Healthy Eating Recommendation Guide

Give priority to eating less processed whole foods, match your daily consumption in an amount that matches your daily consumption, and eat in a way that you can stick to for a long time without suffering any pain - all strict recipes that make you want to brag about hot pot fried chicken after eating it for half a month are inherently anti-healthy.

I have been doing public nutrition consulting for almost 6 years, and I have seen too many people turn healthy eating into self-PUA: forcing down the kale juice that they can’t swallow in the morning, eating tasteless boiled vegetables at noon, hiding in the corner with water to rinse the meat with friends during dinner, and in the end either they can’t stick to it and gain ten pounds by eating in revenge, or they end up with malnutrition or endocrine disorders.

The various dietary patterns that are popular on the Internet are very noisy now. In fact, there is no absolute right or wrong, it is just that they are suitable for different people. For example, a low-carbohydrate diet can help obese people with a BMI over 28 and severe insulin resistance, or type 2 diabetes patients with poor blood sugar control, to quickly lose weight and stabilize blood sugar after a short period of 3-6 months. However, if ordinary office workers consume less than 40% of their daily total energy for a long time, they are prone to memory loss, hair loss, and menstrual disorders in women. Last year, I met an Internet product manager who quit carbohydrates for four months, and her aunt left directly. During the reexamination, the estrogen level was lower than that of a postmenopausal aunt.

Another example is the Mediterranean diet, which has been widely praised by academic circles. There is indeed a large amount of evidence-based evidence to prove that it is cardiovascular-friendly, but it does not necessarily require eating lettuce mixed with olive oil and imported salmon all the time. I myself cobbled together a standard Mediterranean diet for three months and almost vomited. Later I switched to our home-cooked tea seed oil for cooking, and ate steamed seabass twice a week instead of the expensive salmon. Last year, I had my blood lipids checked and the LDL value was a little lower than when I ate a pure Mediterranean diet. To put it bluntly, the one that suits your eating habits is the one you can stick to for a long time.

Oh, by the way, the vegetarian party is also very controversial now. Many people say that vegetarianism will inevitably lead to malnutrition. In fact, as long as the combination is reasonable, the health of lacto-ovo-vegetarian is not inferior to that of omnivores. I have a friend who works in animal protection. He has been eating lacto-ovo-vegetarian for eight years. Every year, the indicators in the physical examination are more normal than mine. But if you are a vegetarian, you must remember to supplement vitamin B12 and active folic acid. These are almost not found in plants. Long-term deficiency can easily lead to megaloblastic anemia, so don’t take it hard.

There is really no need to complicate healthy eating. The daily advice I give to consultants is very down-to-earth: If you are in a hurry in the morning, you don’t have to get up an hour in advance to make a bowl of overnight oats. Buy a multi-grain pancake without sweet sauce and less crispiness downstairs, and add a boiled egg. It is much healthier than eating two big bowls of rice all morning to noon if you are hungry. Don’t stick to light food when ordering takeout. Many salad dressings for light food have higher calories than braised pork. If you order a normal home-cooked dish and tell the boss to add less salt and oil, and ask for half a portion of rice, it is actually more practical.

There is also a heated debate about "should we quit sugar?" To be honest, the free sugar intake recommended by the WHO is no more than 10% of the total energy per day, and it is best to control it at 5%. When converted to an average adult, it is about 25g, which is almost the amount of half a cup of full-sugar milk tea. It would be great if you drink full-sugar milk tea every day, but if you occasionally eat a small piece of cream cake on a friend's birthday, you really don't have to feel guilty. On the contrary, the anxiety of scolding yourself for poor self-control after taking a bite of something sweet is much more harmful to the body than that little bit of sugar.

There is no need to quarrel with the trend about supplements. Both sides are right: if you can eat a pound of vegetables and half a pound of fruits every day, have meat, eggs, soy and milk, and rarely stay up late for business trips, then you don’t need to take supplements at all, which is a complete waste of money. But if you work 996 every day, eat takeout every time, and your vegetable intake is not even half of the recommended amount, then taking a multivitamin and occasionally supplementing with Omega3 can indeed make up for the lack of diet, and it does not count as paying IQ tax.

Having said that, healthy eating is never about perfect scores. You don’t need to pursue perfection in every bite. You only need to eat relatively healthily 80% of the time, and feel free to eat your favorite hot pot, milk tea, and cakes the remaining 20% ​​of the time. As long as the overall balance is balanced, your body will not have problems just because you occasionally take a few bites of "junk food." After all, we eat first to be happy, and secondly to be healthy. Eating habits that can accompany you for a lifetime are the best healthy eating guidelines.