Do NOT read this response if you can’t handle the truth. A lot of people are looking for short-cuts, supplements or some easy route…it doesn’t exist. This a bit of a long read it contains solid information and honest insight.
Is there a healthy diet where I can eat the same thing every day?
The idea is to always eat a variety of things….but if there was one food that is complete and has pretty much most everything, this MIGHT be it:
You got vegetables, beans, some oil and other healthy ingredients; protein, healthy fats, complex carbs, fiber, minerals, vitamins, etc. I’d still suggest integrating some lean meat and fruit into your diet and remind you that nobody should eat just one food.
Beyond that, let’s look at something very interesting:
I have 3 dogs and one of them is obsessed with food; given the chance to eat ‘human’ food, he’ll gorge himself until he vomits and then ‘eat back’ the vomit! We can not fill and maintain his bowl with tasty food and expect him not to gorge……he would become morbidly obese and likely die from related complications in less then a year. The term: unregulated consumption combined with engineered to be tasty food.
The ONLY reason he’s not obese is because we only give him boring-dull-mundane doggy kibble: on account of this he only eats when truly hungry and only then to the point of modest satiation. In this unlimited-but-boring capacity he remains at a healthy weight; his food is not hyper-palatable.
Note & review:
Dog kibble in unlimited amounts: he only eats when truly hungry and just to the point of satiation, he remains at a healthy weight. Normal life expectancy.
Human food in unlimited amounts: he will eat until he vomits and then continue eating. He will eat grossly in excess to his needs, gain tremendous weight, develop health issues and within a year die from obesity related complications.
The dog has no awareness of any adverse consequences of his gluttonous ways, he’s even blissfully unawareness that one day he’ll die! He has no doctors to tell him his blood panel and triglycerides are dangerously high, nor does he look in the mirror or have friends that tell him he’s fat or even make him feel bad for being obese. Enough on dogs, let’s touch on humans.
The mitigating factor in our gaining weight is that we’re aware of the health consequences and we see ourselves in the mirror (along with wearing clothing, friends input, etc). The dog knows no better; they consume for the mere pleasure and almost perpetual gratification……but is that not exactly what many of our obese population are doing? They don’t eat to live, they live to eat!
Steve’s tangent on this: Oddly, society today seems onboard with fat acceptance….dare we fat-shame people or assert that people don’t need 3 meals each day. There’s BIG money in obesity: the food manufactures, markets, restaurants profit by our buying it and the doctors, trainers, gym, dietitians, nutritionist and pharmaceutical companies profit by it. But let’s get back to the question at hand.
That said, I think the question posed here is more geared towards: What can we consume and not be enticed to over-eat?
The thing is, we don’t live in an environment with restricted choices and are only boring food, we instead live in a world of culinary decadence and seemingly unlimited selection/amounts. The real downfall comes with trying (struggling) to moderate the intake of all this amazing food around us. This can be illustrated at almost any buffet where most people are inclined to ‘try’ or sample a little bit of everything….you don’t get out of that situation/opportunity without going quadruple digits on the calorie count.
Here’s the problem: It’s like giving a kid a bucket and telling them they can go into a store and take ANYTHING they want….and then you expect them to take some vegetables, fruit and maybe a few items but are you really surprised when they come out with a huge bag of Doritos, box of cookies and a bucket full of what mostly amounts to junk food? Come on, you offer a kid either a $5 bill or $20 bill and give them a choice and the outcome will always be the larger denomination and they’ll even ask if they can have both.
So how do we moderate the tasty stuff? Some people suggest that you should have that little bit of double fudge chocolate brownie….it’ll appease you so you won’t crave it. I say the opposite: eliminate it so it won’t beckon and tempt you. Now and then, perhaps at parties, you can have ‘some’…..but on the daily basis it needs to be removed from the menu; it will not pacify you, it will merely pave the way to larger portions and other cheat foods. This is where 90% of dieters ‘fail’. Many say the diet failed but in reality it’s the dieter……and how does this failure happen? They don’t decide to quit but instead they start feeling good about their results and decide to allow certain foods back into their diet: before they realize it, the weight snuck back on! Make no mistake, the ‘failure’ action is simply reverting back to former eating habits and the pathway is always in a failure to moderate the enticing foods…..the small portion grows and more evil is added to the equation.
Long ago (centuries) all we had to eat was what was grown on the local farm: lean meat, vegetables and seasonal fruit & nuts. And yes, lean meat…..because today’s meat are animals juiced-up with hormones and bred for high fat content. It was the culinary revolution and the advent of refining foods that brought us to modern obesity…..we learned how to deep-fry foods, we removed the fiber and created pure sugar. We developed flavorings, additives, preservatives and today’s food is loaded with salts, fats and sugar: the food became HYPER-PALATABLE and we were still left with our instinctual protocol: eat as much as you can whenever you can….because famine may be right around the corner. Adding to that, we’re indoctrinated to eat 3 meals per day.
We stopped eating for legit hunger and began making each meal yet another opportunity to essentially masturbate our taste buds: it became about gratification, indulgence and eating until our stomach tells us it’s at maximum capacity…..the problem is, by the time our stomach screams at us to stop, we’ve already well over-eaten.
We try all the gimmicks; low-carb, high protein, control insulin, change our gut biome, keto, paleo, Atkins, etc. The fundamental problem is that all these protocols are temporary unsustainable diets and 95%+ of people will gradually revert to their former eating habits…..and then we again proclaim that the diet failed when it was really the dieter.
From my experience, if we only allow ourselves to have vegetables, lean meat, fruit, nuts and some basic grains…..then the food is rather simple and we’ll not be enticed to eat in excess: eating almost becomes a task to simply chase-away the hunger. The challenge is that both food manufacturers and restaurants are vying for our business and so everything is made with the aim to rock our taste buds….and this is where all the fats, salts and sugar come in. Making matters worse, we’re then told to simply moderate portions and simply not over-eat on it. It’s like telling someone whose addicted to meth or crack to simply do less…..it’s that easy, right?
Here’s the bottom line: it is VERY difficult to get to the all exalted ripped, tone and abdominal 6-pack……but it is entirely and reasonably possible to get to the 10–20 pounds away from this point, where you look really darn good, your doctor won’t nag you to lose weight and you can buy clothes off the rack at the store. We need to stop looking at the genetically gifted and magazines and start getting real about legit expectations but aside from that, it comes down to removing and striving to eliminate all the junk food, processed food and foods that have a high ratio of calories per ounce. The flip side of this equation is to strive to eat foods that have a low ratio of calories to ounce and in this manner you’ll hopefully crowd-out the fattening foods.
Let me digress to another topic; the notion that avoiding carbs is the answer. Eating protein, carbs or fat doesn’t make us fat….eating too much, in excess of our caloric needs, makes us fat. The overblown hype on avoiding carbs is predicated on the fact that removing/reducing carbs takes us away from a TON of fattening foods. The Keto diet is a Diversion Diet; while you’re busy eating everything on the ‘do eat’ list, the real mechanism is actually the exclusion of the fattening foods. They’re betting that you’ll burn-out on greasy cheeseburger patties, bacon and cheese…..at the end of the day, it always comes down to net calories!
If you keep it clean, lean and mostly green you almost don’t need to count calories. The challenge is turning away from the tasty stuff: it’s like seeing 2 bills laying on the ground….one is a $5 bill and the other a $20 bill and you’re told you can only take one of them: how do we turn away from pizza, chili fries, donuts, Doritos and instead opt for apples, celery, grilled chicken breast and quinoa salad? You need to have a near divine amount of determination but one thing for certain: it’s easier when the bad food choices aren’t in front of you…..so remove and get rid of all the junky food AND have plenty of good choices readily available. Start exercising and try to make this lifestyle a pattern; we are creatures of habit so make it the new habit. Easy? NO! But it can be done. A bit of chubbiness is fine but obesity has got to go!
Added note: I want to thank the many people who’ve taken the time to upvote my answer. I’m flattered to think I’ve helped anyone or made people think twice about their thoughts as it applies to diet and losing weight. There’s so much more I’d like to add but nobody really wants to read more then 3–4 paragraphs.
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Thanks for Reading
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