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June 2020

Good Nutrition: Have a Plan

The American Dietetics Association recently released a very upbeat report of a major new study that looked at what Americans are doing with the new food labels. Remember how long it took to finally get a nutrition label that everyone could agree upon? Even now you can probably pick out a number of weaknesses in the new label, but overall it is doing what is was designed to do. Over 70 percent say that they are paying very close, or somewhat close, attention to what they are buying.

Actual Change

The second area of study is even more important. Have people really changed the foods they buy because of the new labels? Here almost 65 percent said that the new labeling has caused them to change many or some food items that they buy, and only 11 percent said the new label did not cause them to make any changes. These are great numbers!

What’s Happening?

Very simply, the new labels are causing people to think about what they are doing. Raise the level of awareness, and change (growth) takes place. This same ‘‘think-about-it” approach is what I have seen work so well in the clinical setting over the past twenty years when counseling people about their eating style and eating habits. Each calendar year ends with that long six-week holiday from Thanksgiving until New Year’s Day. As a counselor it is the time that I am able to determine if the processes that I help patients initiate actually get them headed in the right direction. Very simply, do people take sufficient control of their nutrition and exercise so that they, first of all, feel better (wellness payoffs), and then secondly get the health payoffs—health payoffs being 1 or several of the following: lower body weight, lower cholesterol, a higher HDL (good) cholesterol, lower blood pressure, healthy blood sugar level, healthy gut function, etc. Do the numbers change for the better?

Planners Keep Their Wellness Process Moving

Over the past twenty years in the clinic, I have noticed the development of 2 important changes that have slowly found their way into the American thought processes and are now actual behaviors. In analyzing food logs, I see that most Americans—since we have finally come to realize that our sedentary living patterns and the “all-you-can-eat” nutritional plan are literally killing us—have incorporated very successfully 2 eating patterns. In fact, we are doing so well in these 2 areas we can get on with focusing on the other areas that need our attention.

What Are We Doing Well?

What 2 behaviors are Americans doing fairly well?

 First, eating breakfast is back in. Breakfast is needed for weight control, feeling good, etc. We see now that the old original health food nuts, Kellogg and C. W. Post, were right all along: Breakfast needs to be a bowl of whole-grain-type cereal and nonfat milk. (Actually, this is also what your grandmother said!)

 Secondly, Americans realize now that there is a difference between walking behind a mule pulling a plow all day and working in an office sitting in a chair where the most physical activity of the day is lifting the coffeepot in the break room. Yes, lunch needs to be light. A light lunch is a piece of fruit and usually 1 other item. This keeps you from feeling sluggish and going to sleep in the afternoon, and it controls weight. This type of lunch is easy to do. It really takes little mental energy to plan. Just stick an apple in a bag and grab a turkey sandwich at the deli. This is a “no-brainer.” Most people have got breakfast and lunch down. So what’s left?

Dinner Needs a Plan

When I analyze food logs and see a perfect breakfast and a light lunch, but the person is still struggling with their weight, their elevated blood sugar, their elevated cholesterol, etc., a quick look shows that time and time again it is dinner that sabotages people’s efforts to be well. The typical high-fat, high-calorie dinner is half a pepperoni pizza, or 2 beef tacos, or a cheeseburger, fries, and soda. Why? See if the following reasons that I frequently hear are ones that you also use.

Examples

1 ‘‘We were going to have grilled salmon, but I forgot to get it out of the freezer, so I just called my wife and asked her to pick up some tacos on the way home.”

2 “The kids wanted spaghetti, but when I started to fix dinner, I realized that I had forgotten to pick up the noodles when I went to the grocery store, so I just called my husband at work and told him to pick up a pizza on the way home.”

3 “You should see our schedule at night. We’ve got a dozen places to be at the same time. In between piano lessons, hockey practice, and swim practice. I barely have enough time to swing into the drive-through for a quick bag of burgers and fries that when we get home I can quickly feed the kids before they start on homework.”

Sound Familiar?

Does this sound familiar? I do not need to identify this behavior for patients. They can read what they have written in their food diary, but they think that there is nothing they can do.

The Plan

Thirty-eight percent of Americans give their first thought to what they are going to have for dinner while standing in front of an open refrigerator. But there are people who do now have nutritious dinner meals. These people have thought about it. They have a plan. It is really not that hard. Use the following steps:

 The plan is for the dinner meal only. (You’ve got breakfast and lunch down.)

 Use a written plan.

 Plan all 7 days of the week. If you always eat out on Friday night, write down where you are going to eat and what you plan on ordering.

 Get input from everyone in the living unit.

 Be specific. It is not vegetables, ditto, ditto for 6 more days. It is “steamed broccoli,” or it is “corn on the cob.” It is “frozen peas in the microwave.”

 Use 2 mandatory items: vegetables and something from the potato, rice, pasta category.

 Optional items—meat and desserts. Even if you only have dessert once a week, write it down.

 Grocery shopping. Make your grocery list from your plan. (A little sidenote here—people who start this type of planning see a big reduction in their food bill, as they now buy only those items that they have on their list and that they plan on fixing.)

 Post-It. Post your plan on the refrigerator door. If the plan says tonight is grilled salmon, you will be reminded to set it out in the morning so that it is ready to be grilled when you get home. Remember the spaghetti that didn’t get fixed? You can have that spaghetti because you planned for it, wrote it down, and then bought the noodles. That hectic day where you wanted to have a warm, healthy, and great smelling meal waiting for you to serve quickly before starting the kids on homework? For this day, your meal plan should say, “Soup in the Crock-Pot.” This takes 5 minutes in the morning before leaving for work. Add some whole-grain bread to your hot soup, and you have a great dinner.

Final Advice

Try this type of written plan for 4 straight weeks. See how you like it. It is guaranteed to “set you free.” Written plans are big stress reducers. The entire expenditure of mental energy is the 5 minutes it takes each week to write down the plan. You now have time for important global thoughts. Dinner becomes healthy, and you are in control of it.