Allen Iverson, possibly the most dominating little man ever to play in the NBA, called it "keeping it real."

I'd like to think - and hope that you do, too - that the best of these columns do that, causing you to honestly assess yourself and the role health and fitness plays or should play in your life.But this column needs to be more than condemnation. Constantly criticize and most people won't listen - or read - for too long.Despite that proviso, allow me to recap a conversation I overheard where a woman wasn't honestly assessing her situation. Her friend asked, "Exercising anymore?"After a roll of the eyes and a chuckle, she said, "Wouldn't I love to. But I have two preschoolers."Later, the women discussed how great it is to have Netflix. As proof, the woman with the two preschoolers rattled off all the shows she had recently binge watched on it.Do you see the disconnect here?Do you understand why I nearly bit through my cheek to keep from butting in and why A.I. would've told her a thing or two? You can't claim not to have time to do something you'd "love" to do, yet somehow find time to binge watch TV.Now you may accuse me of being a crazy old guy who does nothing more than exercise incessantly, eat weird stuff, and complain about all those who do not, but that shouldn't obscure the fact that the woman is lying to herself. Use Netflix all you want, but don't use your kids as a convenient excuse.Similarly, don't claim that "This food is healthy" to eat an excess of it.Research recently published in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research revealed the tendency to do this. Researchers from the University of Texas-Austin recruited 40 grad students to eat a cookie. All ate the same cookie, but the nutritional information on the wrapper changed.According to the fabricated nutritional facts, some subjects were eating a "healthy" cookie and others were not.After consuming the cookie, all subjects were asked to assess their level of hunger. Those under the belief that they consumed a healthy cookie reported greater feelings of hunger than those who ate the supposedly unhealthy one.Next, the researchers had 72 undergrads order food and then watch a film. Watching the film was simply a ruse to determine how the subjects ordered and how much they ate during the film.The result: The subjects who felt their order was "healthy" ordered more total food and consumed more of it during the movie. Those who believed they were splurging by ordering unhealthy stuff tended to order less and eat less.Some of the undergrads also took a test beforehand. The test determined that many of them believe healthy foods are as filling as unhealthy foods.Yet even those subjects - as well as those who ordered healthy foods but feel they aren't as filling - ate more during the movie than those who placed an unhealthy order.Do you detect another disconnect?But something needs to be made clear here. Even though eating well does not allow you to eat in excess, this study does not discredit the concept of nutrient partitioning, a concept you should follow fully if you desire to achieve a really high level of health and fitness.In short, nutrient partitioning is the belief that because your body digests and metabolizes simple carbs, complex carbs, fats, and proteins differently, you cannot see all calories as being equal.For example, I don't care how little you work out, how "slow" you claim your metabolism to be, or how petite you are, you are not - I repeat, not - going to gain weight if you limit yourself to eating only complex carbs like steamed and raw vegetables.It may not be a healthy eating pattern long-term, but eating only complex carbs such as these would definitely keep you from gaining weight. Because of the high fiber content, your stomach becomes uncomfortably full well before you consume excess calories, and more importantly (for when you're eating a well-rounded diet), your body struggles to store complex carbs as body fat.Yet I have known people who have experimented with an all-fruit diet and gained weight. While fruits are generally seen as being as important to a healthy diet as vegetables, one significant difference exists: fruits contain simple carbs, many of which are fructose.The body easily transforms excess fructose into fat, and because fructose can't be used in the muscle cells (it's processed by the liver to be primarily used by the brain), it is possible to eat fruit in excess.But this does not mean that a moderate amount of fruit can't be part of a healthy diet, only that eating a moderate amount of it makes it just about impossible for a full-grown adult to reduce body fat to the rather low level associated with optimal functional fitness. This fact is shared simply so you don't lie to yourself.You can eat too much of much of the so-called "good stuff."Contact Kevin Kolodziejski at

kolo@ptd.net