to be so anxious about my diet

[trob22]

I know this sounds really stupid and like a completely common-sense issue but I am feeling really unhappy about this so please help if you can.

In the last year-18 months I have become quite anxious about food. I wouldn't say I have an eating disorder but I can't stop worrying about what I am eating and my health. I want to lose a small amount of weight and look better but mostly I just want to feel healthy and strong.

For the first time in my life I tried to do some proper research into how to plan a healthy diet according to science. This is where the problems began. I assumed I knew roughly how to eat healthily, ie. avoid fat and sugar. But I heard a few people raving about the keto diet which teaches that fat is actually not unhealthy, it is fine to eat plenty of fat in the form of dairy and meat, and actually you should rather avoid carbs and sugar in all forms - even fruit have too much sugar in according to keto. All this was explained with scientific evidence.

So I do some more research and I find OTHER scientific evidence saying what I thought was obvious, that too much fat is bad for you, increased risk of heart attack and bad cholesterol, etc. I also found some quite scary figures about how eating meat hugely increases your chance of cancer, and other research saying that eating dairy is basically un-natural and not good for you. And instead you should eat more carbs. All backed up by doctors and reputable news sites.

So then I'm researching carbs and apparently a carb-heavy diet is a pretty recent invention in terms of human evolution and not particularly natural. Also apparently savoury carbs and sugar are basically the same thing (I can't wrap my head around the science behind that - if someone can explain it in stupid people terms please help) and therefore eating bread is basically the same as eating sweets?

So anyway the upshot of this is I now feel really anxious about eating meat/eggs, dairy, carbs AND sugar. So the only things left pretty much are vegetables and f*ing tofu.

And also I am trying to work out if organic food is actually better or not and I have no idea.

So I am an adult woman and I have no idea what I should be eating. I just feel really overwhelmed and unhappy every time I have to eat something. If anyone with a scientific background can make heads or tales of this for me please help. I have brought this up with my GP very briefly and she just said "eat a balanced diet" but I don't f* know what that means anymore, and her opinion is just one among many.

I can see how it is all quite confusing!

To clarify some of your questions:

Carbohydrates is a big umbrella term for a group of foods. The scientific term would be Saccharides. There are 3 sub groups:

• mono Saccharides like glucose and fructose
• di Saccharides which include what we refer to as 'sugar'. Sugar is a carbohydrate which is made out of fructose and glucose molecules
• poli Saccharides which include starch, whichisij potatoes, bread and pasta. Chemically, starch is made up of long strings of glucose molecules.

When our body digests carbohydrates they all are eventually brown down into mono Saccharides, and glucose in particular. Which is why when you chew read in your mouth for 30 seconds or so it starts to taste sweet as the starch is broken down into glucose by an enzyme.

I think that's how it works. It's what I remember from school!

On a practical level, stick with home cooked and unprocessed food as much as you can. Choose foods with short lists of ingredients (eg with fruit yogurt, it should ideal just be milk, fruit and sugar rather than also containing glucose fructose syrup, guar gum, maize starch abs a 5ojbof flavourings). Stay away from sweeteners. Fat is fine but it depends on which fat! It's the trans fats you need to stay away from. Saturated and unsaturated fats are both OK, although any animal fat should be consumed in small amounts (cheese butter cream and fat meat).

Hope this helps rather than confusing you further x

I know where you're coming from, there's so much conflicting advice about what we should be eating.

I hate to say it, but why don't you just go for an everything in moderation type approach?

Cook from scratch as much as possible, eat plenty of veg, some fish and meat, carbs aren't the enemy just don't eat pasta for breakfast lunch and dinner, get some regular exercise.

If you’re not pregnant, where are your twins coming from?

Totally agree judasprudy we are really lucky here that for the most part we have access to decent nutritious food.

People have been eating whatever they've been eating for thousands of years. People have lives through wars and famines.

OP you are absolutely right and I think anyone who does a lot of reading on this subject would feel the same.

There are many schools of thought when it comes to nutrition and no one is 'proven' to be right. Two main avenues emerged - limit fat and limit sugar. One got more traction in the seventies (limit fat) and as a result formed the basis of most of the last two generations eating habits. The limit sugar (I.e. carbs) line of thought had since gained much more attention and spawned various branches such as Atkins, keto, paleo etc.

You need to tune in to your own body rather than be convinced by others. For me, I think about a) what seems logical to me, and b) what makes me feel good (strong and healthy).

As a result I eat a natural diet, as close to basic ingredients as possible and avoid processed food. It's generally higher fat, higher protein and lower carb.
It keeps me full and I feel good.

It does however mean there are now a lot of foods I won't go near, but you do get used to it and it makes shopping a lot quicker.

Basically:
Lots of veg (esp. greens and avocado)
Meat
Fish
Eggs
Nuts
Seeds
Olive oil

Good luck finding something that works for you. And remember food should be something to enjoy, so try not to let it worry you too much if you can. See it as a journey of discovery that you can continue to fine tune as you find out what you respond well to.

Purple sorry, but where has the OP mentioned twins? Am I being really thick? Gosh maybe I ought to go to bed.

PurpleDaisies - the twins I posted about quite a long time ago?! Not my twins, I was brainstorming names with the mother and I said "let's ask Mumsnet!"

How on EARTH did you remember that?

Thanks for the advice so far. I think the problem is that if I see a dietician/nutritionist and they give me some advice I know there are other dietician/nutritionists who will give me opposite advice. How do I know which ones to trust?

We're omnivores, designed to eat a wide range of foods. Don't over-think it. Even if one diet is better, it doesn't mean to say the others are necessarily bad. Think of it as a whole lot of diets designed to take a 95% performance up to 96% or even 97% - not really worth worrying about. Sort yourself out a varied but not extreme diet, then make sure your exercise and sleep are also up to scratch. And if you're not feeling healthy after that, see your doctor.

Why do you want to eat healthily OP? What is it you feel is unhealthy about you at the moment?

Honestly there is no such thing as a perfect diet, there are studies out there that can prove most things are healthy and most things aren't. You will never find the perfect diet, and what works for some doesn't always work for others. Instead of trying to find the perfect healthy diet I would explore why it is you are so anxious about eating healthily.

At the end of the day there are hundreds of ways we can get the right nutrients into our bodies, there's such a wide range of foods and most of them can be a benefit to us in some way, there's a reason that studies can show most things to be healthy and that's because we need such a wide range of things, we need carbs, fats and proteins. As well as vitamins and minerals. Everything has it's own role to play in out body and that's why it's important not to overcomplicate it or cut too many things out.

I feel like there is a lot in the medja about clean eating, celebs and things eating these super 'clean' and 'healthy' diets and I think there's a huge amount of pressure to eat a certain way, almost a moral aspect to it. You see a lot of it on MN too. Being the absolute perfect "health' which I think is not about being healthy but about being perfect and in control

Someone who u follow on Instagram is rhinutrition I think? She's a nutritionist and posts really good, sensible posts about eating well and the nutrients in each food. Give her a look up.

Orthorexia is what sprung to mind for me too.

I get this too OP
There is SO much conflicting advice out there so days I get so frustrated at the supermarket I just leave and have a tuna sandwich for dinner. The one thing most people seem to agree on is eating lots of green things = good so that's a good thing! I try to have a small portion of bread/rice pasta each day and make the rest up of vegetables fruits and fish 😁

If you only have a smalll amount of weight to lose then don't worry about food for the time being but make sure you do regular exercise. So walk more, and find something to make you move more that you love to do. That might be line dancing, yoga, football, swimming, hockey, running, zumba, weights, whatever. That will help the anxiety and tone you up. Then you will either stop caring about the small weight loss (do you have a healthy BMI?) or will be able to approach your diet with a less anxious mindset.