Healthy food deficiency, Diets, Nutrition: One Proposal

While feeling uncomfortable with your body weight you might be: blaming your food, trying to apply a new diet, seeking help at a nutritionist.

When you go to a nutritionist and get an evaluation - the nutritionist will talk about carbs, fats, proteins and will ask you about your eating preferences. And you might answer with all the right thing we all know we are supposed to eat : ‘I eat a lot of vegetables!, I rarely consume fat food, I eat cakes a few time a week, I avoid white bred...though I cannot loose weight’ - and you really believe it.

We all do this evaluation when it comes to food and ... other details of our life.

Then, when you have the nutrition plan, you go home, start the plan and for the following days or even weeks you will feel motivated.

After that initial drive, a few weeks later, you get caught in activities and start having a new feeling - that you already did your part for long enough so you believe that is time to take a break, stop or you just forget about your initial motivation.

I have no certainty that you went through all of this, but if just partly recognise yourself in this description then you are not alone :).

We propose a mind shift that changes the perspective on what is it there to be changed.

Plan for a change that will be part of your every day life for the rest of your life - as eating will be something to be done for the same amount of time.

Diet became associated with a short eating habit change - this is why we speak about ‘diets’ and ‘dieting’ - if it is not working you just need to try a new one choosing from 100 available diet plans (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_diets) hoping it will do the job and reach the ‘big’ promise: lose weight, get better vigour, beauty, bright skin, etc...

We are willing to believe that diets work not because there is an actual proof of their effectiveness but rather because we are always looking to a “magic quick fix”, especially in areas where is no much clarity, as nutrition, unfortunately still is.

What we know for sure, though:

• Calories intake affect your body weight.

• Animal food is higher in calories.

• Plant food is less calories dense.

• Plant food is healthier in many ways compared to animal food.

So what we propose: eat more plant based food for the rest of your life.

Our Body Food Weight app is aimed to know (not guess) what is the share of plant based calories in our diet and how much calories we consume in total.

‘...adult intakes of total dietary fibre should be no less than 25–29 g per day with additional benefits likely to accrue with higher intakes ... ‘ This simple shift would radically improve the Nutrition and health of more than 90% of us, https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)31809-9/fulltext

Fibre is just the tip of the iceberg - together with the fibre while eating vegetables, beans, fruits, grains, seeds you get the rest of the healthy stuff: micronutrients and vitamins not found elsewhere.

So how much vegetable? We don’t really know. A fair answer would be: as much as you can - some say 100% - and this will protect you from many possible health issues. Do your research and decide for yourself. Make sure though that at least 40% of calories are from plants. Without this minim amount you will not get the minimum recommended amount of fibre.

If you do all the above you will most likely adjust your weight, but consider this as a happy side effect. The real achievement is a more balanced nutrition including healthy nourishing ingredients.

Because we are indulgent with ourselves and tend to underestimate the mistakes and overestimate the good deeds there should be an objective referee: the food scale and the tracking app so you shift form believing to knowing how much and what you eat.