The Nutrition Grouch

Summer, summer, summertime!  Ah, summer vacation, a time to rest, relax, rejuvenate, enjoy the great outdoors, and the many hours of daylight.  Summertime is also a time when your eating goes sideways, and your food environment gets destroyed. In today's episode the Nutrition Grouch explains why he is taking the summer off from podcasting (he'll be back in the fall) and discusses how he...

Hunger is often reported as one of the biggest reasons why a weight loss diet fails.  And yet, dietary strategies to reduce hunger, such as drinking more water, eating more protein, fiber, fruits, and vegetables, and even going on a ketogenic diet are no more effective than diets without a hunger reducing emphasis. In today's podcast The Nutrition Grouch provides an overview for why he believ...

I really don't like fad diets but there are a few things that they actually do get right.  In today's episode I talk about 5 of the things they do get right as well as what some of the pitfalls of even those five "positives" are. To get to that point, we first discuss the multiple diets and diet diversity of our Paleo ancestors based upon region, geography, and season, how rela...

I love nutrition but I hate the way it is practiced.  In my opinion, there's academic nutrition based upon science, facts, figures, and knowledge and then there's the business of nutrition based upon sales, marketing, and persuasion. I just can't figure out how to compete in the business of nutrition, or rather, I just can't bring myself to do it. In health & wellness, nutr...

No one ever has enough time.  Everyone is too busy.  Meal planning becomes an afterthought and meal decisions are made in the moment.  Pardon my pun, but this is not a recipe for success. Diets work in the short-term because they help you create a negative energy balance and provide you with a system and a way of eating.  But they fail in the long-term because diets fall on your priority list and...

Is McDonalds really that bad for you?  Yes, it is.  But it's not McDonalds that is bad, it's how much and how often you eat McDonalds that is bad.  The poison is in the dose.  By focusing so intently on hating McDonalds people are missing the other culprits that make up the majority of our calories in our highly palatable, easily accessible, calorie rich food supply. McDonalds isn't...

Change is super freaking hard.  In an effort to get people to change their diets, many practitioners have advocated for a "small changes" approach.  That is, make a few small changes to your existing diet and exercise to make the change a little easier to get started. On the other side of things, is nutrition perfectionism.  And as the Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin has said,...

"Clean coal" and "light cigarettes" make about as much sense as the "bright side of negativity".  In general, it's almost always to your advantage to be positive than negative. On today's episode, The Nutrition Grouch talks about why he was shocked to realize that he sounded so negative and does his best to explain why.  The nutrition world is showered in an...

Anyone who knows anything about nutrition, knows that the vast majority of nutrition buzzwords are made up, don’t mean anything, misinterpreted, or stolen from an unrelated industry.  These buzzwords belong in works of fiction, not nutritional science. If students in a college class used even a fraction of the buzzwords used to market nutrition, they would fail.  And yet, in the real world, we tol...

Wellness influencers of today are all too often modern-day snake oil salesmen who also happen to be masters of social media.  Enthusiasm, optimism, passion, and artistry trumps evidence, knowledge, facts, and expertise.  Most wellness influencers know very little about nutrition, metabolism, or weight management, and yet they are the leaders in the field. On today’s episode, The Nutrition Grouch p...

GLP-1 weight loss medications are game changing.  Outside of bariatric (weight loss) surgery, there isn’t another diet, exercise or lifestyle modification program that can help you achieve a 15-25% weight loss.  Yet, these medications do have some serious and uncomfortable side effects.  On today’s episode, The Nutrition Grouch provides his take on these blockbuster medications and talks about Why...

According to a recent study…… who cares what your recent study says!  Is it earth shattering? Paradigm shifting? Revolutionary? Game changing? Groundbreaking?  No, it is not.  But that’s not what the news media, internet ads, and radio spots will tell you. Outside of weight loss medications (a category of their own), there haven’t been any truly paradigm shifting research in diet, exercise or beha...

Nutrition and Politics are two seemingly very different fields/disciplines, yet they have far too much in common.  In today’s episode The Nutrition Grouch illustrates the ways in which the disciplines are structured, and how their individual incentives are at odds with actually helping people live better lives.   Nutrition and politics are more about being a performative artist, self-promoter, ins...

Christmas decorations, lights, cards, music, parties, presents………and eating advice.  Every year we do the same things for the holidays, one of which is giving cliched, watered-down holiday eating advice. In today’s episode, The Nutrition Grouch provides his Eight Tips to Survive Holiday Eating and attempts to do so without being too cliché.  While there is no universal advice that will work for ev...

Anyone who diets, will at some point, go through a weight loss stall or a weight loss plateau.  Many people will tell you that your body may have entered “Starvation Mode”.  In starvation mode your body “thinks” you are starving and will no longer allow you to lose any more weight.  But is “starvation mode” really a thing?  And if so, what can you do about it? In today’s episode The Nutrition Grou...

People are obsessed with burning fat to lose weight.  Millions of products, services, and careers are based upon the relationship between fat burning and weight loss.   In today’s podcast, The Nutrition Grouch explains why he thinks burning fat is actually very overrated.  Burning fat isn’t actually controlled by fat, we don’t have a calorie burning or a fat burning problem, we’ve got a calorie co...

Fat – Bad! Muscle - Good! The Nutrition Grouch explores yet another example of overly simplistic, binary, good/bad thinking in the health & wellness industry.  And grumbles that no one takes the time to talk about How much fat is too much? How much muscle do you really need? That people with obesity likely already have enough muscle.  They don't need to build more. Why burning fat, a cata...

The Nutrition Grouch tells the story of his 10-year job odyssey and why it is reflective of a truly broken health & wellness industry.  He ponders why there is apparently no place for someone who has taught at Concorde Career College Johnson and Wales University - Denver The Community College of Denver Metro State University The University of New England Iowa State University East Carolina Uni...

The Nutrition Grouch (Todd) shares how and why his weight has fluctuated by 40 pounds over the years in his autobiographical weight narrative AND why it is important for people to know their own story.  Includes Beer drinking and weightlifting in college Riding 100s of miles at Iowa State and doing half-ironman triathlons Severely hurting his back How his PhD almost killed him and sent him into a...

Recap of keys 1-8 including what Daniel Kahneman’s “Thinking Fast and Slow” System 1 versus System 2 comparison means for decision making when it comes to your food and food environment.  Why diet is more important than exercise to lose weight (but you still have to exercise).  Why Todd hasn’t been to the gym in a month, slow and steady does not win the race, how no one celebrates by NOT eating fo...

The Nutrition Grouch shares the first 8 of his 15 keys to weight management.  Items discussed include trying not to be so hard on yourself, the role of your food environment and how it has caused obesity but can also cure it, our snack culture, setting realistic weight loss expectations, how there are no short cuts, nutrition is not a transactional fix it and forget it service, you have to be full...

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.  Despite all the wild claims and massive positivity claiming otherwise, there is no “best” diet.  There isn’t even a “right” diet for you.  The idea of a “right” diet is a very American, individualistic concept.  Yes, humans are different but there isn’t a “right” diet type for anyone.  All diets suck and provide suboptimal results.  Rather than ar...

Todd talks about how privileged he feels to have avoided Covid for so long (got it for the first time last week) and how these "life" privileges (advantages) directly affect how he eats.  He also discusses how he became a stay at home dad, the importance of a weekly meal cycle, how to overcome eating obstacles (the obstacle meter), why nutrition is not transactional (you have to do the w...

In today’s episode, Todd Weber, PhD (aka, The Nutrition Grouch) talks about his small town, west central Wisconsin upbringing, choosing a college, changing majors, being an idiot, reading Muscle & Fitness, going to school forever (BS, MS, PhD), creating a 5000 paper database on weight management, his first foray into health & wellness misinformation, the early days blogging post PhD, not b...

The weight loss industry is, has been, and always will be a dumpster fire.  People like to say health & wellness (of which weight loss is a part of) is “broken” or full of “misinformation” but that is being too generous because it implies that some of it is good or that it is actually fixable.  It is damaged beyond repair.  If it were possible, I would burn it to the ground and start over.   W...