Nutrition is your foundation and it affects all other aspects of your life: your energy, mental alertness, potential income, sex drive, your overall health. If you don’t create a foundation with nutrition, it’s hard to do anything to the best of your ability.
Would you plan to build a skyscraper of a life on sand and twigs? What does your nutritional foundation look like?
Would you put beer into the gas tank of your Civic? Unless it’s a Delorean, why would you put fuel in your your body that doesn’t serve you? These are some nutritional nuggets, unprocessed, that will help you create an environment and foundation for personal well-being and health.
You Are What You Eat
“But I’ve heard this a million times!” That’s because it true. My personal rule is: If you don’t know what it’s made of, don’t eat it- specifically ingredients.
When you shop for food, look at the ingredients, preservatives and unknown chemicals, mono-plexy-what? Content percentages are not very important. This isn’t rocket science, just asl yourself, “Do I know what this will do to my body in 2 years?”
For example; a box of harmless oatmeal raisin cookies. The ingredients read: Enriched Flour (wheat flour, malted barley flour, naicin, reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate… riboflavin, folic acid). Most of these turn out to be vitamins, but little is known about their long term side effects. Read ingredients and ask yourself, “Is this increasing my foundation for overall health and wellness?” If you can’t answer with a resounding “Yes!”, eat something better.
You Don’t Have To Be Disciplined to Eat Right
Most people give up on making healthy food choices because they let their guard down for one important hour every week; when they go to the grocery store.
If you can be disciplined here once a week, you’ll avoid being tempted all week with unhealthy foods. You won’t be feeding the urge to binge and eat your face full of bad foods off because you’re stressed. Instead of going bananas, you’ll eat bananas 
. Having only healthy foods around you may be hard at first, but the rewards are a longer, healthier and better quality life.
Here’s a trick: If you can’t manage one hour of discipline at the food store, go food shopping with the healthiest person you know. They’ll give you suggestions for new foods. Try new these dishes, after you’ve read the ingredients of course. Enjoy the benefits of knowing you’re going to feel and live a healthier life because of that one hour of discipline.
Smaller Portions, More Often
When you feel full, you ate too much food. If you make over-eating a habit, your body will learn how to store excess food as fat. I say “learn” because we can actually condition our minds to eat right or wrong.
The best way to keep your metabolism and energy level consistent is to eat every 2.5 hours. This with prevent your body from storing that extra food from a large meal as fat. In addition, your body’s blood sugar level will stay consistent meaning no food comas. Instead of storing fat, your body will utilize your food ever 2.5 hours, burn it off and adapt to being more efficient in utilizing food. Tip: A good way to judge a portion of food is about the size of your palm- that’s one serving.
You’re on the Right Track
There are different stomach chemicals that digest fruits as opposed to grains or starches. If you eat starches, proteins and fruits together, it will take your body longer to digest, possibly induce a food coma, or cause improper digestion, ie: gas.
The best way to promote digestion is to eat foods in similar food groups at one time. For example, if you’re craving fruit for breakfast, eat an orange, grapefruit or melon together, but save the banana (starch) or cereal for mid-morning. This will promote digestion.
Some people complain that they don’t have enough time to eat every 2.5 hours. That may be somewhat true, but I pack food for everywhere I go and haven’t had too many problems sneaking an apple or banana snack between meals.
Another common misconception is to drink lots of water after a meal to help digestion. This may actually dilute your digestive juices and work against your digestive process. Try drinking water 20 minutes before your meal, not after.
H-two-Oh?
Most of our body is water. I’ve heard experts suggest that you need glasses of water a day. Great. But what happens in reality?
Unless you’re toting around a Nalgene bottle everywhere you go, the likelihood of 8 glasses a day is unlikely. A simple way to make sure you get those 8 glasses a day is to eat water rich foods, ie: fruits and vegetables. Most fruits and vegetables are extremely rich with water and vitamins. If you can manage one small salad a day and three snacks of fruit, you’re already consuming part of your daily H20 intake. Drinking water before a few meals should cover the rest.
But It Tastes Bad!
I agree. Eating healthy doesn’t taste good at first. If you’ve been eating sodium-rich beef strips, wrapped with bacon and covered in three cheeses, you may not enjoy eating healthy right away. It took me 30 days of consistent effort to change my taste buds from form to function, meaning to start eating for my health, not to relieve mental stress. If you’re stressed, watch a movie, or better, go to the gym! Or hang out with your new health conscious friend that eats right.
One of the best tricks I’ve learned is using seasoning, pepper, onions, garlic and mustard to spice up otherwise bland dishes. A tuna fish sandwich with spicy mustard instead of mayonnaise is much healthier and depending on your pallet, better tasting.
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A big part of staying healthy is disassociating your mind with meal time as being a pure “for-pleasure” experience. You can be on either extreme of the tastes-good vs. good-for-you scale, but most people associate meal time with “this is for my taste bud homies”. The best way to dissociate meal time with pleasure is to eat for function for 30 days. Consume only what your body NEEDS nutritionally to function at its best?
Eat healthy meals in palm-portions, six times a day for one month. Hang out with people that eat healthy. Go shopping with them. Have a potluck. Pack your lunch. Tell people about your fitness goals. Find a way to hold yourself accountable for one month with the help of others.
If you can manage to achieve this discipline, the tasty foods that you once splurged on will become a nice treat and not a psychological crutch. This is power over mind. Eating with self-discipline can’t be purchased. There’s only one person that can give it to you and that’s you.
There is no one diet that works for everyone, but these are techniques that have proved effective for me. The only real way to know what works for you is to actually try it and experiment for yourself- Bon Appétit!
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