The importance of nutritious diet to the body

The core role of nutritious diet is not to "cure all diseases" as spread on the Internet, but to build the lowest operating buffer zone for the body - ranging from daily energy level and immune response speed to chronic disease prevention and control, and aging rate. According to public health research data in The Lancet in recent years, more than 70% of non-genetic health variables are directly related to daily diet, and their influence far exceeds other lifestyle habits such as regular exercise and regular work and rest.

I previously worked as a volunteer assistant in the clinical nutrition department of a tertiary hospital for half a year, and I have seen too many cases that refreshed my knowledge. A 32-year-old Internet back-end programmer has been diagnosed with triglycerides twice the standard and moderate fatty liver disease for two consecutive years. He had been taking liver-protecting tablets for more than half a year to no avail. The first prescription prescribed by the doctor was not a medicine at all, but three dietary adjustment requirements: replace the iced milk tea every afternoon with 250ml of sugar-free soy milk, add 100g of boiled green leafy vegetables to each meal, and replace the potato chips that were eaten overtime with 20g of plain nuts. After changing these three little habits, his indicators returned to the normal range during the 3-month review. When he got the report, he repeatedly asked the doctor if the test was wrong, and he felt it was very outrageous.

Speaking of this, someone must ask, should I follow a low-carb diet or follow the traditional balanced dietary guidelines? After all, these two groups have been arguing for almost ten years. The former said that refined carbohydrates are the root of all diseases, while the latter said that carbohydrates are the core energy supply substance of the human body. However, they have now reached a consensus: there is no "perfect dietary formula" that applies to everyone. As long as it adapts to your own metabolic level, it is suitable. If you do heavy physical work at a construction site every day and strictly follow a low-carbohydrate diet, your legs will be weak after climbing scaffolding within a week. ； If you already have abnormal glucose tolerance and eat white rice and flour with sugar porridge, it is not unfair at all to have your blood sugar spike.

Let’s talk about an experience that everyone has had: Have you ever stared at the screen at three or four in the afternoon, your brain was like a mush, and you couldn’t type a line of words for half an hour? Don’t scold yourself for taking advantage of the situation first. Most likely, you ate too many refined carbohydrates at noon, which caused your blood sugar to skyrocket and then plummet, and the energy supply to your brain was cut off. I used to be a big fan of white rice. I ate a big bowl of white rice with braised pork ribs at noon. At three o'clock in the afternoon, I had to lie down on the table and sleep for half an hour. I also had to drink two glasses of iced Americano to recover. Later, I tried to replace the white rice with half grains and half white rice, and added a small plate of stir-fried spinach. After a week of trying, I even skipped coffee in the afternoon and spent a lot less time fishing.

There is also a very noisy saying on the Internet: a vegetarian diet is healthier than eating meat. The two vegetarians I have come into contact with can be used as positive and negative examples: an aunt has been a vegetarian for ten years. She pays great attention to her diet. She eats enough soy products and mushrooms every day to supplement protein, and regularly supplements B vitamins and iron. Her physical examination indicators are better than those of many young people who often eat red meat. ； There is also a young girl who has just graduated. She has followed the vegetarian trend for half a year. She eats plain porridge with vegetables every day and rarely eats soy products. When she last came to the nutrition department for treatment, her anemia was so severe that she felt dizzy even after taking two steps, and her hemoglobin was less than two-thirds that of an ordinary person. To put it bluntly, it is not a question of whether a vegetarian diet is good or not, but a question of whether you know how to combine them. There has never been a conclusion in nutrition that "a certain type of food is absolutely good/absolutely bad". There is only a difference between a reasonable and unreasonable combination.

Don't think you are young. It doesn't matter if you eat and drink as much as you want. The impact of diet on the body is cumulative and hidden in places you can't see. The youngest gout patient I saw in the nutrition department was only 19 years old. He drank iced milk tea almost every day for three years in high school, and went to eat seafood hot pot with friends on weekends. When he had the first attack, his feet were so swollen that he couldn't even put on his sneakers, and the blood uric acid was so high that the instrument almost exploded. Every bite of high-sugar, high-oil, and high-purine foods you eat now is actually laying the groundwork for your body ten years from now.

To be honest, don’t think too much about nutritious diet. You don’t need to eat oil-free boiled vegetables every meal, and you don’t need to spend thousands to buy imported supplements. Eat more natural whole foods and avoid highly processed foods with dozens of additives. Add half a spoonful of sugar when cooking. Make a note to add less oil when ordering takeout. Add a side of blanched vegetables. These inconspicuous little habits are much more useful than health care products worth tens of thousands of dollars. After all, the body is the most honest. How you feed it will give you feedback.