Eat a balanced diet
In this week's post we cover all things nutrition. Part two of the body series.
Why it matters
When we think of food, the first thing that comes to mind is how it affects our weight. But that’s just a very small part of the story.
The food we eat has a big effect both short-term on how you feel and perform and long-term on your health and longevity.
It makes you feel better: Diet affects anything from your “afternoon slump” to actual depression. Eating healthy actually makes you feel better in the short run.
It makes you less sick: An unhealthy diet causes a state of constant inflammation in your body, making you more susceptible to illness and fatigue. Diet can fix that.
It makes you live longer: The wrong diet doubles your risk of premature death. Mostly due to heart diseases and diabetes. The right diet can prevent both.
Top three things to do
Nutrition science is famously full of contradicting evidence; it’s hard to study. However, on a high level, experts can probably agree on these three things:
1. Eat mostly plant-based
Evidence from the Mediterranean diet, blue zones, and other studies all point in the same direction: A mostly plant-based diet is the best go-to diet for most people.
Eat: Whole grains, nuts and seeds, legumes (beans, lentils, chickpeas), fruits and vegetables, bonus points for fermented foods (kimchi, kefir, sauerkraut, …)
Avoid: Ultra-processed foods, processed meats, added sugars and sodas
These diets also recommend some fatty fish to get enough Omega-3. However, those fish often have high levels of Mercury so it’s also possible to just take Omega-3 supplements from algae (the same algae that fish get their Omega-3 from). More on supplements in a later post.
But will I get enough protein? Yes. Grains, legumes and vegetables have plenty of protein, and together they cover all amino acids. Most people eat too much protein already. If you go to the gym 5x/week on a caloric deficit, you should supplement with protein shakes.
Just for fun, I got myself a continuous glucose monitor once to see how I react to different foods. I was genuinely surprised how strong my reaction to oat meal, oat milk, white bread, or anything with simple carbs was. I don’t have diabetes but those values looked like I was heading there.
I then changed my breakfast and lunch to be more in line with these recommendations (breakfast is a bowl of nuts & seeds, some soy yogurt, some berries; lunch is a salad of veggies, beans, sauerkraut, smoked tofu and seed oils) and all of a sudden I felt full for the day, had less cravings, and didn’t have afternoon dips anymore.
Christoph
2. Watch your weight
How much you weigh is mostly determined by how much you eat, and less by how much you exercise. Yes, cardio burns some calories, but the much larger effect comes from not eating those calories in the first place. Most “before-and-after” pics in gyms come from a rigorous diet that the person followed along with the exercise. We all have abs, but for most people, you can’t see them because they’re hidden beneath the fat.
In order to watch your weight, you need to be able to monitor it. You don’t need a fancy DEXA scan, you just need a scale, a mirror, and your phone:
Scale: Try to weigh yourself every week around the same time (ideally in the morning before eating) and use this to guide how much you eat.
Mirror: Less precise for week-by-week monitoring, but you can eyeball your body fat percentage pretty well by comparing your picture to reference men and women. Take progress pictures to celebrate your wins.
Phone: Calorie counting is the best way to get a feel for what you eat. Luckily, AI apps made this much easier than it used to be. Try doing this for a few weeks to get a better feel for the caloric value of the foods you eat.
Eating less than you are used to will lead to cravings. The most zen way to deal with them is to just pause, allow the cravings and feel them - like everything else they will pass. The less zen way is to drink water or eat more filling foods like protein shakes.
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You
3. Make it easy for yourself
The first two points by themselves might feel overwhelming and impossible to pack into your already busy life. Luckily, there are ways to get a lot of health-bang for little willpower-buck.
Focus on repetitive, easy meals: Most people have a very repetitive breakfast and lunch and then a fancy dinner with more variation. Focus on the repetitive breakfast and lunch. Make those two healthy - you have the most control over them. Front-load the healthy stuff, the protein, and then if you see friends for dinner, it’s less important.
Never drinks sugary drinks. This is probably the easiest one to implement. Water is better than Coke Zero, but Coke Zero is much better than Coke. Just make sure you don’t have sugar in your drinks.
Don’t have unhealthy food around you. Don’t plan on having willpower - you won’t. Just make it easy to stay healthy when you don’t have willpower by just not having anything unhealthy in the house. If you really need to snack, snack on a (no sugar added) protein shake.
For me, the biggest breakthrough came from making healthy eating as easy as possible, and unhealthy eating as hard as possible. The key was changing my food environment and what I had available at home.
Every day, I have a Huel (nutritionally complete protein shake) for breakfast. For lunch, I eat a Planty (vegan frozen meal) that is also designed to be healthy and nutritionally complete. I keep both available at all times, so if I feel hungry or want a quick meal, these are the default options rather than junk food. For dinners, I bulk cook and portion meals into glass containers. This creates a simple system that covers around 80 percent of complete nutrition while saving time and mental effort.
On the flip side, one of the most effective ways to avoid unhealthy food is simply not to buy it or keep it around. Do your grocery shopping online, avoid shopping when you are hungry, and remove temptation at the source. If it is not in your house, you do not need willpower to avoid it.
Finally, part of eating healthier is identity. Seeing yourself as someone who eats well makes a real difference. Being in environments that promote healthy eating also helps. If you read books like How Not to Die or Ultra Processed People, you will almost inevitably start making better food choices.
Cameron
Do something now
Change is easiest when you focus on small things. So why don’t you try one of these
Throw all of your unhealthy food in the garbage right now
Plan a healthy breakfast or lunch that you would enjoy, and try it tomorrow
Try an online grocery service to avoid temptation when buying in the store
Get a calorie-counting app
Set a reminder to get on your scale every week
Check out our new guide on behaviour change and try to apply the principles
Next up: Exercise
We’re doing all the heavy hitters directly in January. New year, new me. We promise, it’ll get easier after that!
As always, join our community to share thoughts on this post or your experience with exercise, and subscribe to our podcast for brief ten-minute episodes each week.