diet nutrition tower

The diet and nutrition towers you see when searching for various nutritional sciences are not essentially "diet standard answers" that require accurate calories and weights, but a flexible reference framework to help you quickly judge your diet priorities and reduce the cost of daily meal decisions. There is no unified template suitable for everyone. The core basis for adjustment is your age, exercise intensity, basic medical history and daily metabolic level.

When I was helping my friends who were new to fitness to make diet plans two years ago, I saw many people hit a dead end when they first came into contact with the nutrition tower: every time they took a food scale, they had to pick out every gram more than 1 gram from 250 grams of cereals and potatoes, and they had to make up 300 grams of dark green vegetables. Eating an apple would count as a daily fruit quota. To be honest, the officially released Nutrient Tower values ​​are originally average reference values ​​for groups and cannot be used as golden rules for individuals.

Nowadays, there is actually more than one set of nutrition tower standards in academic circles and fitness circles. The most familiar version of the "Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents" that the public is most familiar with is that cereals and potatoes are at the bottom, accounting for about 40% of the daily diet, followed by vegetables and fruits, fish, poultry, eggs, milk, soy nuts, and oil, salt and sugar at the top. However, the nutrition tower of the ketogenic diet school directly puts high-quality fats (avocado, olive oil, fat meat) at the bottom, and whole grains and miscellaneous beans are directly moved to the top of the tower. It is recommended that the daily intake does not exceed 50 grams. ； The adapted version for vegetarians will move soy products and fermented mushrooms to the second level to replace the animal protein supply of livestock and poultry meat.

These two types of adjusted versions are never "pseudoscience", but they are suitable for completely different groups of people: the ketogenic version is more suitable for people with severe insulin resistance and who need short-term sugar control and weight loss. If ordinary people blindly follow the trend, they are prone to ketoacidosis and abnormal blood lipid metabolism.； The vegetarian version is suitable for people who are allergic to animal proteins or have religious dietary needs. As long as they are supplemented with additional vitamin B12 and heme iron, they can fully meet their daily nutritional needs.

During the three years I have been working as a family dietary guide, the most common questions I have encountered are "What should I do if I sit in the office every day and eat cereals and potatoes according to the standard and always gain weight?" "My children are always hungry when they are in high school. What should I do if they eat too much and are afraid of accumulating food?" In fact, there is no need to stick to the standard at all. The logic for ordinary people to adjust the nutrition tower is very simple: if you consume less every day, adjust the proportion of cereals and potatoes in the bottom layer downwards, and give more space to the dark vegetables in the second layer. When you are hungry in the afternoon, don’t grab puffed food. Use the original nuts in the third layer as a snack. You will be full without consuming excess trans fat. ； If you exercise a lot every day or use your brain intensively, you can increase the proportion of grains and potatoes by 1/3, and replace half of it with whole grains such as oats and corn. This will make you more full than eating white rice every day, and you will not be distracted easily in class or work.

There is a lot of debate on the internet right now about "whether whole grains are necessary to eat" and there is nothing to argue about. One school of thought says that whole grains have low glycemic effect and are rich in dietary fiber, and must account for more than one-third of cereals and potatoes. ； The other group says that for people with chronic gastritis and irritable bowel syndrome, eating too many whole grains will increase the burden on their gastrointestinal tract, and eating refined rice and noodles will make them feel more comfortable. Both sides are right. When it comes to diet, your body's first priority is to feel good. If you suffer from acid reflux and bloating for several days after eating whole grain rice, you can't force yourself to eat it. Instead, replace it with mild whole grains such as yams and pumpkins. The effect will be the same.

You don’t need to worry about the nutritional tower when you go out for dinner. Just pick up the dishes according to priority: first use two chopsticks to place green leafy vegetables on the meal, then eat some high-quality protein such as steamed fish or boiled chicken, and finally eat two bites of staple food. It is much healthier than picking your throat to induce vomiting after eating, or taking diet pills. Don’t worry about your mistakes. Occasionally drinking a cup of milk tea or eating fried skewers is not “breaking the nutritional tower” at all. It is calculated based on the average diet per week or even per month. If you indulge like this once a week, the rest of the meals will be eaten according to priority, and there will be no impact at all.

After all, the Nutrition Tower was originally created to make ordinary people eat healthier and more comfortably, not to tie you down with a standard answer. It is much more important to be happy when eating and not feel burdened after eating than to measure the grams of each level.