It's true. I think we collectively know this too, but trick ourselves into thinking we're not the ones eating the SAD. In reality, most of us are; it's sort of like we think we aren't the traffic. McDonalds doesn't serve billions because none of us eat there, and the grocery store doesn't have aisles of garbage because no one's eating it. I think we also have a tendency to under estimate just how frequent our indulgences are, even if we generally eat a bit better than the SAD. This is how we gradually become obese. It's definitely a weakness in the human psyche.
A major eye opener for me after the last couple of years has been how crazy our diets really tend to be and how easy it is to just stop it. Like, I used to battle internally about if I ate well enough that day to eat [insert garbage here]. Like that's ever a conversation worth having with yourself, or it would ever make sense to want the garbage in the first place. But I figured I was eating whole foods (usually, I guess, maybe?), eating meat from "good" and "ethical" sources, eating what I thought was a lot of vegetables.
And yet the science shows that people who eat like I did are dying earlier than they need to and suffering from diseases people didn't typically get up until recently. And I found myself gradually gaining weight despite not noticing a change in my caloric intake.
I'm not sure exactly what caused me to snap out of it (there were several factors), but in any case, I'm glad I did. And you're right – eating well is trivial if you're starting anywhere near the SAD. With a bit of motivation you can level up tremendously with minimal effort.
A major eye opener for me after the last couple of years has been how crazy our diets really tend to be and how easy it is to just stop it. Like, I used to battle internally about if I ate well enough that day to eat [insert garbage here]. Like that's ever a conversation worth having with yourself, or it would ever make sense to want the garbage in the first place. But I figured I was eating whole foods (usually, I guess, maybe?), eating meat from "good" and "ethical" sources, eating what I thought was a lot of vegetables.
And yet the science shows that people who eat like I did are dying earlier than they need to and suffering from diseases people didn't typically get up until recently. And I found myself gradually gaining weight despite not noticing a change in my caloric intake.
I'm not sure exactly what caused me to snap out of it (there were several factors), but in any case, I'm glad I did. And you're right – eating well is trivial if you're starting anywhere near the SAD. With a bit of motivation you can level up tremendously with minimal effort.