When there's so much information on nutrition at your fingertips, you'd think it would be a good thing right?
But instead...overwhelm!
So let's chat about the 3 ways you can look to change your nutrition and what needs to come first - particularly if you suffer from analysis paralysis and end up doing nothing at all, or are prone to trying everything at once and lasting about a week (Hint: going from 0 to 100 is usually a terrible idea)
1. Food Quality
2. Food Quantity
3. Food Timing
Start with the big picture - Food Quality
So by 'Food Quality', we mean eating more wholefoods (real foods) and fewer foods that cause inflammation in the body.
These include processed foods (all manner of junk), toxic seed oils, grains, and refined sugars.
It should make sense that we want to eat less of the things that cause us harm and disable our immune system right? That's what those foods do.
The extent of processing of the ‘processed foods’ varies dramatically of course, and it’s the ultra processed, high calorie, low nutrient-density foods that are the biggest problem, and then we can work backwards from there (even a high quality protein powder supplement is a 'processed food' so we can use a bit of context).
Examples of these ultra processed foods are the hyper-palatable products engineered to taste incredible and literally hijack our metabolism causing us to eat much more than we need - packaged convenience foods, lollies, chips, bikkies, sugary drinks and baked goods.
These foods contain predominantly unhealthy types of fat, refined starches, refined sugars & salt, and additionally are very poor sources of protein, fibre and micronutrients. In other words, they're poor sources of NUTRITION!
Real food or 'wholefood' is exactly the opposite. They are supportive to human health in every way.
Wholefoods are usually found in their natural form. They come from the ground, a tree or an animal (including animals themselves) and they're the foods our ancestors lived on for hundreds of centuries.
The food we evolved to eat!
The most nutrient dense, supportive foods you can get your hands on are well raised, naturally fed animal proteins - meat, fish, eggs, as well as naturally occurring fats, vegetables, fruits, herbs & spices, nuts & seeds, fermented foods and quality high fat dairy in moderation (if tolerated).
Similarly Michael Pollan says "Real food is something that comes from nature, was fed from nature, and will eventually rot".
But what difference does it really make? If we just need calories for energy to function, why does it matter where they come from?
Crazy fact: food is NOT just something that exists so we can feel full instead of hungry.
Nutrients, vitamins & minerals are not just a bonus - they're a necessity!
As much as we need the energy from calories, we need NUTRIENTS even more to provide the building blocks for every single cell in our body to function properly, maintain a healthy microbiome (gut health), enable a strong immune system, keep inflammation at bay (the leading cause of all non-infectious disease), and balance hormones including those associated with appetite, obesity and metabolic derangement.
In short our metabolic health is going to be extremely poor without them.
So you can probably see why the most important first step is Food QUALITY.
You may even be surprised the difference this makes on its own without focusing on food quantity or food timing at all!
Stay tuned for Part II on Food Quantity.
Comments