I Want To Eat Healthier...But

Part 2

Dear Dad,

Here is the second installment of “I want to eat healthier but…(fill in the blank).” This phrase is so common when in discussions regarding food, nutrition, and health that I wanted to take a few weeks to explore it further.

“I want to eat healthy but…I’m too hungry.”

If you do your best to eat whole, nutritious, healthy foods (think fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, beans, legumes, and lean protein) but still feel hungry afterwards, the simple solution is to eat more. But, of course, eat more whole, nutritious, and healthy foods.

True Story. Walking off the football practice field in high school I had a conversation with a teammate who expressed an interest in eating healthier as long as I helped plan his meals. I happily accepted—we were at boarding school so all our meals would be eaten in the same dining hall— it seemed like an easy assignment. Twenty minutes later on our walk to the dining hall I encouraged him to make a delicious salad bowl with tons of hearty toppings, some whole fresh fruit on the side, and even advised the barley black bean soup being served tonight was outstanding. We then went to our assigned seats for dinner. After the meal I walked into the kitchen to bus my tray and as I turned the corner I saw my teammate double fisting triple decker peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with a huge glass of chocolate milk on the counter. He looked at my like a deer in headlights and said, “I was just too hungry.”

If we’re honest we have all been in the same shoes as my teammate. We’ve committed to healthy eating and soon after (though maybe not a mere 30 minutes after like him) we find ourselves doubting our newly inspired health determination as our belly rumbles. However, if you are truly committed to eating whole, nutritious, and healthy foods it’s ok to take your stomach rumbling for what it actually is, a signal to eat more. When you commit to eating meals filled with fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, beans, legumes, or other lean proteins feel free to forget almost any “diet rules” that you’ve learned in the past. Paramount among them, that dieting = restriction. The average western dieter has been force fed the idea that a healthy diet is skimpy and painfully calorie restricted which essentially equates a healthy diet to feeling hungry. That’s how you know that you’re losing weight, right? Wrong.

Think of it this way, there are two broad objectives that need to be fulfilled from the food that you eat: enough calories for energy; and the right nutrients to complete all the chemical reactions constantly taking place in your body. If you don’t eat enough calories, or the right nutrients, you will be left with an unsatisfied feeling that we call “hunger.” That’s right, there’s energy depleted hunger and nutrient depleted hunger. The problem these days is that most people only affiliate feeling “hungry” with inadequate amounts of food but not inadequate amounts of nutrients. In reality, a dietary pattern lacking in calories and/or nutrients will leave you hungry while the healthiest diets strike the perfect balance between calories consumed and nutrients acquired which leaves you feeling satisfied.

Have you ever had a meal that just “hits the spot?” That feeling is a physical manifestation of striking the perfect balance between calories and nutrients; not too full but fully nourished. Where you get lost is when a majority of your foods consist of ultra-processed garbage (food-like-substances, like JIF Peanut butter¹ & jellies on white bread like my friend from above), which meets your caloric needs but not your nutrient needs. Therefore, your hunger is never satisfied and your body prompts you to eat more, so you eat more nutrient deficient foods and you remain hungry and the cycle goes round and round:

And that cycle is how we have a population that is overweight yet undernourished.

In contrast, when the food you eat is nutrient dense instead of ultra-processed, your meals will meet your nutrient needs at an efficient amount of calories. As I’ve written before, the volume of nutrient dense (high nutrients low calories) food that you get to eat to satisfy your caloric needs will be surprisingly large, which causes many aspiring healthy eaters who have the restriction diet mindset to be bogged down by the misplaced idea that you must feel hungry to be eating healthy, so they don’t eat enough, which is not sustainable, then shortly give up all together.

So again, the simple solution is to eat nutrient dense foods and more of them.

My last NFL tryout was for the Atlanta Falcons and I weighed just shy of 250 lbs.

I’m the one in the middle with my hands on the football

Over the next three years, as my football dreams faded and new ones came to be established I set out on a journey to return to a more livable healthy lifestyle. During that time I lost 40 pounds pretty quick, another 15 pounds with sustained intentional behaviors, and then I plateaued around 195 lbs. For two years I half-heartedly wanted to drop 10 more pounds but nothing seemed to move the needle. Then, on a pandemic lock-down whim, I decided that I would stop eating any processed foods from a package and only eat whole foods as much as possible. The final 10 pounds evaporated and after a lifetime of struggle to maintain my desired weight it has almost become second nature, all while eating abundant amounts of delicious food.

Don’t be afraid to eat as long as it’s delicious, whole, nutritious, and healthy.

With Love,

JSR

1. “Note the differences between a tub of Jiff Peanut Butter (Ingredients: roasted peanuts, sugar, molasses, fully hydrogenated vegetable oils [rapeseed and soybean], mono-glycerides, di-glycerides, salt) versus a fully Natural Peanut Butter (ingredients: dry roasted peanuts).” From previously published post: