You got the motivation.
You got the determination.
You even bought new gym pants and got rid of the cookies & cream ice cream in your freezer.
But then comes the information bit.
You've read it all: Calories in, calories out...Wait that's wrong. Okay just no junk food! Wait, wait...that's junk food. Really? Okay!Carbs are demons, no wait they're the keys to health-vala. Green juice? The fountain of youth! No, only drinking that isn't good for you. Fat is evil, fat is your friend, meat is bad, meat is good. Gluten...well that's another can of worms.
You get the picture.
Eating better isn't as simple as it sounds. There's so much information out there and it can be contradictory. At best, its just plain old confusing. So for this blog's launch, I'll be posting a special introduction: breaking it all down. We're going to have an overlook over the state of our food, what researchers and nutritionists have said.
Through documentaries!
The medium provides a great overview and compacts so much information in a short time. If you're married to Netflix like me, you can find the following documentaries (please note this is Netflix UK):
1. Super Size me
You've most likely heard about Super Size Me, a documentary about one man eating nothing but McDonald's for a month. Naturally, everyone think: well McDonald's will make you fat because of all the fats in it. But there's more to it than that. I've selected this documentary because it brings (on an extreme level) the effects of eating processed food. Even if you keep away from McDonalds, going to any grocery store you can see the shelf after shelf of processed goods available. Processed foods can be anything from snack foods you see to certain ingredients for cooking. Some are worse than others, but we'll get to that later (in future posts). For now, processed foods that have high levels of sugars, fats, salt are bad for you.
Also: there are several Youtube videos showing McDonald's burgers in HCL or in a jar for months to see the decomposition rate.
2. Hungry for change
Now that we know a bit about processed foods, let's take it a step further. Why do most diets fail? Why do we crave these processed foods? How are our emotions tied to the foods we eat?
Hungry for Change is a documentary goes a step further from Super Size Me and overlooks several processed foods and how it affects our health. It also takes a look at why dieting is harder than ever and the role of marketing in these foods for us. This is one of my favourite documentaries.
Also: Joe Cross is in this documentary, the 'Juice Guy'. Netflix also has his documentaries: Fat,sick and nearly dead and the sequel. I'll cover his documentaries in a future post because I feel they cover more 'advanced' topics.
3. Fed Up
This documentary extends some of the information from Hungry for Change. Not by much, but the explanations (and diagrams/graphics) on what happens after you drink or eat certain foods are quite good. By now, some of the information may seem a bit repetitive but its about the perspective. Fed Up focuses on children's obesity issues and focuses more on the marketing controversies around advertising for food.
All these documentaries focus and/or take place in the US. Regardless of that, the information (especially about marketing and the sugars in our foods) applies to every country. Obesity is a world wide issue. Just look at this map provided by the World Obesity Federation.
So that concludes our first step into breaking it all down. I know it's alot to take in and no one should expect to change their eating habits overnight. That would just result in massive setbacks. Instead, I'll be posting on some small changes you can choose to incorporate or better yet help find what works for you!
Any questions or comments, just post below!
And I'm a Stargate fan. In case you didn't notice the Teal'c reference.
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