Eating your way to true health

The ultimate way to good health is through changing your eating habits. You can change your eating habits with some conscious decisions, and your body will follow. Start with a clean slate. The easiest way to change is to change your environment first, and your human body will find its way through the new maze.

 

Your brain is hardwired to solve problems in the quickest and easiest way. Remove the choices you don’t want to make.  If you leave tasty bread crumbs, your body will follow them to an anticipated feast.

If you don’t have it in front of you, it’s hard to eat it.

Clean out your kitchen first.  Eliminate all boxes of processed foods and all vegetable oils.  Go through your refrigerator and freezer and all the hidden places where you might have a stash of hidden candy.

Also, engage all of the people around you.

Undoubtedly, if your dietary pattern is poor, it’s also poor for everybody around you.  Humans are social creatures, and we use food to bond and as a shared form of communication and pleasure.

If you change and they don’t, either they will sabotage you or you will outgrow the relationship.  Admittedly, some people will not change, so an online community is where you can head to gain additional support.

 

It’s about creating a new paradigm, a mindset that fits in the new environment.

You are creating a new vision of yourself.  Your new vision incorporates what you are and what you do. Your environment reinforces your mindset, not the other way around.

You do not eat processed foods, refined grains, and vegetable oils.
You are concerned about your future self.
Your health determines your financial stability.
You know that movement is what makes the body healthy.
You know that sleep restores the body.
You know that Big Food and Big Pharma have their own agenda — to increase your consumption.
You know that most healthcare providers are educated through industry-sponsored events. There is no industry sponsorship for reducing consumption.

Practical tips through the day

Limit your food choices for the first few weeks to one or two different kind of foods for every meal.  Variety will artificially and unnecessarily increase how much you eat, overwhelming your satiety signaling.  Limit your seasonings, too, because even if the protein source stays the same, your taste receptors respond to the flavor, texture, temperature, and smell variance.

Your goal is to restrict your feeding window to a shorter part of the day and not feel hungry.  When you start the day with a meal, you prime yourself to eat again in 2-4 hours.  You are retraining your body to listen to your true hunger symptoms and your satiety signals.  This means you need to slow down when eating, and should stretch a meal to 45 minutes, because it takes about 20 minutes for your leptin (satiety hormone) to be produced and recognized.

As a practical tip, have a glass of water before every meal and wait about 10 minutes before starting the meal. Then, have a glass of water at the end of every meal, and take a walk for 10 minutes after every meal.

Tasting a food, smelling a food, visualizing a food, or watching a show about food is only increasing your insulin production.  This food porn will only cause you to become more insulin resistant.  Don’t watch or participate in food porn.

Snacks beget more snacks.  Don’t buy snacks or participate in snacking.  If you must have a little something to take medication or feel that you can’t go snack-free yet, save some leftover protein from a previous meal to buffer your stomach.

Don’t eat when distracted by a TV.  This is called mindless eating, and you are practicing mindfulness.

Have a consistent bedtime and get at least 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep. Sleep is needed to reset your cells. True sleep, initially, is probably more important than exercise for your metabolism.

Start the day off right and skip breakfast altogether.  Unless you are truly hungry, or your metabolism has not yet adjusted, breakfast is a waste of calories and time.

If at first you “need” breakfast, then stick to a protein-rich source like eggs and healthy fats. Some suggestions are eggs, meats, fish, nuts, or salad with olive oil dressing.

 

You should avoid these foods altogether

(remember you don’t even buy these things, they don’t exist in your new Universe):

Oatmeal, cereal, bagels, bread, granola, breakfast bars

Fruit juice, fruit smoothies

Waffles, pancakes, muffins

 

You should re-think lunch and dinner. Eat only real food, nothing processed.

 

Forget about foods that never fill you up.

 

Always avoid food variety inside a meal.  Limit yourself on one food type per meal.

For now,  avoid food variety between meals until you can retrain your brain for real hunger and satiety signals.

Focus on protein and healthy fats

Focus on getting meals that are rich in protein and healthy fats. Eat all types of meat like beef, fish, chicken, lamb and seafood. Yogurt & cheeses are also nutritious and filling, but increasing variety will make your brain overeat. Fill up on olives, peppers, cucumbers, and avocado, and eat as many green leafy vegetables as you please.

About drinks:  Sweet drinks will only drive up your hunger. Whether they have sugar in them or just artificial sweeteners, both will spike your insulin and make you overeat later.

 

  • Juice
  • Soda
  • Smoothies
  • Shakes
  • Protein supplements
  • Energy drinks
  • Sweetened coffee/tea

Instead drink:

  • Water
  • Seltzer
  • Unsweetened iced tea
  • Unsweetened coffee

Snacks are unnecessary when your body habituates to real food.

If you must snack, pick from a variety of nuts, macadamia, brazil, pecans, almonds, and walnuts.  Leftover protein from the previous meal is also good.

Desserts:

If you are going to eat dessert, what are your best options? Stay away from the ice cream, cookies, cakes that are all full of sugar. They only increase your appetite and your blood glucose levels.

Instead, eat delicious & convenient low carb desserts.

Consider Halo Top or another low-sugar ice-cream.  The perfect keto almond butter brownie bar can be an amazing rescue for a desperate sweet tooth.  Remember dessert is a special occasion, not a routine.

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