There’s just so MANY of them…

And they all claim to be great, right?  Well, because, ummm… well… they ARE all great!  That didn’t help, did it?  Okay–here’s how it works…

If you’ve been reading my newsletter for a while, then you’re familiar with the concept of bioindividuality: the reality that each person’s biochemical make-up, the demands on their body and how their body responds to those demands are all different.  As a result, one person’s pickle is another person’s poison.  Where one person eating a raw foods diet can put rheumatoid arthritis into remission another person might feel too cold to tolerate such a diet (although, I suspect that if this person suffered with RA, they’d tolerate the cold to be without the agony 😉 ).  Where one person needs grains another person needs to be without them or they’ll suffer asthmatic symptoms.  And I personally know at least 2 people who would prefer to be vegetarian, but whose bodies don’t respond to supplements or cast iron cooking well enough to keep them from being anemic–so they have to eat a few small portions of red meat every week.

Are you ready to throw your hands up in the air and just eat whatever you want?  Don’t do that–it’s really not that complicated.

When you sift through all of the dietary theory and all of the research, it’s easy to find the baseline of common wisdom that should serve as the foundation of how all humans eat.  And you will notice that these guidelines pretty much overlap most eating plans/diets “out there”.  The things I find that they have in common:

• Heavy emphasis on vegetables/vegetables being the bulk of your food intake–in all colors.
• Water as the main beverage if not the only beverage.
• Eating foods that are as whole and unprocessed as possible–striving to eating only foods without a label (this IS possible!)
• Eating only until you’re satisfied–not full.
• Some amount of daily movement (20-minute walk)
• Appropriate amounts of sleep (7-9 hours, more if your body needs it)

Beyond that, it does vary wildly and with varying results depending on your personal state of health, your body’s biochemistry, and what you are trying to achieve.  Research supports all of the points above, and truly, implementing all of the above alone would have you in better health and losing weight if you are overweight… without counting calories.

So if you’re looking for an eating plan, start with the guidelines above.  Once you have those guidelines fully integrated into your life, your baseline is set.  It may take you some time to fully adjust to living and eating this way.  You may need some help.  But once you are there, it is much easier to see what your body needs because you will have given it the majority of what it needs.  You will better be able to identify problems–especially problems caused by foods.  Although food can be medicine, some foods (just like some drugs) can work wonders for one person and horrors for another.

If you need help making changes to support a new way of eating in your household, let me know.  We can talk about how we might work together to get you moving in the right direction.