How I discovered the beauty of eating well

It’s funny how sometimes, you only realise the beauty of something after doing it for a whole different reason. I started eating well purely to lose weight. It worked, and that felt awesome, but that was only the beginning of the awesomeness…

In Summer 2015, after the first year of my Psychology Bachelors, I was a little bit smarter and a little bit fatter. This was because before uni, most of my food intake went towards growth, and while my diet was never crazy healthy growing up, it sure beat my uni diet: a daily dose of two-minute noodles and increasing piles of chips and mayo. So it came as a bit of a shock when my parents called out the pounds I put on.

Losing weight was never something I cared about before. My monstrous appetite was always balanced by my active lifestyle and growth. But without the growth, was my belly doomed to expand as I try to satiate my chronically monstrous appetite?

I was worried going in, but that didn’t stop me from trying. I had a good body growing up, giving me a clear baseline target to return to. My Summer break was three months, so I had ample time to figure out this weight loss thing.

For the purpose of weight loss, the experiment paid off. For the purpose I didn’t even think of, that of health and happiness, I got a ball rolling that’s been rewarding me ever since. Sure, there were some kinks to iron out, but it put me on the right trajectory. So what did I do? What went well, and what can you skip on your own journey towards better eating?

Cutting lunch: effective, but not worth it

I started with the most obvious change I could think of: eat less. For reasons I can’t recall, I decided to cut out an entire meal per day. I had a later breakfast and earlier dinner, both being bigger, but it was less food overall.

It worked, in the sense that I lost weight quickly enough that my parents noticed (I was living with them for the Summer). However, it also started an ugly binge cycle. Realising I was able to lose weight much faster than I ever thought possible, I “treated” myself to some sweets as soon as I noticed enough weight loss. By my calculations at the time, I could totally keep eating sweets and still lose weight in time for Year 2!

But by “some” sweets I mean entire grocery bags of biscuits, chocolate bars, and cookies – all in one night. I’ll elaborate on these binges in another post, but the feeling of deprivation from avoiding lunch certainly contributed to the cravings. So no matter how effective eating way less is short-term, it’s a recipe for disaster.

Verdict

Weight loss: Effective! I did this in conjunction with another change (see “Cutting Carbs” below), so I can’t pinpoint to what degree eating way less overall or eating less carbs reduced my weight, but they both played a part.

When I really stuck it out, I lost about a kilo a week, even accounting for the ludicrous binges!

Health & happiness: No. Just no. Useful as a temporary measure, but nothing to make you sustainably happy.

That Summer, it was alright – my friends were all overseas so I spent a lot of the time alone and just fucking around, so I didn’t notice the hunger too badly. That all changed as soon as uni started again.

I got so used to this restricted diet that I still didn’t feel explicitly hungry around lunchtime. But now that I had work to do again, I just couldn’t focus. I felt weak and tired. Only after my friends repeatedly told me to eat more, did I reluctantly give in, and boy did I feel better.

Also, following the brief hedonic pleasure of each binge came a period of pure regret, and an even stronger urge to work and starve that off again. I also daydreamed of dinner during the day and the sweets as the weekend approached, making it even harder to focus on and enjoy things.

In brief, this is where I learned the valuable lesson that losing weight and being healthy are not always the same. That’s a topic I’ll write way more on in upcoming posts.

Cutting carbs: Effective and totally worth it

Changing my quantity of calories didn’t quite work out for me, but what about the quality? I did some research, and stumbled upon the low carb, high fat diet. I was fascinated by the idea of ketosis, the body’s state of burning fat, rather than carbs.

Being 19 and a uni student, there was one thing that stopped me from going full keto: drinking. Alcohol is a big no-no for ketosis, and I couldn’t fathom the idea of just giving that up. So I didn’t go for full keto, but I did follow the basic principles regardless.

Since I didn’t cook at the time, I asked my parents to pretty please leave out any spaghetti, rice, and bread out of the meals they cook for me, or at least separate them so I can just eat the meat and veggies. At least mum could make vegetables taste pretty good, unlike at college, so that helped.

Outside of my massive binges, I ate less sweets throughout the day, something I did frequently before uni and even more so during uni.

Around two weeks in, mum commented on how lean I looked, that my muscles look a lot more defined. In those same two weeks, I lost 1.5-2kg. I don’t know how much the psychology of knowing you’re on a diet ties into what you see in the mirror, but I swore I could see more of my cheekbones.

Verdict

Weight loss: Effective! Again, combined with the lack of lunch, it’s hard to say at the time how much each change contributed. What I can say, however, is that pre-carb cutting, I could never dream of going a few hours without eating. With more filling meals, I still didn’t enjoy it, but it was achievable. Future tweaks where I had less carbs and still ate a lot confirm its effectiveness, but that’s for another time.
Health & happiness: Awww yeahhhh! Besides feeling less intense hunger, I just felt… better! More energetic! There might be a few reasons for this: One, I was excited to be on a new diet, and that translated into more life energy.

Two, I replaced the rice and bread with a greater variety of meats and vegetables. That exposed me to way more nutrients than I previously had on a regular basis. I was also constantly excited to eat out, as I kept wanting to try new things and discovered some of my now favourite foods!

As you can see, there are, once again, multiple factors at play. There always are. But as future me can confirm, cutting carbs played a big role in me feeling better.

However, I wasn’t as effective in cutting carbs as I could have been, because there was one final change I only started doing towards the end, and I had yet to do it properly:

Reading the nutrition label: Nigh-on impossible to reach your nutritional goals without this

This one initially caused me major frustration. But had I not learned it, I may be secretly sabotaging all my efforts to this day. Fitting the theme of this post, I started reading the label for a whole different reason: to find the lowest-calorie foods.

After spending way too much time pestering my parents with questions like “How many calories does this have?” “What about this?” “But what if you add this??”, I discovered there’s a simple answer most of the time: it’s on the back of the box. I say box because, when I started, I was looking for the lowest-calorie breakfast cereals. While people have some intuition about which foods are higher or lower in calories, once you make a habit of verifying your hunch, you realise just how much you don’t know.

My frustration came when foods I thought were not too heavy were super calorific, but it also opened my eyes. By finally knowing the truth, I could be confident in my efforts from here on out. I even discovered some pleasant surprises, where foods I thought were heavy were actually not!

I’ve learned far more valuable lessons since then, like the fact that calories are NOT, in fact, your enemy, and that there are way worse things to try and avoid than calories. Thankfully, those very things (like sugar and trans fat) are on the label too! As are goodies you want more of (protein, fat, and fibre)! So even though my use of the label was misguided, the habit of checking it and gaining that confidence has been invaluable for me.

What if you’re eating a food that doesn’t come in a package, or is already out of the package?

Apps like Cronometer and MyFitnessPal can be your best buddy. A quick Google like “banana nutrition 100g” usually also does the trick. I’ll dedicate a post (or multiple) to the how I used these in the most helpful ways.

Verdict

Weight loss: A must. Within my strategy at the time of consuming less calories, this was a lifesaver. It was like wearing the glasses from They Live, or unplugging from the matrix – I could finally see the truth in terms of how many calories I’m consuming.

Experience over the years has taught me that there are better ways of losing weight than just restricting calories, but even for those ways, the label has it all: Fats, protein, fibre, carbs. So whatever your goal, whatever your method – read the damn label!

Health & happiness: A must. While the initial frustration was painful, it stopped me from guessing. It removed any uncertainty. I no longer had to worry about whether something was calorific, because I knew. That confidence saved me a near limitless amount of anxiety and mental energy spent overthinking things I thought I had no way of knowing.

Any new food I haven’t heard of before, I just check the label. If it doesn’t meet my nutritional criteria, I don’t buy it. It saves me a lot of the heartbreak of finding something delicious only to discover, years later, that it’s terrible for you.

There are countless other reasons to be aware of what’s in the food you eat, and we’ll dive into those in a dedicated post. Or several – it’s an amazingly overlooked habit for people trying to eat healthier. And it’s not much effort.

The beauty of eating well

The point I’m trying to make with this post is that there’s a pretty awesome reason to eat well: to feel amazing. Losing weight is great if that’s your goal, and it sure feeds into how you feel about yourself. But before I even noticed my success in shedding pounds, I just felt happier and more energetic. Maybe that changed when I was back at uni, but that’s because I was focusing on cutting calories, which is most definitely not the same as eating well.

Thankfully, through further tweaks and refinements to my diet over the years, I steadily increased my energy without increasing hunger, and feel great – even with an office job now. So whatever your life stage, whatever your position – we’ll explore what I did, what worked, and what didn’t. Discovering the beauty of eating well was only the beginning, a motivator; I still had to learn to actually eat well. But knowing the prize made me keen to learn, and I hope it does the same for you.