Healthy Eating Week! Our Guide on How Nutrition Can Move You Towards Great Health

Have you heard the expression that says, ‘food can either be our best medicine or our biggest poison’? If this is the first time you have heard it, you may be able to relate to its meaning.

There is often so much confusion when it comes to eating healthy, and it can leave us wondering what really is right and what should we be doing?

You see I take a very basic approach to food and nutrition and therefore I personally choose not to count calories. This is because calories can be sometimes misleading, for example 10 calories of a Mars bar is not the same as 10 calories of spinach. Therefore, my approach and what I will share with you has a basic premise; what does a HUMAN BEING need for good health and longevity, rather than focusing on the best way to lose weight or the latest fad. Because if you want to be healthier for longer, you have to eat what your body needs. And beyond that, in line with the first paragraph (…our biggest poison) what should we be avoiding!

There are 4 steps I take to eating well for my health:

1. The right nutrition
2. The right timing
3. Avoiding the ‘poison’
4. Never deny yourself a treat

So here goes, how to be super healthy, simply and effectively by yours truly:

1. The right nutrition.

It is so important to have some key ingredients in our diet, for example, Omega 3, known as an ‘essential’ fatty acid. The reason it is called essential is because it is exactly that, essential to your survival. Other things like ‘antioxidants’ are also essential as these remove toxins and toxic build up in the body that may lead to cancers and other degenerative conditions.

I know there is quite a lot of technical jargon, so where do you really start? Quite simply with the following:

• Add colour to every meal (lots of bright vegetables are essential for those all important phytonutrients).
  
• Good quality fats. (Yes fat is good, if it is good fat). Try some olive oil on your salads, some coconut or avocado oil in your cooking. Have some fish at least 2 x per week or wild game (has omega 3). At least some meat or fish every day (or every other day will do). Locally and ethically sourced where you can.
  
  If you are vegetarian or vegan, be sure to supplement and get plenty of omega 3 and protein into your diet, every cell in your body is made of these elements.
  
• Protein is essential to help us repair and build. Therefore have meat or fish at least every day or every other day.
  
• Water. The forgotten nutrient and the most essential ingredient in a great diet. Throw away the fizzy pop and have water with every meal.

2. The right timing.

If you are anything like me, as soon as you get hungry it is ‘game on’. You will literally eat anything in sight and your plans and dreams of the Adonis body will fall to dust. Therefore, it is key to be structured and know when you are likely to get hungry. If you take in the fats listed above and remove the sugars, mentioned below, then you are less likely to be hungry. But make sure you plan times in your day to eat, before hunger comes creeping in.

3. Avoiding the ‘Poison’.

Food is great, but unfortunately a lot of the food that exists now can be very harmful to our body. High sugars and high salts can cause your body to work harder and harder. Imagine if I put you on a treadmill and made you work harder and harder… would you last as long? The same is true for your health and life. We want to help our bodies, not hinder them.

I know you will probably already know this but sometimes it is good to have a little reminder, so here are the big things to try and avoid in our diet:

• Dairy – shown to be pro inflammatory and has been linked to be a factor in some chronic inflammatory conditions such as arthritis.
  
• Wheat – has been identified to harm the gut and therefore impacts how your body absorbs the good nutrition.
  
• Sugar, this is the biggy! This will cause havoc on many systems of the body and really should be avoided, only with the exception of some fruit now and again.

4. Don’t deny yourself a treat.

This is the key to longevity when it comes to great diet choices. It is extremely hard to be black and white with diet, to not have the treats or to deny the temptation. It is human nature after all (I think Adam showed us that…)

So don’t deny yourself a treat, so long as it is exactly that, a treat! Just once a week something sweet or some dairy. Make it the exception, not the norm! That way you will satisfy the craving without sacrificing your health.

I hope that helps and makes navigating your nutrition a little easier. Believe me I struggle at times with this, but it is a momentum game, get into your groove and it can become habit. And decide, do you want a healthy and happy life? If so, food has a big part to play.

If you would like more in depth and tailoured help with your nutrition I would highly recommend you contact Craig Barton who is a Functional Medicine Practitioner based in Lincoln. You can contact him on craig@craigbartonpt.co.uk.

With love

Tom