The essence of “optimum nutrition” lies in eliminating “negative” foods that will encourage weight gain, and introducing “positive” foods that will stabilise weight and provide many other health and wellness benefits. Optimum nutrition also requires regulating volume of consumption and ensuring continual variety.
The UK is an obesogenic environment, and that means that amongst other things, it is filled with inappropriate energy dense foods that we were not designed to eat. The process of returning back to eating natural foods and a healthy and nutritious diet will mean different things to different people. For some this will simply mean a few additional adjustments that will be accommodated with relative ease, whilst for others it may mean a radical overhaul of their entire approach to food, from purchase, storage and preparation to consumption. Which of these categories do you think best describes you? This may first appear a daunting concept, but with a little application and an open mind combined with our unlimited support, you will rid yourself of the blight of overweight, which the consumption of high levels of inappropriate highly processed refined artificial fatty and salty foods will always bring.
Consider how energy efficient the body is. The average car will do 40 miles per gallon, and even the most energy efficient vehicles such as mopeds will only achieve 100 mpg at best. You may not know it, but you can run your diesel car on chip fat, and the calorie value of vegetable oil and fossil oil is exactly the same at 9 kcals per gram. So for us vegetable oil is an edible fuel that is very high in energy. If you were to jump on a bicycle and take with you a gallon of vegetable oil as fuel this is what you could expect:
1 gallon oil (5 litres) equals approximately 5,000g of oil. Each gram provides 9 kcals of energy giving a total value for the gallon of 45,000 kcals. If you peddled at a moderate rate on your bicycle you could easily achieve 15mph on a flat track, using on average 300 kcals per hour. If we divide the total energy available from the gallon of oil by the number of calories burned per hour, and multiply this by the mph then we can see that our bodies can average 2,250 Miles Per Gallon!
45,000 divided by 300 kcals per hour, multiplied by 15 miles per hour = 2,250 mpg
Our bodies were designed to run on low energy foods such as natural and plant-based foods. When we start concentrating energy in the refining process, such as extracting oils from seeds and refining carbohydrates and sugars, these levels of energy are simply too concentrated for our current lifestyles, and overweight and obesity will be inevitable. Therefore next time you reach for a high energy snack, consider how long you may have to pedal your bike to burn off those calories. It may make you think again!
