Two Foods You Should Stop Eating Yesterday

 

 

What if I told you that most people could cut out a huge chunk of health problems just by eliminating two groups of food? Well, you can.

Cutting out these two food groups can help regulate your hormone levels, make it easier to lose weight, improve gut health, normalize blood sugar levels & even improve allergies. If you take a look at food groups through the lens of the 80/20 Principle, these two foods would be the 20% of foods that cause 80% of the problems in most people’s diets.

So what are they? Well here are the two foods you should stop eating – yesterday preferably. Here we go.

Dairy

What Standard Nutrition Advice Would Have You Believe:

“It’s great for you! It’s got calcium! But be careful of that fatty, whole milk. Better drink either skim or 1%, just to be safe – and try to forget that 1% tastes like water. I mean it has to be good for you right? Besides thousands of terrible milk mustaches & “got milk” campaigns can’t be wrong – can they?”

Well…actually…

Why Dairy Is Actually Terrible For You

Dairy has different levels of bad, but particularly low-fat, 1% and skim milk are highly insullogenic – that means they cause your insulin levels to spike and causes your body to stop burning fat.  And don’t get me started on the fact that it’s nearly impossible to find chocolate milk without HFCS and corn starch in it. Really, corn starch in your milk? When’s the last time you said “yum” to corn starch? Toss in the fact that a huge portion of the population is lactose intolerant and the links to cancer that milk is known for and the picture isn’t looking too pretty.

If you’re going to have dairy, make it either fermented (cheese, whey protein, grassfed butter, or yogurt – without a ton of a sugar). Sure, ice cream is delicious  but there’s really no need for a daily shellacking of dairy in your diet.

Grains

Standard Nutrition Advice:

You need grains more than you need oxygen – they’re that important! Why else would we need 6-11 servings a day? I mean, just look at this chart!

“They help with digestion & give you fiber! Not to mention, it’s completely UNREALISTIC to actually cut out ALL grains from your diet. I’m Italian, I can’t live without grains – we’re not animals, you know?”

Well…actually…

Why Grains Are Terrible For You

Grains are actually pretty unnecessary. They contain gluten, lectins and phytates that make minerals unavailable to your body & create situations prime for obesity.

Oh, and that’s just the start. It can lead to leaky gut, weight gain and even cause type 2 diabetes. That’s before we get into how these simple carbohydrates affect your blood sugar & insulin levels and cause you to store fat instead of burning it and using it for fuel. Whether you’re into paleo or not, when you look at grains (and wheat especially), there’s a ton of really, really good reasons not to eat them.

Despite all of this, 6-11 servings of grains was common nutritional advice from the government up until 2011!

The truth is, for most people, there’s really very little reason to include many (or any) grains in their diet on a regular basis and once you try it, they’re not so “impossible” to cut out of your diet either. If you need a substantial amounts of carbohydrates (endurance athletes or power lifters come to mind), you can get them from vegetables & squashes that give you the energy sources you need without the added side effects of feces in your blood stream & type 2 diabetes (sounds like a good tradeoff to me).

Note: It’s funny that somehow both of these have made it into a standard american breakfast of cereal with milk – which is the absolute worst time to do this as the morning is your body’s prime time to burn fat and both of these “foods” bring that process to a screeching halt. Do yourself a favor & choose eggs & bacon for your morning breakfast instead.

80/20 your diet and take out these two foods from your diet. You might be surprised at the results.

Want to clean up your diet? Start with these two foods & cut out dairy & grains. Notice how you feel and see what happens.

photo credit: Dustin Diaz