Eat To Perform Blog

We are seeing some of the highest rates of obesity in the history of our nation and some good intentioned people are giving some bad advice.

The concept of good and bad foods isn’t helpful. If it were, this problem would already be solved.

Do people really think obese people have never been on a diet? The problem with demonizing food in general is there is always a lot of nuance.

And just so we are clear, I don’t eat a lot of processed food and I don’t eat fast food but maybe a few times when I am traveling. But not because they are bad for me….It’s because they have a lot of calories.

I was watching a Tik Tok where a woman was going over what she eats in a day. She described herself as obese. That was sort of the attraction of the video and the video was wildly popular. She didn’t mention the calories but based on what she ate, it breaks down to:

1) breakfast was about 600-700 calories (standardish drive thru breakfast)
2) lunch was street tacos 1500 calories
2) dinner was a 12 inch sub which I will conservatively say is 1500.

And that doesn’t mention any snacks, desserts, sugary sodas or other calories throughout the day, which easily gets her over 5,000.

This is going to surprise some of you out there but this gal on Tik Tok ain’t hearing what you have to say about “clean foods”. She is actually rebelling against your narrative. The same people that often extol a good and bad food diet or a unprocessed food diet are often the same people that say calories don’t matter. Which seems awfully convenient. Similar to the Tik Tok lady THEY are rebelling against traditional dieting by, wait for it...under eating all of the time.

Chicken and Kale doesn’t have a lot of calories.

Here is the SUPER interesting part about our Tik Tok gal. She actually isn’t over consuming by a lot.

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You might be asking: “But how can that be, if I have one salty snack my weight balloons?”

Most people are aware that after a certain amount of dieting you plateau (in science the concept is called homeostasis). What most people aren’t aware of is that it works on both the top end and the bottom. Our bodies actually want more food. People that often think they have a bad metabolism are wrong, especially when they are over consuming often. Chronic dieters have bad metabolisms because they diet all of the time which is why the salty snack lady sees her weight up the following day (part of it is water retention from the sodium).

Speaking to you as a formally obese person I can tell you this - I am shocked I didn’t weigh 500 pounds. For most of my 20’s I ate whatever I wanted and wasn’t super active. So the few times I mixed in a salad or had any meal with broccoli I lost weight. I would say once a day someone comes to me and says, I cut out all the sweets, cut out all the dairy and quit eating fast foods and I am down 20 pounds. Like they have somehow solved dieting.

My response typically is something like “those are hyper caloric foods in a lot of cases so that was probably smart”. Oh, most of these folks don’t show up at my doorstep or really any other traditional diet platforms, not in a real way. Most of the people that sign up for programs like mine know it’s going to be kind of hard so they opt for Reddit or advice from Joe Rogan. So the speech about clean eating is falling on deaf ears.

And just to be clear, traditional dieting sucks and there is a lot of bad about it. There isn’t a single company that does what we do in any meaningful way. What we do that is so different is the part that wasn’t done in a lot of people’s childhood and certainly not done by traditional dieting platforms. We teach the part where food comes back responsibly.

So not quite 5000 but not quite 1000 either. If we are all being real here, many people that “eat clean” or avoid mostly processed and fast foods often carry some similar issues on the unhealthy side. Obesity isn’t their problem but orthorexia and hormone issues do those folks in (not to mention thyroid issues). My point being is that your “frankenfoods” argument is not backed up by science. Foods with less calories, even processed foods, DO HELP PEOPLE LOSE WEIGHT. The reason they sit on the shelf isn’t because of the chemicals, it's because they taste awful. Trust me, 30 (or even 60) calories of ketchup isn’t the problem, it’s the deep fried cheese curds causing the issue.

Not that anyone will care about this sentence but a diet of mostly whole foods is a big part of the answer for all of us but not because they are magical. They just have fewer calories, so whether you are dieting or moving calories back to where normal should be you get a lot of bang for your buck.

Simple answers often work for a bit and then the next phase is where people have trouble. With our one on one coaching, free trial, hand written meal plans and weekly challenges we can help on a lot of levels.