Re: The New Fashion
The current trend of promoting protein as a guilt-free health food is concerning. So many processed products now advertise themselves as "high in protein" in a manner similar to the old "low fat" labels. Demonising one food group (carbs/fats) and promoting another (fats/carbs) is nothing new. People want magic bullets.
The truth has been known all along: eat a balanced, varied diet of home-cooked meals with lots of fruit and vegetables, and everything in moderation. But that takes effort. So people will buy their low fat yoghurts, their protein bars, and since they consider them to be "healthy" they actually offset them against other unhealthy things. "Since I ate that healthy cereal I can now eat this muffin", and the fact that the cereal is packed with sugar is either not known or ignored.
Guess what? I eat carbs. I eat fat. I eat protein. I eat meat (but not every day). But I cook all of my own meals from fresh ingredients, and eat plenty of fruit and vegetables (mainly vegetables) and avoid processed food. There is no secret to it. All it takes is knowledge and effort. You don't even need to exercise, although it's very good for you. But I don't get fat whether I'm exercising or not, because I eat a healthy, balanced diet which fills me up and I don't treat food like a drug. If you eat the right things your appetite control works. When I exercise, I eat more. If you are fat, fixing your diet is the best change you can make.
Most people are always chasing their next fix, snacking between meals, drinking their calories in sugary drinks, eating things out of a packet which are heavily processed with an unnatural combination of sugar, fat and salt that makes them incredibly delicious, but barely nutritious or satiating.
Fad diets, such as cutting out an entire food group or only eating one type of food might work, but it's usually because the number of calories you consume goes down and you are controlling what you eat. The best long-term solution is just eating a balanced, varied diet rich in vegetables. When your body is working correctly and being fuelled in a natural way that keeps you feeling full and doesn't overload your pleasure centres, you don't need to count calories or watch what you eat or only eat one thing. Nor do you need to exercise to offset eating too much (although exercise is good for other reasons).