12. Nutrition

Here we are at the subject of nutrition. This is an absolutely massive topic and one I’m going to be writing about for a few weeks.

In my opinion, “nutrition” is one of the most capitalised words in the English language. I’m not talking capital letters here but ‘money-making’ capital. You only have to go to the supermarket to see aisles full of tempting products which sell us low fat/high fat, low carb/high carb, high protein/low protein, plant based/meat based, high quality (and poor quality), convenience and fresh products. No wonder we find it difficult to know where to start.

The last 50-100 years

Life throws so many distractions at us - restaurants, processed foods, cakes, chocolate, nibbles, crisps…all highly calorific foods (usually) which means we tend to eat far more calories than we need (or can burn off). In general, any energy you take in which your body doesn’t utilise or burn off tends to be stored as fat. This fat gets stored in different parts of our body (especially around and in our organs) and over time we can develop common conditions like type 2 diabetes and fatty liver disease. These are serious consequences of the 20th and 21st Century and a result of our desire for convenient and processed foods.

Alongside this, medicine has come a long way in the last 100 years…we are living longer than any generation that has lived before us. That is until now! Did you know that the newest generation of individuals are not predicted to live as long as us! That’s such a shame and most of it is to do with our lifestyle. Nutrition and what we eat determines a large part of that. The Western diet has so much to answer for. In places like Japan (which historically never saw the same chronic disease as Western civilisations) the introduction of fast foods and Western diets have had a dramatic effect on the prevalence of chronic disease there. They have sacrificed the rice and fish and become more sedentary. In saying that, there has been a substantial push to resist the Western diet in recent years and they have seen a reduction in heart related and stroke related deaths possibly as a result of this.

The obesity pandemic

We are all very familiar with the term pandemic in recent years. Pandemic refers to a global effect and obesity has not escaped this effect. According to the Worldwide Health Organisation, worldwide obesity has tripled since 1975! Read the link for more astounding facts from them.

Come homeward bound and you’ll find that in 2018, 63% of adults in England were overweight or obese? In the US (hello my US friends), the figure is a staggering 73.6%! COVID 19 has had so much dominance in the news when in fact, we are killing ourselves by what we eat and this (in my opinion) is an even greater long term health problem. There is no doubt that obesity is a major risk factor for developing heart disease, strokes, diabetes, osteoarthritis and some cancers (to name a few).

Then there are our children: the National Diet and Nutrition Survey found that drinks high in sugar account for 30% of our 4 to 10 year old’s daily sugar intake! We’re not only harming ourselves but our children also. The difficulty is that so much sugar is hidden within these products and they are so easily accessible.

Weight loss

So if over 60% of us are overweight or obese, I am going to guess that most people reading this will have tried a diet at some point in their lives. It’s not easy and I doubt for many it was successful in the long term. We are surrounded by weight-loss diets but which one is better than the others? Is it weight watchers, slimming world, paleo, low carb, low fat etc etc? Let’s look at the evidence:

The biggest and most robust trial looking at diets was a study by Dansinger et al. This study randomised people into one of the following diets: a low-carbohydrate diet, a macronutrient balance diet, a weight watchers diet and a low-fat diet. The study concluded the following:

1. Overall adherence to a diet at one year was low (<25%) i.e. the number of people who stuck with it

2. The amount of weight loss had nothing to do with the diet - there was no significant difference between any diet

3. The key was adherence - stick to any diet and you will lose weight. Find one that suits you that you think you can stick to

4. After one year, there was no significant difference between any of the diets and no difference in a reduction in blood pressure or sugar levels

I think I can say that during my yo-yo years of weight up and then down and up again, I can confirm this to be true. When I have stuck to a diet, I have seen profound weight loss. The issue is finding one that can be maintained.

That’s quite a lot of information for this blog. One thing I will leave you with to think about until next time is what I am doing:

1. I’m having a plant predominant diet. I’ll explain more on this next week but suffice to say that I am eating way more plant based foods than I have ever done. I still eat some white meat and fish.

2. I have cut out red meat and processed meats completely - so if you’re thinking of inviting us around for a meal, I’d politely ask you to not serve us a steak (even though I love it). More on that to come too!

3. I am not eating or drinking anything with sweeteners or artificial flavourings

4. We are preparing almost all of our food from scratch.