Eating Disorders
People have accused me of promoting eating disorders with my nutritional strictness. Eating disorders are very serious and life threatening and far more common than you realize. 2.5% of men and 6% of women will have eating disorders at some point during their lives. I have the greatest sympathy for these folks and these are horrible diseases, however, I can’t water down the nutritional information that 95% of you need to hear in order to protect the 5% who have no business getting their nutritional information from the internet anyway!
I promote the eating of simple unprocessed or minimally processed foods, not only is it healthy but it results in natural weight reduction without causing any feelings of deprivation – THAT is emotionally healthy! One of the most common complaints about the meals generated by my custom meal planner for fat loss is that there is too much food! Seriously, people tell me that they cannot stuff themselves with that many vegetables. Being deprived of food is almost a certain recipe for lifelong emotional scarring. Back in World War II, the USA did experiments on caloric deprivation on American volunteers and those folks carried the anxiety about being food deprived to their graves. That is why you will note that anytime I am talking about weight loss, I will say that if you are hungry then you are doing something VERY wrong. If your nutrition is good while you are lowering your bodyfat then you will not be hungry, and if you are hungry, then you do not understand what good nutrition is!
Many people who lack even basic nutritional knowledge and cannot read a nutritional label or list of ingredients to save their lives need a simpler rule to keep them healthy and thats where the “If it tastes good, spit it out” comes in. If something you are eating tastes delicious and you do not know the list of ingredients then I can guarantee you with 99% accuracy that it tastes good because its unhealthy and it has no business in your mouth. It has artificial flavors, loads of salt, loads of highly processed simple carbs, or tons of bad fat. If you are someone who has eating disorders, do not project your problems onto the 95% of people who are helped by this advice!
Seriously, eating disorders are a disease. Its not like the flu, you don’t catch it from someone sneezing and you don’t get eating disorders from watching YouTube videos. Like all diseases, you need the help of medical professionals. You would laugh if I said I was doing a wepage on DIY open heart surgery but self treating your eating disorder by getting your nutritional advice on the internet is just as stupid. Treating eating disorders takes both a physician to treat the symptoms and a mental health professional to eliminate the underlying causes of the disease. If you have *any* tendencies toward eating disorders then do not use my nutritional information nor any information you find on the internet because its not going to work for you! You need the help of professionals.
As you know, I just did a mens physique contest and my nutrition has been on rails for 8 weeks as is required to do such a contest. About 3 weeks before the contest, I did a Facebook post saying that our 98 year old friend Helen made Spaghetti pie for us so I was going to have to do another 2 hrs of cardio that day. Someone accused me of being one step away from an eating disorder. To that I say, don’t project your issue on me – I have no eating disorder. Doing a show is like sending a Apollo capsule to the moon and every thruster burn needs to be accounted for, there is no margin for error. I repeat, if YOU have an eating disorder then you have no business what-so-ever getting your nutritional information from the internet! For the rest of us, doing a bit of exercise after a large meal is a completely reasonable action.
We have become a nation of whiners who think that we deserve to have every single bite to taste like bacon, nachos, or rich chocolate.
Scooby Werkstatt
Yes, I am unapologetic when it comes to nutrition because SOMEBODY has to be. You can’t eat whatever you want and have an amazing physique too, it just doesn’t work like that. If you want to be ripped, muscular, and healthy, it requires sacrifices and that means unprocessed natural foods. Me telling people the this truth isn’t causing eating disorders, its the advertisements showing size 0 women eating nachos thats causing eating disorders. Its Mark Rippetoe of my Fitness Hall of Shame fame causing eating disorders by telling teens that if they can’t gain 31 pounds of “lean body mass” in 6 months while doing SS, GOMAD (Gallon Of Milk A Day), and 6000 calories a day then its THEIR fault because “You are not doing the program”. Its the supplement warehouses like bodybuilding.com causing the eating disorders by convincing the world that “bulking up” just means stuffing your face with thousands of calories from their sugary “mass gain” products. Its the advertisers causing eating disorders by promising completely unrealistic results. Me telling people that they need to stop eating garbage and start working out hard and eating unprocessed foods like vegetables, whole grains, fruits, and legumes is not causing eating disorders. Alles klar?
I don’t care how bad your day was or what you think you deserve after “being so good for so long”. One “bad food day” can completely undo three weeks of dieting. There is no “deserve”, there is simply monthly caloric surplus or monthly caloric deficit and one makes you fatter and one makes you leaner. Try to stop thinking of food as a reward, we are not lab monkeys. Think instead about the reward of having a ripped, strong physique! Which do you want? You can’t have them both!
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