Nutrition in Context: #1 - Making Sense of the Nonsense

This is twice in a row I sat down to write a blog about carbs and twice I somehow started writing about something else. I am definitely going to get to the carb post, but when inspiration comes I roll with it.

I'm going to write a little mini-series called Nutrition in Context. I think I'll call this first post: Making Sense of the Nonsense. So...here we go!

Making Sense of the Nonsense

What I've found over the past few years of learning more and more about nutrition is that there is A LOT of conflicting information and nutritional advice out there. Sometimes it is due to flat out bad information and people who have no clue what they are talking about. However, I think most often the advice is decent but it isn't placed in the proper context.

For example, I'm sure at one point or another, every one of you has been told that you need to cut carbohydrates out of your diet in order to eat healthy. Or, you've been told to avoid starchy foods, or that you shouldn't eat any dairy, or take your pick. It seems like there is a never ending drum beat of diet plans that promise to be the key to get your body to look like this:

In reality, the proper nutrition plan for  you depends upon what your goals are (what you hope to accomplish) and where you are currently at. Is your goal weight loss? Do you want to pack on muscle? Do you want to change your body composition without losing weight? Do you want to increase physical performance (sports, running, etc?), or do you have a specific medical condition in which certain foods must be restricted for optimal health (gluten free diets, etc). All of these goals would necessitate a different eating plan.

I'm not going to try to tackle putting all of the various diet plans in context in this little blog series...I'm also not going to pretend that I have all of the answers. My purpose is to get you to begin thinking about proper context when you read an article that throws out nutritional advice; or further, begins to recommend eating or not eating a specific food. Without proper context, you can become frustrated and confused, and make the process of reaching your goals quite a bit more complicated than it needs to be. So how do you make sense of all of the nonsense?

1. First, you have to have a clear, tangible goal in mind of what you hope to accomplish. You also need to be realistic about what it will take to achieve that goal. For example, if you want to have any muscle tone at all...your plan will need to involve exercise, and specifically strength training. 
2. Second, you need a very basic understanding of nutrition and physiology. This doesn't mean you need to go take a college course or sit for a nutritional certification, but it does mean that you need to do a little independent research so that you understand what a protein, a carbohydrate, and a fat are. You need to know a little about calories, and you need to know how to read a nutrition label.
3. Third, you need to use a whole lot of common sense. Understand that there is no miracle diet, and that achieving the results that you are looking for will take hard work, discipline, and consistency. Diets or products that promise FAST results with little effort are bogus. If there really was a miracle diet, everyone would be in fantastic shape. Whether we are talking about diets or products, the same logic applies. For example...the Shake Weight:

...I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that this guy, who is a paid fitness model/actor, never used the shake weight a day in his life...until, of course, he was hired to do their infomercial. So the picture you see here is just a snapshot of the entire 30 minutes that this guy had a shake weight in his hand. Common sense should have prevented anyone who didn't intend to order a fancy paperweight from buying this...but something tells me they sold way more than they should have. Yes...I know I transitioned from nutrition to exercise products, but I've been wanting to find a way to say something about crazy products like the Shake Weight...maybe I forced it? Oh well.

My plan for this blog series is to hit a few of the optimal nutritional strategies that can help with common goals. I will attempt to tackle: weight loss, muscle growth, and toning/body composition in different posts. I'll probably talk about caloric deficit and surplus, macronutrient content, carbohydrate refueling, and calorie cycling as well. Hopefully the series as a whole will help you to understand nutrition a little bit better so that you can make sense of things and put all of the conflicting advice you read in context.

Scripture for the Day:

I may have posted this passage of scripture before in the past, but I felt it was applicable today based upon some opportunities God has given us recently.

James 2:14-18 ¹⁴ What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? ¹⁵ Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. ¹⁶ If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? ¹⁷ In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. ¹⁸ But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”