Nutrition

I recently saw a TV commercial advertising a breakfast cereal that is now gluten free. Perhaps you've seen it. In the commercial, after the narrator announces that the cereal is gluten free, he says, "...and kids know how good that is for you." My immediate thought was: do they?

I don't think that many adults, let alone kids, know what gluten free is, or if and why it might be bad for them. Instead, what I saw was a commercial that was trying to deceive consumers into thinking that "gluten free" means a healthier diet, or that going gluten free will help you to lose weight. Not so fast!

I grew up in an Irish-American household. Dinner always included a vegetable, and whether it was fresh, frozen or canned, my mother boiled the hell out of them for twenty minutes before serving. It was like exorcising the demons out of the vegetables, but in the case of vegetables, it wasn't demons: it was nutrients. I don't blame my mom. She didn't know any better. She came from a long tradition destroying vegetables. Potato famine, anyone?

You don't need to feel full in order to give your body the fuel it needs.

I made this video, thwarting one technical difficulty after the other, to prove a point: You can eat five meals a day, while keeping the calories down, all while providing your body with the fuel it needs in order to sustain your life functions. You don't need to feel full in order to give your body the fuel it needs. You should be drinking plenty of water. That may help you to feel somewhat full without negatively impacting your goals, but feeling full should not be your goal. Providing yourself with an adequate amount of healthy food should be.