Oh, How the Pounds Creep On

April 1, 2019

We're all pretty much at our peak in our late teens and early twenties.  As we age, most of us tend to get heavier, more sedentary and, as a result, less healthy.

While this is all "normal," it is also a slippery slope.  Gaining a pound a year doesn't sound like much, but all of a sudden, 15 years have gone by and you're 15 pounds heavier than you should be and you've opened the door for inflammation, the root of all disease.  Weight is certainly not the only indicator of health, but it's an important piece of the puzzle -- if you've put on a few pounds since your twenties, nip it in the bud NOW.  Don't wait until you're 10 years older to do something about it.  The longer you wait, the harder the task will be.

How do you do this?  You can't just eat less and exercise more -- that strategy has been proven to be ineffective (I have another blog post that explains this). 

The best plan is to eat real food -- not processed crap.  Real food looks like: 

- healthy fats (avocados, olives, coconuts and their oils, grass-fed butter)
- quality proteins (grass-fed meat, wild-caught seafood, certified humane eggs) and...
- TONS AND TONS of veggies (like, they should make up 75% of your diet)

Minimize sugar and starchy carbs (bread, cereal, pasta, baked goods, snacky things like chips and pretzels) and don't even bother counting calories.  Do this at least 80% of the time -- this works out to 17 of the 21 meals you eat every week -- and you'll see changes. 

In the words of Michael Pollan, "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants."