Today’s post is going to be a little different. Plus, no exciting eats today. But take a moment to appreciate this. 

I have like 8 mangos and I’m still thinking it’s not enough. Heehee.

Let’s talk Nutrition. It is a love of mine, although maybe it hasn’t gotten so much love lately. I haven’t really talked about my views on Nutrition much, and I have to say, my own eating certainly doesn’t represent my Nutrition beliefs.

Here are my 2 favorite Nutrition books, and believe me, I’ve read a ton. Now that I have a fairly formed belief system, I find it kind of amusing to read some of the books now. That being said, there is no one ideal diet that works for everyone.

This book a Nutritionist recommended to me. I ordered and read it immediately. Bonus: there is an app with all the recipes. My personal favorite is the granola bars. 

Also though, the Chocolate Lush saved me when I was stupid enough watch cupcake wars after getting my wisdom teeth out. It is basically warm, gooey chocolate cake. It was painful, but so, so worth it. 

The second is this book:

This is the iBook form, I lent my roommate my hard copy. The author was actually my professor for my Nutrition class Fall quarter, although I had already read the book! This is my all time favorite Nutrition book. It is the most comprehensive and easy to understand, and it is very thorough.

So what have I learned from all this?

Aurora’s Nutrition Philosophy:

1. We really don’t know anything about Nutrition. This is an exaggeration, but there simply isn’t enough data to actually know anything for sure. New studies come out all the time. It is fairly easy to manipulate a study to show the intended result (soda companies fund some studies). We don’t know enough about how the human body works at a more complex level to know, for example, whether you get the same benefits from taking vitamins as from eating them in food. Our knowledge is constantly changing, conveniently for the fad diet companies…

2. If possible, try to have a fat, a carb, and a protein, plus fruit or veggies at every meal.

3. Carbs are absolutely necessary for Post-exercise recovery, not just protein.

4. Sugar….let’s not get me started on it. Let’s just say it is not terribly good for you…

5. Fad diets never work. Crash diets never work. You know how they say if you starve yourself, you will lose muscle weight as well as fat? And fat comes back faster than muscle? I had some first hand experience with that. When I was sick, for a good 2 weeks I hardly ate anything (because I felt terrible). I lost weight, including a ton of muscle. And guess what came back right away? The flab. And now the muscle is finally coming back…

6. Whole grains are better than white ones.

7. Avoid saturated fats (eat healthy fats, especially those Omega-3s).

8. More research needs to be done on Nutrition. This is where I come in 🙂

Random picture because I had a ton of words…have you guys tried this stuff? It’s delish 🙂 I just wish almond milk had more than like 1g of protein…

So why can’t I follow my own Nutrition guidelines?

1. Food tastes good. Oops…

2. Eating nuts makes my skin go crazy…so getting healthy fats in can be more of a challenge. And let’s be honest. I’ve basically been getting strictly Sunflower seed butter as my healthy fats as of late. Mix it up!

3. Grains seems to make me fall asleep….Not sure why, and not sure what grains specifically, or all, but that kind of complicates matters.

4. I may be addicted to sugar, hence avoiding it/not eating too much is a bit of an issue.

5. I swear normally I am better with my nutrition…not sure what happened…

6. Sometimes I try to do too much and it all backfires.

If you guys haven’t noticed, I’ve been seriously searching for my Nutrition as of late…And since you guys haven’t seen any cat photos in a while (I’ve been back less than 2 weeks, so I guess it really can’t have been THAT long…), here you go!

What is she doing?