The Nutrition Grouch

Half of the things that we think we “have to do” are not essential.  “I have to watch that football game”.  “I have to get my daughter’s teacher a Christmas present”.  “I have to get new clothes for work”.   “I have to get to the gym today”. And many of the things that we “obsess about” and the goals that we pursue in the long term, really aren’t all that important in the grand scheme of things. ...

How much of anything do you really need?  What’s enough to make you happy?  In today’s episode The Nutrition Grouch wrestles with the idea of “what’s enough?”. So many of us have so much, and yet, it never seems to be enough.  Humans have an insatiable appetite for more.  But more isn’t always better and more doesn’t necessarily lead to happiness. In obesity, we clearly have exceeded, “what’s enou...

The world, technology, and the pace of our lives seems to move faster and faster each year.  Your life not that long ago is different in so many ways from the one you’re living today.  But what about the food you eat?  Has that changed?  To any casual social media observer, dietary advice and what you’re supposed to eat seems to change every day. And yet, dietary advice has barely budged in the la...

Food addiction is a somewhat controversial topic.  Can you really be “addicted” to something necessary for life (i.e., food, air, water)?  Based upon the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and Yale Food Addiction Scale (YFAS), the technical answer is, yes. In today’s episode, The Nutrition Grouch asks whether the identification of food addiction is helpful to clients and p...

There’s literally nothing you can eat that is universally agreed upon to be good for you.  Not even fruits and vegetables.  You can build out the old food guide pyramid with the foods that people are judging, demonizing, and vilifying with every single category: grains, fruits, vegetables, meat, and dairy.  So, what then are we supposed to eat? The basis of all fad diets is fear, avoidance, and de...

Weight loss is the result of consuming less calories than you burn (calories in < calories out).  Most weight loss diets are sold to you with the idea that some foods are “good” for you (i.e., fat and protein) while others are “bad” for you (i.e., carbs and ultra processed foods).  There is a notion that if you just stopped eating the “wrong” foods and replaced them with the “right” foods that...

In today’s episode Todd discusses the 25 things that DO MATTER for weight change and the 14 things that DO NOT seem to matter to weight change, based on his analysis of The Paper Database. He also discusses the possibility/utility of creating a weight change (loss) app called the “Behavioral Obesity Risk Score" (BORS) to help you assess your risk of becoming and/or staying obese based upon yo...

There are hundreds of diet types and thousands of diet do’s and diet don’ts for weight loss.  And yet, what does every diet type have in common?  The 5 Universal Laws of Weight Loss. It doesn’t matter if you eat low carb or high carb, low fat or high fat, Paleo, Keto, or alternate day fast.  Eat fat to burn fat, lift weights or run, drink water before meals, eat after 6pm, eat slowly, avoid carbs...

To lose weight, the standard advice is to follow this simple formula: estimate your metabolic rate to see how many calories you burn (calories out), then log your food to make sure you consume (calories in) fewer calories than you burn.  By creating a deficit of say, 500 calories a day, you will lose one pound of body mass per week…or so the thinking goes. If only losing weight were that simple. ...

Low carb, low fat, high protein, alternate day fasting, cutting out ultra processed food, eating multiple small meals a day, time restricted feeding, Keto, Paleo, you name it, what do they all have in common (besides energy balance)?  They all rely on some variation of the 3 and only 3 ways to cut calories.   Although all diets claim to have their own “special secrets”, “magic recipes” and/or fanc...

Many of us have a nearly unlimited access to a wide variety of ultra-processed, highly palatable, energy dense food.  And yet, most of us don’t gorge ourselves on these ultra processed foods at every waking moment like a bear in September.  But why don’t we? With the risk of oversimplification, I think that most of us have some level of restraint (outside of hunger and satiety, because we know tha...

Weight loss conversations should start out like this: weight loss is a lot harder than you think it is and it is a lot harder than you’ve been told it is.  You’re going to lose less weight than you think you should and you’re going to lose less weight than everyone has told you that you will lose. Let’s set that all aside for a minute and talk about how much weight you can actually expect to lose...

Diets aren’t sold with facts; they’re sold with testimonials.  And the reason diets are sold this way, is because if you actually knew how little weight you were going to lose on a diet or how hard it would be to maintain your weight loss, you probably wouldn’t even bother.  You would think the effort wasn’t worth the reward. But when you’re told that you can easily lose 50 to 100 pounds, with rel...

What do you spend your leisure time doing?  Is it something you enjoy doing, or is it something you used to enjoy doing but are still doing it out of routine or habit?  In today’s episode, Todd and Jeff discuss some of the things in their lives that just don’t really serve their health and happiness anymore, as well as some recent changes they have made to improve the quality of their lives.  They...

Not all carbs are created equal, with some being better than others.  But how can you tell?  In part III of our miniseries on carbohydrates, The Nutrition Grouch reviews the nutrition epidemiology literature to discuss what types of carbohydrates you should be eating, based on the literature.  Some answers are pretty straightforward, some are surprising, and others just don't make any sense a...

In part II of our miniseries on carbohydrates, Jeff Burkart of Brave Chicken and I talk more about how in most cases carbs, are not only NOT harmful, but in many cases they're actually beneficial to you. Some of the topics in today's episode include: Three ways science shows us that carbs do not make us fat (1:09) Does eating carbs cause you to develop type II diabetes? (3:13) What is BY...

Most rational people realize that there are different varieties, types, and sources of carbohydrate.  But the dialogue around carbs is not a rational one.  We’re far more likely to hear about how carbs are bad, period.  They make you fat.  They give you diabetes.  You shouldn’t be eating them.  There’s just a blanket condemnation of an entire macronutrient without really knowing all that much abou...

It may sound crazy, but everyone needs an enemy.  Not the kind that wants to hurt you, but someone or something to fight against.  If you don't find something to fight against, you may find yourself lacking purpose and floundering in the wind. Enemies can help define who you are by helping you identify what you want to become and who you definitely do not want to be.  In today's episode...

We all eat (some) junk food, but exactly how much is too much?  What exactly is junk food and are some junk foods worse than others? In today's episode, The Nutrition Grouch explains that while there is a strong dose response relationship between ultra-processed food intake and type 2 diabetes risk, not all ultra-processed foods are bad for you.  In fact, some ultra-processed foods may be &qu...

You can pay someone to make so many of life's problems go away but this simply isn't the case with your nutrition.  No one else can do the work for you, you have to do the work. While there are a number of products and services that can reduce or even eliminate your cooking burden, none of them are long-term, stand-alone solutions. In today's episode, The Nutrition Grouch discusses...

We keep treating nutrition and weight management as a logic and reasoning problem when it is not.  The math is simple, eat fewer calories than you burn, and you'll lose weight.  If you know the number of calories in a food, you'll make the decision to eat it or not eat it to stay within your daily calorie budget. Yes, weight loss is a calories in/calories out math equation, but it is als...

Good nutrition is not the same as wellness.  In fact, nutrition is only a subset of a subset of wellness.  And yet, if you listen to many of the experts in the field, you'd think that good nutrition is the be all, end all, of health. In today's episode the Nutrition Grouch talks about how he used to think that "wellness" was just kind of a fluffy, meaningless, shallow term.  An...

In episode 27, I provided you with the foundation of meal planning, grocery shopping, and cooking, in what I like to call "the weekly meal cycle".  But I couldn't tell you EVERYTHING you needed to know in one episode. So, today's episode in an extension of episode 27 and looks to fill in the gaps on the weekly meal cycle and covers kitchen essentials that I find indispensable t...

The weekly meal cycle is a concept that I coined to describe all the steps that go into meal planning: from finding recipes to creating grocery lists, grocery shopping, cooking, eating, running out of food, and starting the process all over again. In today's episode the Nutrition Grouch talks about how he developed the weekly meal cycle and how it has been so incredibly helpful in his own lif...

If you can't perform your preferred mode of exercising, what's your backup plan?  If you can't run, do you bike?  If you can't bike, do you swim?  If you can't swim, do you lift weights?  If you don't have weights available, do you use resistance bands?  If you don't have resistance bands, do you do bodyweight exercises, or do you just give up? In today's ep...