When “Healthy” Goes Too Far: Meet Orthorexia
Let’s begin with a little game of association here. When you hear the word healthy, what comes to your mind?
Images or phrases such as gluten-free, juice cleanse, abs, dairy-free, paleo, keto, whole30, dewy skin, and ________ [insert any other #trendingnow idea] may have come to mind. As you can see, the term “healthy” is pretty loaded these days.
The Smoke and Mirrors of Diet Culture
We are constantly inundated with messages about what you should eat, how you should look, and how you should move. We are told that once we check all of these boxes, our body will look a certain way, and we will be accepted and happy, right?
Wrong.
Travel Nutrition Priorities
We love traveling at EVOLVE, whether it's a quick weekend in Scout the Van (see figure 1), or jet setting to far off lands.
Exploring new places, cultures, and food is great, but we know that it is easy to feel like travel throws a wrench in all of your awesome, healthy nutrition habits. So, let’s take a moment to break down our nutrition strategies on the road or in the air.
I like good fats and I cannot lie: A guide to "healthy" fats
It seems like there’s always some type of debate going on in the nutrition world about the role of fat in a healthy diet.
First, low-fat was the way to go. This led to the development of sketchy fat substitutes like “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” (I can believe it) or Olestra (anal leakage for your Friday night?), and the injection of excessive amounts of sugar and salt into “low fat” foods to make them taste good and pass as edible.
Then, the pendulum swung to the opposite side of the spectrum with the Paleo and other ancestral health movements, which promoted fat as the new solution to all of our diet-related problems. Hungry? Need to lose weight? Want more energy? Just add butter to it! Things like Bulletproof Coffee became the new craze, and bacon became a “health food.”
We’re now living in this awkward new world where it seems like things are just plain confusing. Some people remain stuck in the low-fat mindset while others pile bacon, butter, and olive oil on top of everything.
Hydration 101: Are you meeting your water needs?
You’ve probably heard the old adage, “Drink 8 glasses of water a day.” You may have heard that water is important to either overall health, or weight loss, or both.
But what’s the real story behind this conventional wisdom? Can we look to real physiology and science to guide our thinking and behavior on hydration?
You bet.