Nutrition

You can pick any food or drink you want and you will be able to find a thousand articles that tell you it is good for you and a thousand more that tell you it is bad for you.  These contradictions are one of the reasons why people find nutrition to be one of the hardest things to grasp in life and get a handle on it.  One of the reasons why this is the case is because everything we learn about nutrition is subjective, and based on generalized answers to generalized questions in the hope that they will apply to us specifically.

A general answer to a general question will never satisfy a specific question because it requires a specific answer.  Let's take for example one of the basic facts about nutrition which most people mistakenly believe to be objective rather than subjective.  How many calories per day do you need to consume?  You will likely answer 2,500 for a male, and 2,000 for a female.  This is because this is the answer that most nutritionists, and sources of information about nutrition will give as a general answer to the question.  This is sufficient if you want a subjective answer to the question.  If however you want an objective answer to the question, that is to say a specific answer, you need to factor in who is asking the question and about whom is it being asked.  In order to give an empirical answer to this question you need to use a calculator such as this one which will take your age, gender, height, weight, and level of physical activity to produce an answer that is specific to you personally.  As these variable fluctuate, the answer to the question also fluctuates quite a bit.

When it comes to nutrition, in order to get answers that are specific to us, we need much more information and a deeper understanding of the science behind it in order to find accurate answers to our questions, or better yet, turn to someone who will work with us on a one on one basis who understands these principles and can give us the answers we need.  Most people don't do this.  We are forever fascinated, if not obsessed, with the idea of finding the answers ourselves and in doing so we look for the quickest answer or most readily available which doesn't conflict with our own opinions and points of view that we accept or respect.  This is open to an incredible amount of cognitive bias which also explains why you can find a thousand articles that argue for and against each side - because those who created those articles did not equally factor in both sides and come to an empirical conclusion - this isn't limited to the general public, it applies to people who work within these industries too and amounts to "bad science" as it is known. 

I should point out at this stage everything expressed on this blog is a point of view and is ultimately an opinion, I've never claimed anything I hold as being something that is beyond refute, which is partly why I usually add disclaimers to state these posts are based on experience.  There will be many who would point to this blog as bad science - the reason that would be the case is because this blog doesn't claim to be scientific, so it's never going to conform to the level of rigour that would be needed to do so, that's far too much effort for something that is a hobby and amounts to a diary more than anything else.

When it comes to my personal journey with nutrition, the realisation of what I wrote above came about when my weight loss reached a plateau and exploration of the reasons why produced an explanation that basically says in a nutshell: in order to lose weight you need a calorie deficit, where you consume less calories than you need in order to reduce your weight, as your weight reduces however the total amount of calories needed also reduces and that deficit diminishes causes weight loss to stall.  If you want to maintain continued weight loss through calorie reduction alone, you would have to continuously reduce the amount you eat which in the long run is impractical and can cause a lot more damage to your health than being overweight ever would.  You then need to increase the amount of calories you need instead if you don't want to reduce your intake any further - which in plain English means once you reach the diet deadlock you need to exercise more otherwise you will just stay the same weight.