I wanted to share this fantastic article from Precision Nutrition about Potatoes. The link is at the bottom and my thoughts follow here:
White and sweet potatoes sure have a bad rep these days. Starch is looked at as an enemy for those who are trying to lose weight. Should they have such a bad rep? PN lays it out and this is one of the many reasons I am proud to be certified through them. They take a science based approach, get all the facts, and then put it out there for you to decide for yourself. The best part of what they do (and teach us) is offer guides rather than meal plans. When I coach clients through the nutrition maze, I take the same approach. Educate first to make sure that you know what you’re eating, and more importantly why you are eating it. Second, offer choices and never completely eliminate or tag a food as “bad”. Instinctually, we will eventually be drawn to such foods simply because we are told to avoid them. Third, adjust and modify based on results.
I really love how PN lays out the concept of “eat more” and “eat less” for all foods/food groups/macronutrients. At the end of the day, week, month, or year we are going to enjoy foods that aren’t going to help us lose weight or feel better. Christmas, birthdays, and celebrations of all sorts put us in the position to have some fun and enjoy something we wouldn’t have in our regular nutrition. And that is OK folks. Thats life, and that should not de-rail your efforts from the last week or the next one coming up. The real strategy is to get into an eating routine that works for you and to use results as your guide to make changes and stick to it. Its inevitable that you will “cheat” and if you are manipulated to think that it’s a failure when this happens, it easily snowballs into yo-yo dieting. Live life, enjoy yourself, and get results all at the same time!
If you blindly go into a nutrition plan because it worked for someone else or it seems popular there is a good chance you are setting yourself up for failure. If you go into a diet without considering education, personal preference, body type, energy needs, macronutrient needs, micronutrient needs, and more then it makes life very, very tough in the long haul. Couple all that with the usual approach of borderline dangerous calorie restriction, sets of rules to live and die by, and you have yourself a new years resolution type of approach. It works really well for a week or two, maybe even a month but then the inevitable happens. You go back to your default because you’re either feel tired all the time, keep “failing”, or you are just plain sick of all the restrictions.
If this sounds familiar book a nutrition assessment to start the process. Check out the Nutrition Coaching tab on the home page to learn more. Get educated and get results.
