2917: How to Draw the Line and Enjoy Your Food by Mathews McGarry with DIY Active

[00:00:00] Have you ever noticed how a calm mind can really set the stage for a good night's sleep? That's the idea behind our new podcast, Good Sleep. Greg, our host from Optimal Relationships Daily, is here to help ease you into a peaceful night's rest with some positive affirmations. And these affirmations aren't just comforting, they can help ease anxiety and nurture positive thoughts, setting you up for true good sleep.

[00:00:24] So, press play on Good Sleep tonight because a good tomorrow starts with a good night's sleep. Just search for Good Sleep in your podcast app and be sure to pick the one from Optimal Living Daily. This is Optimal Health Daily, How to Draw the Line and Enjoy Your Food by Mathews McGarry with DIYActive.com And I'm Dr. Neal, your host and narrator. Hey there, happy Saturday!

[00:00:51] I hope your weekend is off to a great start and welcome back to Optimal Health Daily or OHD, where I act as your narrator of popular health and fitness blogs and always provide my commentary at the end. And don't forget, we have a bunch of shows covering a bunch of different topics. Just search for Optimal Living Daily in your podcast app to find all of them. But with that, let's get right to it and start optimizing your life.

[00:01:20] How to Draw the Line and Enjoy Your Food by Matthews McGarry with DIYActive.com Personalize Your Diet to Enjoy Your Food Does it seem like there are so many expert opinions out there that it's hard to even enjoy your food anymore? Eat carbs. Don't eat carbs. More protein. Less protein. It goes on and on. What about we just stick to a personalized diet that makes you happy and healthy? It's time to enjoy your food again.

[00:01:50] It's time to enjoy your food. The concept of nutrition is constantly changing, and there's nothing you can do about it but relax and form your own opinion. Research done several decades ago is rarely relevant today, while modern results and findings are often discarded by older generations as imprecise and inaccurate. What used to be considered healthy back in the day is being avoided like the plague nowadays and vice versa. And this is just the way of science.

[00:02:18] It's constantly developing and changing, updating and upgrading, locating new sources of knowledge and information. This is particularly the case with food research and the effects it has on our bodies. So it's not surprising that we always come up with new findings. Why does this keep happening? Who's right? And ultimately, what are you to do? The old ways. Tradition. Presumptions. Fear.

[00:02:44] When looking at scientific results from half a century ago, you can't help but feel taken aback and amazed, not because this research was silly, dated, or wrong at the time, but because they seem silly, dated, and wrong now. People used to believe different crazy things over the course of history. Just remember the brilliant, the Earth is flat idea? And it is the purpose of modern science to deny these mistaken concepts and come up with new, more precise ones.

[00:03:13] When speaking of nutrition and the way we're supposed to eat, things used to be quite easy to understand. Certain foods were accused of being unhealthy and generally bad for us, and previous generations were to stay away from meals containing these notorious ingredients. Some of these were carbohydrates, bread, gluten, protein, and sometimes even milk. Nevertheless, this was just the tip of the iceberg, because so many more common ingredients were labeled as harmful. And why did that occur?

[00:03:41] Because these comprise the majority of our daily intake of food, and previous generations could hardly avoid them. Moreover, some had a problem digesting them, which is the reason why they proposed everyone should skip them altogether. Even though this may seem unreliable, some of these ingredients really did do some wrong to our bodies, at least for some groups of people. Gluten has always been hard to digest. Protein had to be measured perfectly for those with kidney problems,

[00:04:08] while carbohydrates and bread were infamous because they could make you fat. However, in recent decades, the situation has changed due to several reasons. The New Ways Variety, Insight, Personalization First of all, the science behind the food industry has greatly developed, and more and more people are now able to conduct more thorough research that accurately shows what's good and bad in certain foods. With this,

[00:04:37] our collective knowledge of food is exponentially expanding day after day, and we now know more about it than ever. Due to that, it's easier to determine how positive or negative certain foods really are. Furthermore, furthermore, we now have a wider choice of foods available to us. We don't have to eat only one sort of bread, nor confine our dairy needs to just one kind of milk, but, choose some of the available options on the market. Of course, different sorts and kinds were always present in the world,

[00:05:06] but were not always so close to us. 30 or 40 years ago, you had to go through more trouble to obtain whole wheat bread or organic milk than today. Hence, with more choices, you can choose not to eat something that is considered not so great for you. And this is one of the perks of our age. Finally, people have realized that personal opinion is the key to a satisfactory diet. You don't have to trust any study or research as long as you eat food that makes you happy

[00:05:34] and supports your health. This philosophy is supported by many personal fitness trainers who always point out that finding foods that work for you is vital. So, instead of removing certain foods from your daily menu, you should focus on the ones that make you content and have been shown to assist you in looking and feeling your best. Food Redemption All these positive traits of our time have led to an interesting occurrence. A number of foods that used to be considered bad and unhealthy

[00:06:03] have been found to have more than a few positive aspects. For example, white potatoes used to be cast as one of the biggest villains in your kitchen, but more recent studies show how good they are for you and that they can help you fight cancer, heart conditions, and various other diseases. Also, the concept of obesity is constantly changing. During the 20th century, it was ignored. And it was almost heresy to talk about an impending pandemic of obesity across the globe, according to a 2012 study.

[00:06:32] But this is not the case anymore, which is why obesity is an important issue of modern medicine. Wrap up. So, what does all of this mean for us? With so many people paying attention to food research, you can get informed and find out how to make proper food choices that will not make you obese or unhealthy, but suit you the most. Find the ideal middle ground that provides you a nutritious diet while letting you enjoy your food.

[00:06:59] What we're saying is to find the right foods for you that fit into your healthy lifestyle and customize your diet to fit you. Don't customize your life to fit into a healthy diet. It's time for you to enjoy your food. You just listened to the post titled, How to Draw the Line and Enjoy Your Food, by Matthews McGarry with DIYActive.com. And I'll be right back with my commentary.

[00:07:28] Dr. Neil here for my commentary. When I was learning about nutrition in graduate school, looking back on it now, I can say it felt like I spent a lot of time learning about what people shouldn't eat instead of what they can eat. It felt like so much of what I was learning was about removing this and that food from our diets. It took me a while, but at some point, I had a realization. Just as today's author, Matthews McGarry said, what if we thought about food and sustaining our bodies in ways

[00:07:57] where we add foods instead of restricting them? Like, instead of telling my patients that they shouldn't have a cookie for dessert, maybe we change the advice to something like, we don't need to get rid of dessert. Let's instead think about how to increase vegetables somewhere while still enjoying that cookie for dessert. That sounds like a much more positive way to think about changes to our diets.

[00:08:22] And by adding nutritious foods instead of removing maybe less nutritious foods, it provides us with more options, which we like. So going forward, let's think about adding more nutritious foods and not obsessing about removing other ones. All right, that'll do it for today. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you for sharing the show with someone. I hope you have a great weekend, and I'll see you back here tomorrow as usual, where your optimal life awaits.