Drive-thru Nutrition

"the provision, to cells and organisms, of the materials necessary (in the form of food) to support life." That is wikipedia's definition of NUTRITION. To support life. Fuel the body. If it was that easy, why don't we all just do that. Just eat what we need to survive and not a bite more. Like we are scavengers that have to fend for our selves. We breastfeed our young and then let them get their own food when they needed it. Nutrition would be so easy.

Funny that is what convenience is, isn't it? Make life easier. HA! I laugh at that. How about make life FATTER?! Nothing says easy like "drive-thru". Good nutrition is actually hard work. Not only do you have to learn what proper "materials" are necessary to fuel the body, but then you have to somehow interpret Nutrition Labels. Every food item has a nutritional breakdown of calories, grams, percentages, etc. that tell us if we can consume the item or not. So when I pick up a Kit Kat chocolate bar, what does 7 grams of fat mean? It is just a number, I try to imagine what 7 g of fat would look like. But the shiny red label distracts me from the not-so pleasant image. This is not helping me in my quest to have better nutrition.

Okay, so you finally figure out the label and decide you can eat this food item without guilt. The next step is figuring out how much a person can consume in a day. Why know this? We could just do the South Beach diet and not eat any carbs - and lose weight. We could do the Atkins diet and eat lots and lots of fat, no veggies - and lose weight. Like every diet out there, there are just rules to follow. Eat this, don't eat that and viola, you will be skinny. Why have nutrition labels? Maybe the government could just tell us what we are allowed to eat and we have no choice. Kidding, don't give them any ideas!

I think we should be born with the ability to know what exactly how many calories we are allowed in a day. And we should be taught in school how many calories are in food items. Wouldn't that be cool? Unfortunately not happening in my lifetime, so I better start learning how to take care of myself. I pride myself in learning as much as I can about nutrition, I need to know what my body needs. I had to know why it needs it and how I can change it. INPUT vs OUTPUT. What you put into your mouth and how much you exercise. We all need a certain amount of calories to survive, if we just eat those, there would be no weight issues. But there are; blame the media for those issues. All we see is skinny models promoted by MacDonald's. Did you notice that our Olympic Athletes are sponsored by Wonderbread - is that even bread? Read the label on that package. I KNOW that not one athlete would ever eat white bread full of preservatives!

So now that I know how many calories I need to survive and I know what foods I should eat, why don't I do it? Cuz everything tastes sooooooo good, like chocolate and french fries. I sometimes try to think of myself as a machine, I imagine I just need to fuel to get through the day. There is no real enjoyment in that though. I think I will just think of me as Holly, the mom and business owner that struggles with nutrition daily. I am thinking of me right now, not tomorrow, just this moment.

Wow what a success, I made it through the moment, on to the next.