Why Burgers Aren’t the Problem

Common Nutrition Red Herrings

After talking with literally hundreds of people about their eating, I’ve noticed a few patterns in the way that people discuss their food habits. In particular, I’ve picked up on the fact that there are a few hot button foods or behaviors that are commonly identified as the culprits of unhealthy eating or weight gain. This is often characterized by clients asking me, “Is sushi bad?” “Is pasta bad?” “How often can I have a burger?*”

*On a side note, one time a client texted me that she felt bad about having a burger, while I was eating a burger. 

However, what is important is that what clients think is the problem is often not, in fact, the real problem. In many cases, there are other glaring issues that need a lot more attention, but because these foods or habits are socially sanctioned – or perhaps even perceived as “healthy” – they fly under the radar of dietary scruple.

I call these “nutrition red herrings” – vilified foods that actually aren’t so impactful on your diet (and could actually be part of a balanced, enjoyable way of eating), that distract from larger, more repetitive issues that could have a tremendous effect on your fitness goals.

Why is this important? Because it can hold you back from your fitness or weight loss goals, and it can affect your health.

But most of all, it can affect your mindset, because it develops a black-and-white worldview of food, in which some foods are “good” and some foods are “bad.” This point of view holds women back from embracing a varied, balanced diet, polarizing foods in a way that encourages a binge-restrict cycle of “being good” and then “cheating.”

This is not a sustainable strategy.

Common examples of “nutrition red herrings” include: 

• Burgers
• Pizza
• Carbs
• Fat
• Pasta
• Chocolate

These are all foods that get a lot of bad press. The clients that I work with often over-focus on reducing or eliminating particular foods, and then swing hard into a “cheat phase” during a bachelorette party weekend or on a trip.

What if we could just focus on the behaviors that actually hold us back, and make faster and more sustainable progress?

The “Real” Problem

Please notice that in the previous sentence, I used the word “behaviors,” and not “foods.” Here’s why:

Long-term health, weight loss, and physique maintenance is more dependent on your behaviors, habits, and relationships with foods than on your consumption of specific foods. 

Taking a look at your overall routines (and very specific behaviors) can be the key to discovering the true weak spots in your big picture diet, shoring up those vulnerable areas, and thereby becoming capable of enjoying a varied, balanced diet without excess.

There Are No Fattening Foods

“Fattening” is an adjective frequently used to describe foods, but it’s a bit of an misnomer, because no food is truly fattening on its own.

What is really fattening? Overeating. 

Taking in more calories than you expend is truly the only way to gain weight, and while many factors can influence this energy balance, the one you have the most control over is how much you eat.

And there are some behaviors and foods that encourage overeating, because we’re human. When our routines become primarily driven by these specific behaviors (without realizing it!), we gain weight or have trouble managing a healthy weight.

Here are the top three most common culprits that I see actually holding women back, and how to change these habits:

Problem #1: Not eating a quality breakfast

What if I told you that, in action, granola is “fattening”?

When we eat refined carbohydrates and sugar, our brains have difficulty down-regulating appetite, and the problem is that the American breakfast closely resembles dessert. Most packaged yogurts have as much sugar as ice cream, and the marketing is sneaky enough to make you think that you’re eating something healthy. Granola is often too sweet, and I recommend that clients avoid it. Cereal is similarly sweet and empty, providing a quick blood sugar spike that will inevitably bring a later crash. Even worse, breakfast items like waffles, pastries, donuts, or pancakes are basically like eating cake for breakfast.

Instead, start the day with a high-protein, plain Greek or Skyr yogurt (I love Fage, Chobani, and Siggi’s), that is not flavored and not sweetened. Add real fruit and/or berries. That’s an easy, on-the-go breakfast, but if you have more time to cook, you can also make a vegetable frittata habit. If you don’t have time to cook but still love eggs, try baking egg muffins in a muffin tin on the weekend, so that you can grab a few egg-and-vegetable muffins on your way out of the door each morning.

Strategy: Decrease sugar and carbohydrate consumption in the morning, and focus more on protein (unsweetened yogurt or eggs) and vegetable fiber. 

Problem #2: Eating out too much

Most people worry too much about what they order at restaurants, and not enough about the fact that they’re ordering instead of cooking.

I am an old-fashioned gal on this one. I live in New York City and love the restaurant scene, but from a health perspective, I am 100% convinced that most of your meals need to be home-based* in order for you to make real fitness and health progress. Why? Eating a restaurant encourages eating more – bigger portions, more choices, and more calories.

*Notice, I used the phrase “home-based.” This doesn’t mean you need to cook everything from scratch,  but it does mean that the ratio of grocery-made meals to restaurant meals needs to dramatically increase.

It’s simply an example of missing the forest for the trees. Instead of stressing over whether to order in sushi or Italian, don’t order in so much.

I always feel like I’m bringing down the hammer with this one. It’s not about being anti-social or obsessed with a strict diet. Believe me – I love eating out.

I’m talking about getting back to basics with your eating and being honest with yourself about the quality of your diet when you eat out vs. when you eat in. There is a special level of energy and attention that goes into your food when you cook it, and it makes eating out a more exceptional experience (instead of hum-drum).

My cooked meals are extremely satisfying, and cooking at home allows me to eat in a way that would be positively decadent in a restaurant. I typically eat home-made pasta dishes probably six times a week, have home-made nachos several times a week, and eat chocolate daily. When you cook at home, you do not have to be hypervigilant about portion control and ingredients because – duh – you made it and you know exactly what went into it. You can have nachos at home with baked tortillas (instead of fried), reduced fat cheese, fat-free Greek yogurt (instead of sour cream), homemade guac, and tons of vegetables. But when you eat in a restaurant, you end up with candied walnuts and fried porkbelly on a salad – and often at a healthy restaurant.

Strategy: If there are 21 meals in a week, try to cook/prepare 15-18 of them yourself, instead of eating out (or ordering in). 

Problem #3: Being Reactive Instead of Proactive

This slightly overlaps with eating out, but it’s a more broad principle that I frequently discuss with my clients. There’s a huge difference between being reactive and being proactive, and it all comes down to planning.

If you go into each day “winging it” with your food choices, you face hundreds of small food decisions a day. It’s human nature that we always will seek the easiest and most satisfying solution to hunger. Those hundreds of small decisions can add up.

Planning puts you back in the driver’s seat of these decisions, so that you’re being proactive instead of reactive. When the easiest choice is the healthiest choice, your human nature and good planning can work in synergy, and you don’t feel deprived.

The best thing you can do for health, weight loss, and fitness is to develop a grocery shopping routine and a weekly checklist for items, prep your food in advance, and pack snacks and perhaps even meals for work.

Strategy: Have a consistent checklist for grocery shopping, plan menus ahead of time, and prep food ahead of time. 

Perspective Shifts

As you can see, it’s not an issue of burgers being “bad,” or salads being “good.” While I think we can all agree that having a fast food habit isn’t conducive to long-term health, the framework is much larger than the individual issues.

If you really want to craft a healthy diet, you don’t need to stop eating burgers or pizza. Instead, you need to look at some key habits and motivations:

What healthy habits lead to more healthy habits? 

Example: a healthy breakfast leading to more positive decisions all day. 

What situations and foods make me want to eat more, instead of satisfying me? 

Example: restaurants 

What habits can I put in place to make sure my willpower can take a break? 

Example: grocery shopping in advance 

When we look at the big picture, we see that it’s not about individual foods. It’s about behaviors, and our relationships to routines and foods. Even more importantly, it’s about the behaviors that we do all the time, rather than every once in awhile.

The more you focus on habits, the less you will polarize foods into “good” and “bad” categories, and the more freedom you will have to enjoy life, health, and the foods you love.