Don’t swallow this food advice for 2019
Here are three tips that weight-conscious dieters should steer clear of in this year
Have you noticed a resolution reluctance this new year?
Instead of making detailed resolutions, more people on my social media timelines seem to be choosing a word or broad intention they want to stick to in 2019. “Consistency,” “togetherness” — just some of the buzzwords I’ve seen heartfelt posts about.
I get it. In this era of self-love, why would we set ourselves up to fail with specific resolutions that, say, don’t allow for a basket of french fries every other Friday?
I haven’t set an intention for my 2019 yet (eat more chocolate?), but I have considered food resolutions. Specifically, some things I would not like to adopt. Anti-resolutions, if you will. I’m on the health train too, sick of the gluttony of the past couple of months. But some things I can’t get behind. Don’t put fruit in your smoothies: The idea here seems to be that fruits have a lot of calories and sugar, and therefore you shouldn’t load up on them in one cup, and it is an idea that has invaded health and fitness bloggers. It always baffles me. I know that juicing fruits often removes their fibrous skins, meaning you’re not actually consuming the part where most of the nutrition is. But blending fruits into a smoothie yields the same results, good or bad, as eating them. If you were going to eat a banana today anyway, there is absolutely nothing wrong with putting that banana in your smoothie. Also, fruit makes a smoothie taste good. Can we stop pretending like kale, spirulina, fresh ginger and flaxseeds whizzed with a couple of ice cubes are the key to a delicious breakfast? My taste buds need more. Instead of limiting yourself to a quarter of a banana (actual advice I saw recently on Instagram), try bulking a fruit-forward smoothie up with protein like peanut butter, pea protein powder and half an avocado (much more mild in flavour than other veggies).
Don’t snack after 7 p.m.: Guess what? Snacking mindlessly at 7 a.m. isn’t a great idea either. There doesn’t seem to be concrete evidence that it’s inherently harmful to eat late at night, especially if your internal clock keeps you up later than the norm or you don’t get home from the gym until 9 p.m. and need to feed yourself. The better advice is to be more mindful about what you’re eating throughout the day. If you’re hungry, eat. If you’re eating because you’re bored, try eating just a handful of potato chips instead of the whole bag.
Don’t eat carbs: Carbs are having a tough go of it right now, what with highfat, low-carb diets like the ketogenic diet gaining in popularity. Simple carbohydrates, like all those cookies we ate in December and white breads and french fries and stuff, are no doubt loaded with sugars that don’t do much for your body. But I’m a fan of some carbohydrates in a healthy eating plan, especially the kind that help to keep you full and ward off excess snacking. Whole-grain carbs like whole wheat bread and brown rice are at the top of my list for 2019, mainly as vessels for healthy fats like avocado and proteins like roasted chicken and lowfat cheeses.