Black Hills Nutrition

04/26/2020

My social distancing-era “diet” advice:

Our bodies are designed to feel comfort and pleasure when eating. That response is an evolutionary advantage. Using inexpensive foods high in energy and low in nutrients (aka “hyper-palatable” foods) to help get through the day is a very human thing to do. It’s not a moral shortcoming. If you emerge from this time a few pounds heavier or with your chronic pain, diabetes, or heart disease less well controlled, you haven’t failed. You have shown yourself to be human. Give yourself a break.

I mean- if you can avoid these things, then great! But that would mean you have fought against your evolutionary impulses in the face of unprecedented circumstances, so if you don’t do that, then again- be kind to yourself. Being kind is good for your health.

03/07/2020

I highly recommend the recent episode of this podcast that tasks about exercise. It’s a short listen that I found to be really motivating. The summary is: a lot more counts as exercise than you think, and small choices add up.

‎Science · 2020

12/03/2019

This article makes a good point. And inspired me to jump on my :
After a lot of reading and 10 years of professional experience, I have concluded that we as nutrition professionals have to set aside a lot of assumptions (and bad science) in order to move forward with actually helping fat people. That includes listening and staying open minded about what the latest literature is saying about Calorie counting, yo-yo dieting, and weight as an independent predictor of health.

Why thin people great ’til they gotta be great?

10/15/2019

I interpret the data to suggest that some of the better artificial sweeteners have their place, but there are risks such as hijacking your hunger/fullness clues. (Shared from Lily Nichols, RDN)

Like a freshly cracked diet soda, suspicions have been fizzing away for years that artificial sweeteners may not be the best way to slim down

10/03/2019

I usually roll my eyes when I listen to podcasts exposing medical “quackery” because the author is usually a smug scientist who isn’t considering why people seek out alternatives to conventional medicine and spends the whole time bullying anyone who dares to question the status quo. I’m looking at you, Gimlet’s “Science Vs.” Episode two of this podcast seems different. The host looked into health “quackery” and focused on Goop (which I am familiar with due to headlines only). He examined the fact that women (not to mention minorities or people of size) are misrepresented in scientific research and are often misdiagnosed, ignored, or managed like a 70 kg “standard” man for a number of reasons. So it’s natural for us to seek out alternatives. I appreciate this discussion and thought you might, too.

‎News · 2019

09/17/2019

Meg Boggs is helping me to better understand what radical body acceptance and self-care can look like for people the medical community would describe as obese. I work with a lot of people who fit this description. Meg is an athlete- she is seriously into power lifting. Her self-love and positive body image platform have me thinking of the changes that my body is making right now. I’m nearly 8 months pregnant, but I am probably at a lower body fat % than I was when I got pregnant. This is likely due to having stopped breastfeeding (my son’s choice) and having been nauseous and with a poor appetite throughout my pregnancy. I get a lot of comments that go something like “you look really good for how far along you are.” This makes me think two things. First, it reminds me of my concern that my unborn child might be under-nourished because my appetite and food intake have been less than ideal during this pregnancy. Second, it is so weird to think about others developing thoughts around the physique of a PREGNANT PERSON.

If you are thinking about commenting on the body of a person of size or a pregnant person or really anyone, I have this advice: just don’t.

09/04/2019

This headline is hyperbole, but the sentiment is correct. The way our food is raised matters, whether that is meat, soy, or tomatoes. Losing rainforest to soy crops is not better than losing rainforest to grazing land for cattle. Like most things, nuance is needed in the discussion about which foods are better and worse for the planet. It’s not as simple as “eat less meat.”

In Brazil, land is being cleared at an alarming rate to plant every vegetarian's favorite crop: Soy.

08/18/2019

🙌🏻

07/24/2019

Enough said.

Your body deserves so much more.

07/04/2019

So interesting! We have much to learn about the effect of diet in psychiatry.

05/20/2019

05/17/2019

“Dr. Hall cautioned against demonizing processed foods, because many Americans depend on them: Ultra-processed foods are cheap, convenient and long lasting. The unprocessed diet used in the study, for example, cost 40 percent more than the ultra-processed diet.

“We’re talking about foods that make up more than 50 percent of people’s diets, and they can be very attractive to people who have limited time, money, skills and access to ingredients that they can use to make meals from scratch,” he said. “For people who are working two jobs just to make ends meet and have a family to feed, a frozen pizza looks very good at the end of the day.””

This is what food inequality looks like.

Edited to add: article title is unfortunate,
But study it describes is interesting.

People who followed a diet of ultra-processed foods ate about 500 more calories a day compared to when they ate a whole foods diet.