Not Just Another Diet Book!

By Richard J. Rafoth MD

Changing eating habits is difficult. Dietary choices are the result of a complex array of forces. And the more dramatic the change the less likely it is to survive more than a few weeks before drifting back to the old and comfortable. This e-book offers a different approach. After reviewing the basics of nutritional physiology, you get to choose changes that adapt most easily to your (and your families) lifestyle. Less disruption equals a better chance of long term change. Try them in your daily routine and if they fit easily, add more as time passes. The basics are logical, easy to understand, and will point out specific ideas for change. And if you want more background or detail, there are hyperlinked references. You are now in charge.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richard Rafoth
• Release date: Nov 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215425374

Book preview

Preface

You’ve decided to improve your nutrition. Perhaps it was an article you read, or learning of a friends recent heart attack, or as simple as a personal resolution after stepping on the bathroom scale.

You find advice everywhere  – social media posts, articles in the print media, and a seemingly endless stream of food focused televisions ads. The challenge isn’t a lack of suggestions but deciding where and how to start.

You can choose from dozens of diets with numerous books explaining the details. Most books start with the author’s philosophy and then provide a set of recipes to get you started. But changing eating habits is difficult. Dietary choices are the result of a complex array of forces. And the more dramatic the change the less likely it is to survive more than a few weeks before drifting back to the old and comfortable.

This book offers a slightly different approach. After review the basics of nutritional physiology, you can choose changes that adapt most easily to your lifestyle. Less disruption equals a better chance of long term change. Try them in your daily routine and if they fit easily, add more as time passes.  The basics are logical, easy to understand, and will point out specific ideas for change. And if you want more background or detail, there are hyperlinked references.

This puts you in charge. You get to decide which changes will be more acceptable to you and your family and how to work them into your daily dietary routines. In the end you develop a tailored approach that fits your unique situation. This biggest benefit of a one small step at a time approach is  improving the odds for a lasting change.

I’m a big believer in the mantra Don’t let best be the enemy of better.  Two steps forward and one back works quite well as long as you keep tinkering and experimenting. Change should be a continuous process rather than choosing a specific diet.

Keep your focus on the reason you took on the goal of healthier eating and I know you will find easy changes that will pay dividends for years to come.

Richard J. Rafoth MD

PS Human and nutritional physiology are complex and a few pages per topic just scratches the surface. If any concepts or chapters are confusing, or you have lingering questions, please email me at [e-mail]  and I’ll do my best to answer them for you.

Keep up with the latest in the science of nutrition by following Not Just Another Diet Book! on Facebook.

I regularly update this e-book (a great advantage of the e-book format). If you send me an email I’ll forward the most recent digital file. Be sure to indicate the type of reader – kindle, ipad, etc.

Introduction

In the late 1800s, the expression you are what you eat implied diet influenced a person’s state of mind. Then, in 1923, an advertisement tied disease to one’s diet when it claimed that  ...90 percent of the diseases known to man are caused by cheap foodstuffs.

Ninety percent may be a bit high, but diet is a significant factor in our  health and longevity. A 2017 compilation (a meta-analysis) of multiple medical papers and clinical trials concluded that more than half of the 700,000 annual deaths from heart disease, stroke, and diabetes are a direct result of poor dietary habits, both a deficiency of healthy foods as well as an excess of unhealthy choices.

It’s challenging to put the benefits of a healthy diet in perspective. One of my favorite bloggers, Dr. Greger, suggested we consider a microlife - ½ hour of lifespan – to compare the impacts of diet and lifestyle on longevity. As he does such a great job explaining, I’ll quote directly from his blog:

.... someone in their 20s, a 22-year old man or a 26-year old woman, may have, on average, about 57 years left. That’s about 20,000 days, or 500,000 hours, or 1 million half hours (sic - microlives). ....Here are some things that would, on average, cost a 30-year-old man one microlife. Smoking two cigarettes, drinking two pints of beer, or every day they live 11 pounds overweight.

See how helpful this can be in terms of comparing risks. Drinking a pint of strong beer cuts your life expectancy short as much as smoking one cigarette. .....Alternatively, you can compare life-extending behaviors. For example, eating at least five servings of fruits and veggies a day may add an average of four years onto your lifespan for men, and three years for women. That’s up to twice as beneficial as exercising every day.

....what about meat? Each burger is associated with the loss of a microlife.....so, lifespan-wise, one burger appears to equal two cigarettes.....And processed meat is even worse. ... Imagine two people who are identical in every way, except that one eats around 50 grams of processed meat a day, which is like one large sausage or hot dog, or a few strips of bacon, and the other eats none. Eating that single serving of processed meat every day is expected to take around two years off the length of your life....Or you could think about it on a day-to-day basis. Eating a baloney or ham sandwich every day, just two slices of deli meat, is expected to take around one hour off your life (2 microlives) each day.

I find comparing benefits in terms of microlives easier to understand than  an abstract 2 years of life..

For many, a diet plan implies losing weight with the tedium of counting calories and avoiding fats. But our daily diet, what we eat and when we eat it, impacts our health in more ways than just pure weight management.

Traditional teaching identifies excess calories and the fat in our diet as the major health risks. That is too simplistic. Recent work on dietary carbohydrates and the body’s insulin response, for example, suggests that excess carbohydrates may be a greater risk factor for heart disease than dietary fat.

The book presents the science and clinical studies supporting healthy eating.  It includes suggestions that can be easily incorporated into meal planning routines, and encourages experimenting.  One small change at a time will be the most effective way to a sustainable new eating pattern and a healthier diet for you and your family.

We’ll review digestive and metabolic physiology and why a certain food or food group would be healthier than another. Then we’ll move on to the basic components of all foods – carbohydrates, fats, protein, and fiber – and examples of good and bad diets. And in the final chapters I’ll provide practical applications for you to consider.

As you read, keep in mind that when you eat (how calories are distributed throughout the day), regular exercise (a strategically planned brisk walk), and the health of the colon bacteria will all modify how the body metabolizes what goes in our mouth.

For those who are interested in more detail, hyperlinked references are provided to make it easy to dig deeper. The most common are links to:

Pub Med (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/) - the digital archive of the National Library of Medicine, form of many published papers,

Nutrition.com (https://nutritionfacts.org/) - Dr. Greger always includes additional references in his articles

Dr. Mirkin (https://www.drmirkin.com/)

Medscape (https://www.medscape.com/) - you will be asked to set up an account

New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com) – for these articles I have added this modifier (....html?smid=em-share) to the links. You need it for each reference if you don’t have an account.

I hope you find a few tips that work for you and enjoy learning the whys of healthy eating as much as I have enjoyed pulling them together.

References

Association Between Dietary Factors and Mortality From Heart Disease, Stroke, and Type 2 Diabetes in the United States.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2608221

Great examples of placebo effects.

https://nutritionfacts.org/video/flashback-friday-pomegranate-vs-placebo-for-prostate-cancer/

How Much Does Meat Affect Longevity?

https://nutritionfacts.org/video/how-much-does-meat-affect-longevity/

The Physiology of Nutrition

An understanding of the physiology of nutrition will make it easier to understand the rationale behind recommendations that follow. This chapter lis a brief overview of three areas – the building blocks that make up all foods, how these building blocks are prepared for absorption into the blood stream (digestion), and how these basic molecules are then used by the cell. 

The Building Blocks of Food

All foods are a made up of multiple complex molecules and water. These complex molecules, the nutritional building blocks of food, can be grouped into one of three categories -  carbohydrates, fat, or protein.

The energy content of a food is expressed as number of calories per gram (or ounce). The energy content, usually expressed per serving, reflects the relative proportion of each of the three building blocks.  Carbohydrates and protein each provide 4 calories of energy per gram and fats/oils provide 9 calories per gram. Fiber is technically a carbohydrate but is indigestible and provides bulk but minimal calories.

Digestion

Before they can be used by our cells, these complex molecules must be broken down into single molecule units and then absorbed into