Will the Real Vitamin C Please Stand Up

Recently, I saw a disturbing commercial while riding in a taxi.  Bright, colorful words flashed across the screen: Healthy Works.  A smiling woman began speaking, "Here is a grape soda it has 160 calories and here is a grape juice it has 154 calories.  But the grape juice also has 120% of your daily requirement of Vitamin C.  Make the healthy choice with grape juice."  The screen fades to black and opens with Jeopardy; I immediately grumble loudly, "Ascorbic Acid doesn't make it healthy!"

Later that day I began to postulate the validity of the smiling woman's claim.  When I Googled Ascorbic Acid I saw it in parenthesis behind Vitamin C.  Ascorbic Acid and Vitamin C are completely interchangeable and describe the same thing.  But are they?

Big questions formed in mind.  Is there a difference nutritionally between getting your Vitamin C from a powder added to a sugary drink and getting it from eating an orange?  Am I wrong in assuming that adding Ascorbic Acid to food and drinks doesn't make it healthier?  

I read a few articles which addressed my questions.  Some people vehemently opposed the rhetoric established in nutritional circles.  The Doctor Within wrote:

"...Ascorbic acid is not vitamin C. Alpha tocopherol is not vitamin E. Retinoic acid is not vitamin A. And so on through the other vitamins. Vast sums of money have been expended to make these myths part of Conventional Wisdom....Vitamins are not individual molecular compounds. Vitamins are biological complexes...."  

(The Doctor Within )

This was very interesting.  Instead of isolating elements as being healthy on their own, maybe we should focus more on a broader biological story.  

I began feeling light headed and dizzy.  This is one giant circle of inquiry with confused answers abroad.  I'm not getting any REAL ANSWERS.  So I moved to using logic. 

Clearly, eating natural food for your vitamins is the healthiest way to go.  The supplement industry's name says it all: SUPPLEMENT.  Supplements are fillers for people who fall below adequate dietary standards.  Malnutrition is a real threat and supplementation is an answer.  But whole food nutrients are the REAL answer to our dietary needs.  

As Americans living in a bountiful land of produce and food, we have no excuses for not eating healthy foods.  Our problem is not related to having the right food it is related to knowing and choosing wisely.

How to read Nutritional Labels.  Firstly, look below the label at the INGREDIENTS.  If you see listed Ascorbic Acid or Sodium Ascorbate you should know the Vitamin C is synthetic.  Also, if you don't know how to pronounce an ingredient look it up.  We all have smart phones and the internet.  

http://www.vitamincandmore.com/

We used to live in a calorie focused world.  Now we need to move to an ingredient focused existence.  Know what you are consuming and then worry about portions later.  Any client that I work with I tell the same.  Eliminate the processed, chemical ridden, confused diet for a elementary, simple healthy approach to food.  How can that be confusing?

Eat to Lose Weight, Don't Diet

Good food has always been good food.  Fruits, vegetables, healthy fats, and lean protein, these approaches to healthy eating will never change.  But diet fads will come and go.  After all they are "diets" and that always implies short-term changes.  We need to focus on the long haul, an entire life.  If you practice moderation and portion sensibility you can enjoy all ranges of food, during your lifetime, and still be healthy.

Don't demonize the food.  Demonize your abuse of food.

Diets are short term experiments.  Of course short-term changes only bring us short-term results.  There's the error with dieting.  People get a quick positive result that has a very high failure rate in the long-term.  

Success is related to confidence.  If you are a Yo-Yo Dieter, losing weight, gaining weight, losing weight, you will never get anywhere with your health.  And if you fail and backslide each time you succeed then you'll always have less faith with there being any real hope for the future.  Gain confidence by creating a new, healthy lifestyle of food and forget the diets.

Of course, it is important to understand how our individual chemistry responds to various nutritional stimuli.  That is why gastronomy exist.  Gastronomy is the practice or art of choosing, cooking, and eating good food; it is also the study of food and culture.  

We must learn to approach food with an adventurous spirit and open mind.  There are so many things for you to learn about yourself through eating.  Just as you can travel the world, so must you travel the world of food.

A quick glance at a typical Pearman Fitness Lunch.

I challenge you to go on a gastronomical journey.  It won't be easy, always.  There will be a few sour faces and yuck moments.  But beyond the fear of unusual taste there lies an open field of opportunity:  

Fruits and vegetables you have never heard of but will one day love.  

Herbs and spices you learn to cook with. 

Flavors undiscovered in your own kitchen and home.

As for losing the weight.  Here is your formula to success.

1 pound of fat = 3500 calories

Cut 500 calories of food a day for a week to lose 1 pound. 

Or add activity upwards of burning 250 calories a day and only cut 250 calories of your food.  

Pretty simple.  

1 pound a week for 52 weeks is 52 pounds.  Clearly, we can't continue to lose weight.  But you are setting yourself up not to gain.  That is the key.

We always say gaining weight is easier than losing weight.  That isn't true.  What is true is that we don't realize or commit to lose weight until we've already gained so much.  Of course, by then the task is much harder in that we must be patient and persistent longer.  

Enough talk.  I'm hungry :)