Nutrition and diet maintenance class

There is no universal health care recipe that is suitable for everyone. All dietary plans that are divorced from personal constitution, living habits, and health foundation will be ineffective or even harmful to the body.

I have been doing nutrition consulting for almost 6 years, and the most typical example I have come across is a 32-year-old Internet operator girl. She followed an overseas blogger for two months and ate anti-inflammatory meals, including kale juice, chia seeds soaked in yogurt, and raw blueberries for afternoon tea. The proportions of various macronutrients were perfect according to modern nutrition standards. As a result, not only did she lose no weight, her period was delayed by ten days, and she suffered from acid reflux. When I looked through her food records, I was a little bit dumbfounded. She has a cold spleen and stomach, and her hands and feet are so cold in winter that she can't sleep. Even drinking room-temperature mineral water makes her prone to stomach upset. It's no wonder that there are no problems when eating such a pile of cold ingredients.

In fact, there is nothing wrong with both theories. From the perspective of modern nutrition, the logic of this anti-inflammatory meal is completely tenable: high dietary fiber can control blood sugar fluctuations, and Omega3 can reduce chronic inflammatory reactions. For people with an excessive BMI and eating takeaways that are heavy in oil and sugar all year round, early adjustments will be effective very quickly. But from the perspective of traditional Chinese medicine, it’s completely different: kale, raw fruits and vegetables, and chia seeds are all cold. If people with insufficient yang energy and weak spleen and stomach transportation eat them for a long time, they will only consume their own qi and blood, and the basal metabolism will also slow down, which is not worth the gain. There is never a theory that is wrong, it’s just that many people forget to find the one that suits them.

A retired aunt came to me a while ago and said that she had been following Douyin for three months to control her sugar with multigrain rice. Her blood sugar dropped a little, but she had a stomach ulcer and was in so much pain that she couldn't even eat. In order to control her sugar, she ate rice cooked with whole brown rice and oats, and did not dare to touch even a little bit of polished rice. However, her gastric mucosa was thin, and the phytic acid and insoluble dietary fiber in the whole grains rubbed against the gastric wall for a long time, causing problems even if there was no problem. Later, I asked her to replace half of the whole grains with easy-to-digest carbohydrates such as pumpkins and yams, and add a small portion of polished rice. After a month of eating, she had a follow-up visit. Her blood sugar was very stable, and her stomach no longer hurt.

Many people learn nutrition and health care, but they start with the obsession of "must follow the standards": they must drink eight glasses of water every day, eat a pound of vegetables, and give up refined sugar. Whenever they break the precept, they become extremely anxious. In fact, how can there be so many necessities? The Dietary Guidelines are baseline references for the vast majority of healthy people, not customized standards for people with nutritional needs. If you have a problem with your kidney function, drinking eight glasses of water will increase the burden on your kidneys. If you have just had gastrointestinal surgery, eating a pound of crude fiber vegetables will irritate the wound. If your metabolism is normal and you can enjoy a cup of milk tea with friends at weekends, there will be no big problem at all. However, if you force yourself to quit completely and then overeat, the harm to your body will be much greater than that little bit of sugar.

I now make plans for users. I never just give them a recipe and ask them to follow it. I first ask them to keep a food diary for three days, including their mood when eating. Don’t think this is unnecessary. The metabolic absorption state of your body is completely different between the potato chips you secretly nibble at work and the potato chips you happily eat while traveling with friends. This is a truth that many standardized low-priced nutrition courses will never tell you. There is no need to memorize any food calorie tables or GI tables. First, spend a week and two minutes every time you eat to record your feelings: Will you get acid reflux after eating glutinous rice? Will I get diarrhea after drinking iced coffee? Will you feel more energetic in the afternoon after eating red meat? The accumulation of these small pieces of feedback is more useful than signing up for dozens of training camps worth dozens of dollars.

I have seen too many people eat with their eyes on the nutrition facts table, leaving their mouths full of bitter taste, and giving up after two months of persistence. On the contrary, those who don’t worry much about the parameters and just slowly adjust according to their body’s reaction, their complexion and metabolism have improved a lot in less than half a year. To put it bluntly, nutritious diet and recuperation not only nourish your body, but also your ability to talk to your body. You don’t have to be an ascetic and can eat happily and comfortably, which is the final passing line for this course.