to eat fewer calories and it's bad to eat dessert; in other words, it's your psyche's way of monitoring all of the dieting rules you've heard again and again over the years and making you feel guilty for not following them to the letter.
These food police can be real people, too, says Tribole: friends, family, and acquaintances who offer up judgment and “advice” about what and how you're eating. In either case, she says, “chasing them away” is an important step in embracing intuitive eating.
5. Respect your fullness
This goes hand-in-hand with principle #2. Yes, it's important to eat when you're hungry, but it's also important to stop when those hunger cues are no longer present.
It can help to pause in the middle of your meal or snack to assess your current state: How full do you feel? Are you still eating to feed your hunger, or are you eating out of distraction, boredom, or stress? “We all have the power to listen to our bodies in this way, but many people don't realize it,” says Tribole.
RELATED: What to Do When Anxiety Is Driving You to Overeat
6. Discover the satisfaction factor
The satisfaction factor has to do with noticing and appreciating the taste and texture of food, but also the environment in which you're eating. “This is the hub of intuitive eating,” says Tribole. “If we start here and aim for satisfaction, everything else falls into place.”
Getting satisfaction from your food is about truly understanding what feels good and what doesn't. “Most people have never asked themselves the question, 'What do I like to eat? What feels good in my body?'” Tribole says. “When you can bring the pleasure and joy back to eating, you can truly feel satisfied after a meal and move on and enjoy the rest of your life, rather than continue to eat for other reasons.”
To put this into practice, Tribole recommends starting with just one meal a day. “Make it a sacred time in which you eat without distraction,” she says. “Place your awareness on one aspect of the food, whether it's the texture or the taste or the visual aspect.” If even that sounds too difficult to do with your busy schedule, concentrate on just the first bite, the middle bite, and the last bite.
7. Honor your feelings without using food
Speaking of “other reasons,” Tribole says that people often overeat because of anxiety, loneliness, boredom, anger, or stress. That's why it's important to get to the root of these problems, and to find ways to nurture yourself and resolve those issues without turning to food.
“It's not always big, extreme emotions that are causing overeating, either,” says Tribole. “Sometimes it's as mundane as being bored because you're eating while distracted.” But being more mindful in all aspects of life-with your food and with your emotions-can help you sort out those overlaps.
RELATED: The Mindful Eating Hack That Helped Me Stop Obsessing About Food
8. Respect your body
Intuitive eating is also about body acceptance: That means feeling good about your “genetic blueprint” and the body you were meant to have-not striving for unrealistic expectations about how much weight you can lose or what size jeans you can squeeze into.
It's also important to understand that intuitive eating is not a weight-loss plan, although Tribole says that some women do lose weight (and keep it off) once they leave behind their unhealthy history with dieting and food restriction.
9. Exercise: Feel the difference
You don't have to go to the gym every day while following an intuitive eating approach, but it is important to move your body on a regular basis. “It's not about finding the exercise that burns the most calories or the most fat,” says Tribole. “It's about finding something that's sustainable and that you enjoy.”
Exercise has many benefits that even the healthiest eating plan can't convey on its own, Tribole adds: It's been shown to boost mood, strengthen the heart and cardiovascular system, and increase lean muscle mass, to name a few-all things that can help you feel comfortable and powerful in your own skin.
To get our top stories delivered to your inbox, sign up for the Healthy Living newsletter
10. Honor your health with gentle nutrition
Despite the fact that intuitive eating preaches an “eat what you want” mentality, that doesn't mean its founders don't care about good nutrition. In fact, their final word of advice is to make food choices that honor your health, as well as your taste buds.
“This last principle is probably the least controversial one, so it doesn't get talked about as much,” says Tribole. “We're not throwing the baby out with the bathwater: We still encourage healthy eating, but we know that comes naturally when you embrace the other principles first.”
In other words, eating “intuitively” should still involve more fruits and veggies than ice cream. But at the same time, a diet doesn't have to be perfect to be healthy, and you shouldn't beat yourself up every time you make a less-than-perfect meal or snack choice.
Health's nutritionist weighs in
So can intuitive eating really help people establish a healthy relationship with food and with their bodies-and is it really okay to kiss dieting goodbye, once and for all? Tribole says yes.
“One of the biggest misconceptions is that, without a structured diet, people will start to be unhealthy,” she says. “But if you look at the research, it's clear that intuitive eaters have higher self-esteem, higher well-being, and they also tend to have lower body mass indexes. They eat a variety of foods, they have more trust in their bodies-it's really rather lovely all of the good that comes out of this.”
Sass agrees that there are a lot of great things about intuitive eating, and she incorporates many of these principles into her recommendations to clients. But she also thinks that some additional structure isn't a bad thing.
“In my experience, intuitive eating can free someone from a dieting mentality that has kept someone stuck in a vicious good/bad cycle-and breaking that pattern is a very good thing,” she says. “But I have also seen intuitive eating lead to imbalanced eating and confusion about what really does feel balanced.”
Yes, it's true that humans are born with an instinctive sense of balance, which is why babies eat when they're hungry and stop when they're full. "But as adults, we're faced with a number of social and emotional eating triggers on a daily basis," Sass points out. And today more than ever, it can be difficult to tease out which messages are coming from our bodies versus our brains or outside sources like peer pressure or the media. 
That's why Sass believes a hybrid approach may work best for many people. She agrees that tuning into hunger cues and embracing the idea that no food is forbidden are both crucial for long-term health and weight management. “However, I do believe in marrying that with education about balanced meals, appropriate portions, food quality, and strategic meal timing,” she says.
“In other words, it doesn't have to be either intuitive eating or dieting-those aren't the only two options,” Sass adds. “I believe that a blend of intuitive eating and nutrition education can work very well together, and I don't think they are contradictory.”
0 notes