In this week's dose, I share insights to help you eat healthy.
Many believe eating healthy is hard.
But fail to understand that BEING unhealthy is 100X harder.
The world obesity rate has DOUBLED since 1980.
And the obesity rate in the US is ~42%.
An additional ~31% are overweight.
That's more than two-thirds of Americans who are overweight or obese!
Bonkers.
(Not sure where you fall? Check out this guide from NIH)
No surprise this trend start when the first dietary guidelines were implemented.
Guidelines that supported a certain part of the food INDUSTRY and not our health.
Food that is cheap to make and easy to overconsume.
And on top of that, 93% of adults are metabolically UNHEALTHY.
For which the criteria are:
- abdominal obesity (waist circumference)
- blood pressure
- fasting blood glucose
- triglycerides
- HDL cholesterol
And since metabolic disorder is the key to diseases like type 2 diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, congestive heart failure, kidney disease, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease...
This is a recipe for disaster for anyone not taking care of themselves NOW.
It's not just about how you look.
It's about what's happening to your body under the hood.
It's about the degradation of how you FEEL every single day.
As a population, we're more sedentary and eat a diet of highly-processed food.
But companies have made it incredibly hard on us.
It's near impossible for us to delineate between what actually IS good for us and what isn't.
Brands get away with about anything on food labels, so how the hell can we tell what is helping or harming us?
They take advantage of primal pleasure centers in our brains, tricking us with clever marketing.
All to get us to over-consume and buy more of their product.
A brilliant business model.
But WE are the ones paying for it with our HEALTH.
Meanwhile, we can't figure out why we feel like crap, we can't focus, or why we can't sustain a healthy weight.
We're caught in a loop.
Most of us have been living at a low level for so long that we have no idea what it's really like to feel our BEST.
Status symbols used to be money, cars, and a beach house.
Now, it seems like it's being fit & healthy over 40.
Being healthy is less about what we DO, and more about what we don't do.
It's about getting OUT of our own way.
Because it's in our nature to be healthy.
We just do too much that prevents that from happening.
Our bodies are beautiful machines that WANT to operate at a high level...
They just need us to provide them with the fuel they're meant to have.
I was recently on a flight and saw the Stewardess handing out meals in BOXES wrapped in PLASTIC.
Full of highly-processed "food".
It hit me.
We've thrived on this planet by eating food that grows out of & walks on the ground.
Now it's become normal to eat food that comes in wrappers and has been processed in a facility.
Packed full of preservatives, artificial coloring/flavoring, seed oils, and sweeteners.
It's like pouring half water, half gasoline into your car's gas tank.
You would never do that! Because you know it'd be a disaster.
But that's how many of us treat our bodies.
It's killing us.
Eating crap affects us WAY more than just weight gain.
Heart disease is the leading killer of men.
DYK 90% of it is due to lifestyle?
Nutrition, sleep, exercise, stress management, smoking...
I have a 30-year-old friend who was just put on cholesterol medicine.
I have a 35-year-old friend with high blood pressure.
And I know a TON of 30- to 50-year-old men that are 20+ pounds overweight.
They don't eat in a way that THEY think is unhealthy, but they just don't know any better.
Remember, your body WANTS YOU to be healthy.
Your inherent nature is to be healthy.
To have energy & focus.
To be lean (ish) and move well.
To feel great and love your life.
To not experience heartburn, stomach aches, gas, or GI stress.
To not be overweight, obese, have type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, or elevated cholesterol.
That stuff simply goes away 99.99% of the time when you clean up your inputs.
With the climbing rate of unhealthy Americans, it's your opportunity to invest in a down market - the asset is your health.
Medical costs will continue to increase and you'll get the bill.
A 30-40% higher bill over time than if you took care of yourself.
Invest in yourself now and clean up your eating
Treat yourself like the high-performance race car that you are.
And I hear the challenges out there:
- Healthy food is expensive
- Eating clean doesn't taste as good
- Eating whole foods is inconvenient
- Who do I listen to? There's conflicting information online
So I like to keep it incredibly simple:
- Spend under $15/day (3,000 calories, 200g protein)
- High-quality meat with my favorite fruits, veggies, cheese, & honey
- Cook 2-3 days work of food ahead of time
- Whole, single-ingredient foods that I enjoy
And never consume any canola, vegetable, or seed oil variants.
This rule alone will clean up your diet immensely!
My SIMPLE challenge for you:
- Go 30 days without eating anything processed, sweetened, or preserved
- Eat only whole, single-ingredient foods (I count cheese & greek yogurt & salsa here).
- Eat your bodyweight in protein each day (160lbs = 160g of protein)
That's it.
You'll feel more full, have more energy, lose weight, and cut cravings & crashes by sticking to the basics.
And most importantly, you'll feel WAY better.
Just as people don't quit drinking alcohol because it makes their life WORSE...
People who focus on exercise, sleep, and eating clean don't do it because it makes life WORSE or INCONVENIENT...
They do it because it IMPROVES the quality of their live.
It enhances their experience as a human being.
It's a massive net positive.
You got this.
Remember:
- Eating healthy doesn't have to be hard
- Food companies are misleading
- It's your nature to be healthy
- It IMPROVES your life
- Single-ingredient foods for 30 days
Tim š¤
