Clean eating vs Junk food
Calories are paramount to success when it comes to weight loss and weight gain.
‘Clean foods’ provide a wealth of micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) and they are the cornerstone of many healthy populations diets, however, calorie counting is still king when it comes to weight loss or weight gain.
Contrary to some advice that is out there you cannot eat unlimited amounts of foods, especially those that are high in calories and then expect to maintain the same amount of weight that you currently are.
Calories and eating within your calorie budget are still key when it comes to weight loss and long term health. You can eat the most nutritious foods such as, avocados, nuts, sweet potatoes etc but if you eat too many of these in which then becomes that your calorie intake is greater than your calorie output then you will put yourself in a calorie surplus in which it will make you gain weight.
Healthy eating doesn’t mean weight loss or even health. You can over-consume healthy foods and become obese and if we know one thing from the research it’s that being overweight is unhealthy.
Whilst I promote that everybody gets the majority of food from healthy foods that are full of micronutrients i.e from fruit and vegetables (vitamins and minerals), well if you eat too many you will become overweight and if you get overweight then you will eventually become unhealthy and it will increase your risk of all-cause diseases.
Calories are king and to show you just how important they are here I will tell you why that is...
A study was done one day by a professor who decided to show the power of a calorie deficit by going on what he called ‘the twinkie diet’.
This diet was filled full of ‘junk food’ that you could buy from any garage in America.
It included twinkies, nutty bars (like Kitkats in the U.K), powdered doughnuts and a tin of vegetables (green beans) in the evenings with his children as he wanted to set a good example to them by showing them that he’s eating vegetables.
He would also have a protein shake to make sure that he got enough protein in and that was all that he ate, however, the huge caveat was that he was in a calorie deficit and even though he was going to eat Twinkies, doughnuts etc he would never eat more than 1,800 calories a day.
Before he did this diet he ate healthily as he ate foods like eggs, vegetables, fruit etc but he was eating at 2,700 calories a day so it ended up that he was eating at his maintenance calories. Therefor going on this twinkie diet in which he had 1,800 calories a day he then put himself in a 900 calorie a day deficit.
Over the course of 10 weeks, he lost 27 pounds (1.9 stone) on the twinkie diet and he went from 200 pounds to 173 pounds over the course of these 10 weeks.
So this is to show that this idea of ‘eating clean’ to stay healthy is simply not true.
The professor also went from 33.4% of body fat to 24.9% of body fat.
His LDL (classed as bad cholesterol) went down by 20% and his HDL (classed as good cholesterol) went up by 20%.
His triglycerides (the fat in your blood) went down by 39% as well.
This is only one case study and consuming this type of diet long term, well we don’t know the long term health complications so I wouldn’t personally recommend it.
I just simply wanted to say about it in order to highlight the power of a calorie deficit.
Does this mean that food quality doesn’t matter?
Well, it does matter when it comes to the importance of weight loss as it goes as followed -
Adherence
Calories
Macronutrients
Sleep
Micronutrients
If we are looking at weight and fat loss, calorie balance is king. No matter how nutritious foods might be, they will make you unhealthy if you overeat that food.
What is food quality?
A balanced diet -
70% of your food comes from whole and minimally processed foods that you love the taste of i.e plenty of vegetables, lean meats, eggs and fruit.
10% coming from whole and minimally processed foods that are neutral to your taste but you don’t mind eating them as you know that they’re good for you, i.e broccoli, greens beans.
10% of semi - questionable junk food that you love the taste of, i.e eat natural bars etc.
10% of blatant junk food that you love the taste of i.e chocolate, cakes, crisps etc.
As long as we’re getting that 80-90% from minimally processed foods then we’re going to get in all of the micronutrients that we need, but then by having the 10% of the ‘junk food’, well it won’t make us fat as we know it comes down to calories in vs calories out but if we then eat to our calorie budget whether that be a deficit or a surplus we can afford to have a small bit of food that we love such as a 200 calorie chocolate bar that fits within your calorie budget as we can have this and still lose weight.
How can food quality impact diet?
Food quality and calorie intake aren’t completely discontinued because food quality can have a huge impact on your calories.
Fibre - This can aid your digestion and digestion will help with how you feel so if you don’t feel too bad and if you feel well then you’re going to be moving around more too
Foods that are minimally processed like lean meats, vegetables, eggs etc, well these will fill you up and keep you fuller for longer which is important when we’re on a diet
Satiety (hunger control) - The signals that are within our brain that keeps us full up. Protein is one of the most satiating things that we can eat and if we look at things like twinkies/cakes for example, well these are low in protein, however, after eating more natural sources of food that are minimally processed, they’re going to keep us fuller for longer and keep us on track
Micronutrients for health - Making sure we have enough vitamins and minerals from fruit and vegetables
Clean foods - These are often high in volume in other words you can have lots of them for low amounts of calories and they're also full of micronutrients so you don’t actually absorb the same number of calories from some ‘clean foods’ because it takes longer for your body to break them down, therefore food quality still is important when it comes to dieting so they do go hand in hand, but if we have to put them in order of importance then calories are still king.
Some people also say that food quality doesn’t matter and to only eat natural foods and then that way you won’t get fat, this is completely false.