HealthWise: What We Eat
Lucinda Porter, RN

The U.S. National Day of Eating, affectionately known as Thanksgiving, is around the corner.  Between leftovers and football snacks, several days are spent consuming food.  This is followed by more holidays.  Food is everywhere – at work, the bank, even the health club. 

Champion eaters say that Thanksgiving is amateur day.  They don’t need a holiday to celebrate food.  If you are an amateur, you will go on a diet in January.  A pro extends the eating opportunity through Super Bowl Sunday.  The elite keep going through Valentine’s Day.

I am a champion eater.  However, as much as I love to eat, nothing tastes as good as feeling good feels. Over the years I have learned to balance my desire for food with my desire to be healthy.  Awareness is the cornerstone.  This means thinking about what I eat before I eat it, developing a practice, maintaining a commitment and getting back on track when I fall off. 

Food is the focus of this month’s column.  What does food have to do with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection?  Everything.  What we eat can lead to weight problems, fatty liver and type 2 diabetes.  These conditions are associated with a poorer HCV prognosis.  HCV treatment is less likely to be effective for those who are overweight or obese.

Most of us will die with HCV rather than of it.  It makes sense to stack the deck in our favor by making the healthiest choices possible.  Changes in the diet may help or eliminate fatty liver, adult-onset diabetes, and high cholesterol.  Healthy food choices may help us avoid a host of diet and weight-related diseases.

Good nutrition relies on knowing:

•    What to eat
•    How much to eat
•    What is in your food
•    Putting this knowledge into practice

Ask experts what to eat and you will get more responses than there were candidates running for the presidential primaries.  In his book, In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan suggests, “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” By “eat food,”Pollan advises eating food that hasn’t been processed.  I would add: whenever you can, eat food that is grown locally and make it colorful.  This maximizes your chances of getting adequate nutrition.

Here are resources to help you choose a nutrition plan to suit you:

• Harvard School of Public Health www.hsph.harvard.edu/
nutritionsource/index.html

• Oldways www.oldwayspt.org/
med_pyramid.html

• United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) www.mypyramid.gov

How much to eat is tailored to each person.  Our age, size and activity level influence the amount of food we should consume.  Use a food plan as a guideline.  Never use restaurant portions as an authority on how much to eat or you will supersize yourself into a triple by-pass.  For me, how much to eat is a simple equation.  As long as I am maintaining my weight, I am in the correct range.  If I gain weight it is because I am eating too much.  If I lose weight it is because I have leukemia or a tape worm because it certainly won’t be because I ate too little.

How much we eat is as important as what we eat.  For instance, most of us like ice cream.  There is nothing wrong with an occasional indulgence.  However, few realize that a serving of ice cream is about the size of ½ of a baseball.  A serving of meat is the size of a deck of cards.  Eat a pound of steak and you consume more than 5 servings.

Here are some resources to help you gauge your nutritional needs:

• Aim for a Healthy Weight www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/heart
/obesity/lose_wt/index.htm
This website is sponsored by the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute and has excellent tools.

• USDA’s nutrition information www.nutrition.gov

• www.caloriecontrol.org  This website is free of advertising and has useful tools. Don’t be fooled by the “.org” – this is funded by the diet food industry. 

• www.caloriesperhour.com  – Another commercial website that provides useful tools.

Knowing what is in food is not always straight-forward.  It is easy when the food comes from the produce section or the bulk bins at the organic grocery store.  When it comes in a container, then there is a food label.  Next month’s column will be devoted to reading labels.  For now, the key point is to pay attention to portion size.  Read the label for how many servings are in a container. For instance, those tiny cartons of ice cream look as if they are the perfect size for one person.  Unfortunately, they usually hold 4 to 6 servings.

Putting this knowledge into use is like any new skill.  It gets easier with practice.  Once I knew what I needed and how to maintain a healthy diet, it became routine.  The challenges are the psychological and social aspects of eating.  Although we eat to live, we also eat to celebrate, to mourn, for comfort and for pleasure.  Sometimes this can get out of hand, especially during holidays. 

When I get off track, I try to get back on as soon as possible.  A long time ago, I gave up food-related guilt and remorse.  This helps me settle back into my routine more quickly. Guilt and remorse made the situation worse.

There are some who try and no matter how hard, they cannot consistently master a plan of healthy eating.  If this is true for you, there is help.  Talk to your medical provider. Check out resources such as Overeaters Anonymous or Food Addicts Anonymous.  There are also for-profit programs that may be right for you.

This is easier said than done. For years, I weighed more than I wanted. I tried to lose weight and keep it off, but it was not until I underwent HCV treatment that I was able to drop to a more comfortable range.  The reason I didn’t regain the weight was because of HCV patients.  I had seen them lose weight during treatment and then regain it back. I vowed to keep it off – to live the words I speak.

Having HCV bestows an opportunity to eat responsibly.  It’s an excuse to put down the fork and pick up the walking shoes.  It’s a reason to celebrate life by not overeating rather than over-indulging.  This Thanksgiving, may you be blessed with health and a full heart without a bulging belly.