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| Anticipate the drawbacks. |
Why should we look at the disadvantage of a balanced diet?
If there weren't any disadvantages to a balanced diet, we'd all be following one already. The disadvantages are the reasons why we struggle to stick to a balanced diet.If we can look at the disadvantages before we start a balanced diet, we can prepare for them so that they don't cause us to go back to unhealthy eating habits.
Disadvantages of a balanced diet
- There are too many different ideas of what a balanced diet should be
- The food that you enjoy the most probably doesn't have a place on the balanced diet
- There will be certain food groups that you won't enjoy on a balanced diet
- Not all food in a balanced diet is cheap or readily available
- A balanced diet takes time to yield health results
1. There are too many different ideas of what a balanced diet should be
A basic healthy diet should include all of the nutrients that your body needs and exclude the unhealthy foods that damage your health. This sounds very simple, until you find that people have different opinions about:
- The nutrients that your body needs
- The foods that damage your health
There are 7 different types of common, balanced diets. These include the Dietary Guidelines as per the World Health Organization, the Mediterranean Diet (which is often referred to as the world's healthiest diet), The South Beach Diet (for weight loss and heart health), the Vegan Balanced Diet, the Ketogenic Balanced Diet and the balanced diet that is centered on Intermittent Fasting.
One of the biggest disadvantages of following a balanced diet is the fact that there is so much conflicting health advice out there. Doctors can't agree on the best diet either.
Research can often add to the confusion as well. This study found a positive correlation between milk consumption and health. This one found the exact opposite.
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| Read everything within reason. |
How to overcome the disadvantage of conflicting health advice for a balanced diet
There are certain health principles that are universally true. Follow these principles:
- The closer to nature that the food is, the healthier the food will be.
- Processed food almost always contains unhealthy ingredients.
- Avoid added sugar.
- Eat from a variety of food sources.
If you can follow these key principles, you'd be further on your way to living a healthy lifestyle. Don't change your entire eating plan with every new health trend that comes and goes. Health culture produces more health advice than ever before.
Follow health influences that cite reputable studies to prove their health advice. If I publish a piece on the perfect balanced diet, it should include links to further reading about any health claims that I make.
Consult your doctor or a registered nutritionist whenever you are unsure about a specific piece of health advice.
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| No evidence, no trust |
2. The food that you enjoy the most probably doesn't have a place on the balanced diet
If it was easy, everyone would do it. One of the disadvantages of a healthy lifestyle in general is the fact that you don't get to eat all of the foods that you enjoy.
When we eat whatever we want to, we tend to focus on the foods that are the most convenient or tasty and we reject the foods that we don't like so much.
Healthy food doesn't taste so good because it wasn't designed to taste good. Animals and plants are designed for survival - not for how good they taste on your plate.
Processed foods are specifically designed with taste in mind. Good tasting food is rewarded with higher sales. Food that does not taste as good quickly falls off the shelves to be replaced with tastier food.
This means that processed food will taste better and better as time goes on. Every purchase of processed food can be seen as a 'vote' that tells manufacturers to make more of it.
Healthy food isn't addictive because it is wholesome. It builds your body up. Unhealthy food is addictive because it is unhealthy. When your body is truly satisfied, it won't crave more. When it is left with deficiencies, it craves more of something to try and fill that gap.
Healthy food allows your body to care for itself. Unhealthy food removes your body's ability to care for itself and leaves you dependent on other things to sustain it.
These are the reasons why good things don't feel as attractive or desirable as bad things. A balanced diet will contain more good things (which we won't enjoy as much for the reasons above), and less of the bad things (which were made to make us crave more of them).
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| Choose freedom over captivity. |
How to overcome the less pleasurable disadvantage of a balanced diet
A great place to start is to realize that you enjoy junk food because of addiction - not because of actual enjoyment. Artificial sweeteners are more addictive than cocaine. Sugar and sodium trigger dopamine (a pleasure hormone) release in the brain. This makes processed food addictive.
When you trigger dopamine too much (through unhealthy food in this case), your brain adapts by producing less of it naturally. This is known as homeostasis. When your brain produces less dopamine, you crave unhealthy food to get more dopamine.
Like with any addiction, your brain will start to return to normal as soon as you stop the addictive behavior. Isn't it amazing to know that your brain will start making more happy hormones as soon as you stop eating unhealthy food!?
The good news is that you will crave unhealthy food less and less every time that you eat something healthy instead of junk food. A balanced diet therefore will reduce your cravings for unhealthy food over time.
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| Health will make you whole again. |
3. There are certain food groups that you won't enjoy on a balanced diet
Similar to the fact that you will need to stop eating some of the foods that you enjoy, you will have to start eating foods that you don't necessarily enjoy.
I eat a balanced diet almost every day. The one food group that I don't enjoy very much is fruit and vegetables. They are extremely good for me, but I don't enjoy eating them. They take long to chew, the taste is a bit bland and it feels more like a chore than a pleasurable activity.
You might not like preparing foods that are good for you. It is much easier to make instant noodles loaded with addictive salt than it is to cook a high protein meal at night.
Some people might not enjoy whole wheat bread over white bread, brown rice over white rice or fruit over candy.
A balanced diet will have you eating foods that you don't like.
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| Every action has consequences. |
How to overcome the unpleasant disadvantages of a balanced diet
Realize that every action (or food choice) has a cost and a reward. Unhealthy food has the reward of enjoyment, but the cost of health. Healthy food has the reward of health, but the cost of displeasure.
A few minutes of eating a food is worth the cost when I look at the health rewards that I reap from it. We tend to stick to activities when we see the reward - rather than the cost.
You are less likely to stop eating unhealthy food when you look at the cost. Bad health seems so far away and what difference will one meal make? You make unhealthy choices because of the reward - not because of the cost.
In the same way, you are more likely to choose healthy food when you focus on the reward instead of the cost.
The reward of healthy food might seem very far away if you focus on long-term health, so focus on the short-term rewards.
I love the idea, for example, of fostering good gut bacteria. Good gut bacteria need fiber from fruit and vegetables to eliminate bad gut bacteria, make happiness hormones, prevent allergies, turn fat into energy and produce important hormones.
Whenever I eat fruit and vegetables; I focus on the fact that I am giving my good gut bacteria a wholesome meal right here, right now.
Learn about the positive effects of healthy food and focus on the ones that cause you to stick to that action. Maybe you can tell yourself that you will lose a little bit of fat every time that you eat your veggies. Whatever it is, focus on the immediate reward instead of the cost.
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| Focus on what you gain. |
4. Not all food in a balanced diet is cheap or readily available
Unhealthy food like processed food or junk food is very cheap. Sugar, sodium and chemicals can be made to massive scales because they are used in almost all processed food.Cheaper grains and unwanted agricultural by-products can be used in processed food because the flavor is masked with artificial flavors and flavor enhancers.
Have you noticed that we eat protein flavored carbohydrates like beef chips and chicken instant noodles? That's because protein is expensive but desirable. Processed food makes the taste of protein cheap by adding those flavors to simple carbohydrates that are easy to manufacture.
Healthy food is more expensive because you can't mechanically produce a cow or a carrot. You have to wait for them to mature instead of switching on the button of a machine. Time increases cost.
The loss of products along the agricultural and delivery process of fresh produce also increases the cost. A percentage of produce is lost to spoilage at every step of the process from the time it starts growing to the time it is delivered to shops and the time that customers put them into their carts.
Even at the end of the delivery process, food that looks a little spoiled is rejected by customers and stores have to throw them out.
Pesticides, hormones, fertilizers and antibiotics reduce the cost of food spoilage, but decrease the health of the food. There is almost double the amount of beneficial nutrients in organic and free-range food.
That is why healthy food costs more than unhealthy food.
Unhealthy food is also more convenient. You can find unhealthy food and fast food outlets at just about every corner. Some of these outlets are open for business for much longer than wholefood stores - which sell food that you would still need to cook before you can eat them.
High profit margins and customer demand make processed food more available than natural, whole food.
It is easier to eat the wrong food because it is cheap and available almost everywhere.
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| Convenience shouldn't lead to failure. |
How to overcome the convenience or price disadvantage of a balanced diet
Plan ahead. You are much less likely to buy that hot dog when you have packed your own lunch.
You can make your balanced diet even more convenient when you do meal prep. Plan your meals one week in advance and make all of the meals in one day. Once you do it for long enough, it will be much easier than when you sort for food whenever you feel hungry.
Buy in bulk. Freeze fresh produce and whatever food you don't use immediately so that nothing goes to waste.
Eat fruit and vegetables according to their season. This makes them cheaper.
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| Plan for success |
5. A balanced diet takes time to yield health results
If we died of a preventable disease as soon as we smoked our first cigarette or ate our first kind of junk food, none of us would do it. We would exercise every day if we gained a few pounds of weight as soon as we started slacking off.
Prolonged results diminish our appetite for beneficial behavior.
The fact that it takes an accumulation of effort to see a positive result inspires me to do what I like and start tomorrow instead of today.
Secondly, many of us wonder whether all of that effort is really worth the reward. Is it truly worth getting up and hour earlier to exercise if I have to do it every day for months before I see any noticeable differences?
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| Change your focus. |
How to overcome the delayed disadvantage of a balanced diet
There are many benefits to a balanced diet that you can feel right away.
Blood sugar stabilizes as soon as you eat healthy food. You won't feel bloated, drowsy or uncomfortable like when you eat unhealthy food.
I might not enjoy eating fruit and vegetables, but I feel good about the fact that I did it straight afterwards. That good feeling from accomplishing a small goal motivates me to do other things that also make me feel good as soon as I'm done.
Success breeds success. When you make one positive change, you will want to make another one.
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| Health feels good. |
My hope is that you are better prepared to stick to healthy decisions in the future because of this article. Preparation is 80% of the battle. Stay Strong!
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