Once you do any reading at all about how to eat healthfully, you quickly fnd out that there are lots of different opinions on what’s healthy. I’d like to draw the proverbial line in the sand now because a lot of what’s out there is dead wrong.

What’s NOT healthy eating:

1. Any diet where you’re told to eat large amounts of meat and high-fat dairy (cheese, yogurt, etc.). Though a small amount in your diet is OK (as in 12 oz. or less per week), consuming lots of meat and dairy is not health-promoting in any way and significantly increases your risk of many cancers, autoimmune diseases and other disease.
2. Diets that ask you to replace actual meals with powders, whey protein, etc. or take huge quantities of supplements to make up for the poor quality of the food in the diet itself. Taking a multivitamin and a specific supplement or two relevant to any health conditions you might have is fine, but powders and potions don’t work the magic that the vitamin marketers want you to think.
3. So-called “moderation” diets where you can eat anything you want “in moderation”; there truly are limits that should be made on certain food items, plain and simple.
4. Portion control. A little portion control might be needed for a handful of items in the diet (higher-fat foods, meat/dairy, olive oil), but for most people, controlling portions means having to exercise willpower at every meal. The goal of making healthy eating your lifestyle is NOT to have to be in total control every time you sit down in front of a plate of food. If you eat the right foods, your body typically lets you know when you’ve had enough.
5. Any diet where you are supposed to severely limit your caloric intake without dramatically increasing your (micro)nutrient intake. I’m going to write more about the magic of micronutrients in another post very soon, but in the interim, let’s just say that most diets get this all wrong. If you cut back on calories to, say, 1,000 a day and you’re still eating cheeseburgers, you’re in trouble. Not only will you be very hungry a lot of the time, making sustaining your diet difficult, but you’re also going to be depriving your body of nutrients it really needs in order to run optimally. In upcoming posts I’ll show you how you can cut calories without running this risk — all with foods from your grocery store. No “magic” foods required.
6. Diets that tell you to eat Frankenfoods, a.k.a. highly processed foods like Cool Whip, Jell-O, etc. or anything known to be genetically modified or otherwise refined or enriched to satisfy yourself with fewer calories. Those are not real foods, and they shouldn’t be treated as such.

Just following these rules alone will help you navigate the waters of healthy eating more effectively. In an upcoming post I’ll elaborate more on what constitutes true healthy eating and how you can add more healthy foods to your diet.