Tips For Long-Term Nutrition Success
As we approach a new year, I wanted to share some tips that I believe help to simplify improving overall health and nutrition. These ideas can really help increase intake of vitamins and minerals necessary for optimal health and can help minimize the culprits of chronic diseases. Enjoy!
There are no good and bad foods
Once we learn to stop labeling food as good/bad, healthy/unhealthy, we allow ourselves to remove guilt from food. Influencer’s and the media often choose to give harsh labels to foods because that is what helps them sell their “detox diet” packages and products. It can be a very effective marketing tool, but it is not what is going to help you optimize your health in the long run.
Instead, it is valuable to think about the frequency at which you eat certain types of food. For example, if you go to McDonald’s a few times a month because you love their fries and soft serve, that’s not going to impact your long-term health if the majority of the time you are eating unprocessed whole foods like homemade salads, soups, pasta and stir-fries. BUT, if you only eat processed foods like packaged snacks, fast-food, and frozen meals and rarely eat any fruit, vegetables or whole grains — over time this can have negative effects on your health like increase your risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and hypertension.
Choose primarily whole-foods, mostly plant-based
Until the day that I die, I will not stop saying this mantra. It is the simplest way to ensure you are getting enough vitamins, minerals and other nutrients in your diet. What are whole foods? Whole foods are foods that have not been processed, refined or had ingredients added to them. So this is anything you can pick off a tree, cut from a bush, or harvest from the ground. This also includes things like eggs, milk, animal products such as chicken breast, beef, etc.
Why is it so important to eat these foods? Because they are the most unmodified from their original state and are the richest source of vitamins, minerals and other nutrients. There are an infinite number of benefits to the human body from these foods, many that we aren’t even aware of yet. When we begin to process foods from their original state, we often times lose some of the nutrients and add more salt, sugar and fat. For example, we are now beginning to understand the complex relationship between eating a diet rich in plants and the benefits for our gut health and mental health.
The supplement industry markets products as having many benefits based off of studies of isolated compounds. While some supplements do provide health benefits, they are often times only concentrating one compound. When you eat an apple, you not only get the vitamins and minerals from that apple but you get fiber and water from that apple to aid in digestion and hydration.
Choose processed and ultra-processed foods in your diet wisely
These days, we hear a lot about processed food and that it is unhealthy and we should minimize processed food in our diet. But what really is processed food and why is does it have potential negative effects on our health?
Processed food literally means any whole food that has been modified from its original form. Which is a really generalizable term! Flour would be considered processed, milk would be considered processed, frozen berries would be considered processed. But these are all considered generally healthy “whole foods”.
The important distinction is processed foods compared to ultra-processed foods. Ultra-processed foods are foods in which many of the original vitamins and minerals have been stripped away and additives like sugar, salt, fat, and preservatives have been added instead. These methods remove much of the nutritional value and replace it with these addictive compounds like salt, sugar and fat. Usually, when I talk about minimizing processed foods, I am referring to these ultra-processed foods.
These processed and ultra processed foods are VERY common and it is nearly impossible to avoid. And none of this is to say that you have to avoid these foods at all cost, but to help you start to think about how you can add more unprocessed foods into your diet to benefit your overall short and long-term health.
I like using the Ingredient Rule when deciding what packaged/processed foods I prefer to buy. If the ingredient list is really long and filled with ingredients I can’t pronounce or even know what they are, I will likely not buy that product. But if I buy pickled onions and the ingredients are onions, vinegar, water, salt, and sugar — I have no problem buying that product.
Learn to cook and spend time cooking at home
As our lives get busier, cooking is one of the first things that goes out the window. It can be time consuming and it is hard work. You have to first decide what to buy at the grocery store, go to the store, store the food correctly, prepare the food, and clean up after. What used to be a common task as humans has become less and less necessary with the availability of convenient food options.
But, preparing food at home can be one of the most valuable tools for improving your overall nutrition and reaching your specific nutrition goals. When you are cooking at home, you have full control of what ingredients you put in your food, especially when you are cooking with primarily whole foods.
Often times, clients say that when they cook at home the food is boring and has no flavor. And often times I think this is due to our fear around adding salt, fat and sugar when we are cooking. When you eat out, I can almost guarantee that there is more salt, sugar and fat in the food you order out than you would even fathom to use in your own home cooking. And when you allow yourself to use some salt, a little butter, and sugar when you cook at home you will find that these ingredients are not at all “evil” ingredients but important components of many types of cuisines. Use them modestly when you cook, and you will very likely find that your food will taste great and you are consuming much less calories, fat, salt and sugar than if you were to eat the same meal at a restaurant.
Try adding more herbs and spices to give it more flavor such as garlic, onion, ginger, cilantro, mint, scallions, pepper, chili, turmeric, celery, carrots, thyme, rosemary, sage, all spice, cumin… the list goes on and on! Check out my instagram for some recipes that I have been sharing that incorporate a lot of herbs and spices.
