What if you could restore your health by following 1 simple rule for your diet?
What if just 1 change to your diet could improve your immune system, calm your digestive system, reduce inflammation, and create a healthier you?
Make this 1 adjustment and you will see a difference in just a short time.
Is health merely the absence of disease?
When I look at the health of an individual, I begin by assessing their Chemical, Physical and Emotional states of health. The chemical health of an individual looks at a multitude of factors concerning any chemical interaction that takes place in or on your body. From a macroscopic point of view, I divide these factors into two stressors, internal stressors and external stressors. As I have related to you previously, your body’s only mission as an organism is to survive its daily stressors through physiologic adaptations.
From a chemical perspective, your body survives by making biochemical adaptations every second of every day. (Ingest milk and your body responds by increasing HCL production for digestion. Perceive stress and Cortisol is released.) I would say your body spends most of its time responding to its environment (external stressors) but it does make room for our less understood cognitively perceived stressors (internal stressors) as well. Our cognitive abilities can create perceived stressors causing a range of chemicals to be produced without real external stimuli. This is fascinating, as it seems to be uniquely human but isn’t our focus for today’s blog post. For more on that, you can read my blog posts on emotional health.
As complicated as our human physiology can be, there are some basic principles in which all of us can grasp. The purpose of today’s blog post is to simplify your understanding of what it takes to create a healthy diet.
The best news is that by using this 1 simple rule for diet and nutrition, you can simplify this piece of your wellness journey starting today.
Some Backstory
My health journey began over 20 years ago. During this time I have tried almost every Fad diet out there. I have invested my time and money to gain years of clinical experience and knowledge that I’m going to relate to you in this blog. My clinical nutritional journey started in college with basic nutritional courses and continued with graduate-level courses. Drawn to health and nutrition, I consistently created multiple “N of 1” experiments starting as early as my freshman year of college.
At 18 years old I was about 6 foot tall weighing in at a whopping 140 pounds. Yep, I was skinny. Very Skinny. Despite the current popular opinion, skinny doesn’t mean healthy. So, I started lifting weights and successfully matched my workouts with the nutritional recommendations prescribed in most bodybuilding magazines. I went to the gym 5 days a week and consumed copious amounts of protein shakes trying to gain weight. I tirelessly followed these bulk building routines for the next 8 years with limited success. My body type is that of an ectomorph (link to body type test), so putting on muscle mass doesn’t bode well with my genetic makeup. Eventually, I made it up to a top weight of 181 pounds of mostly muscle. But, as an ectomorph, if I skipped the weights or decreased my food intake for any decent period of time, I would quickly lose any muscle gained over the last few years. Frustrating!
Throughout these years, I started to have a few undesired side effects that I initially related to aging. Things like joint pain, psoriasis, brain fog, allergies, stomach pain, bloating, gas and irritability. It wasn’t until my last year in Chiropractic college, with plenty of years of clinical nutritional courses under my belt, that a friend recommended that I read “The China Study”. The China Study is a boring read so I’ll give you the cliff notes version. — Animal products are bad for human consumption.– If you’ve ever seen the popular Vegan movie “Forks Over Knives”, then you get the just of it.
This book resonated with me for many reasons but two things about the book that still stand out to me today are;
- Everything you eat or drink either fights disease or feeds it.
- The food industry is as corrupt as big tobacco when it comes to marketing and data manipulation.
Needless to say, after reading this book, I wanted to go Vegan. I attempted this lifestyle change for a few weeks but quickly became troubled by the dramatic loss in muscle mass that I was experiencing. At the time, I was too focused on aesthetics and less focused on health and longevity. So, I stopped the vegan diet and rebalanced my previous diet to be more mindful of what I was eating but really, nothing much changed.
The Elimination Diets
A little while later, a friend and colleague of mine suggested that I try an elimination diet. For 30 days I cut out everything except for organic chicken breast, brown rice, and raw veggies. It was a challenge but I stuck to it and in the end, I felt pretty damn good. The only problem was, I didn’t take full stock of my symptoms before I started the diet. I did however notice my psoriasis was less inflamed and seemed to be healing, but I didn’t notice that anything else had changed. It wasn’t until I began putting foods back into my diet that I realized just how good I felt.
In an elimination diet, you add foods back in 1 at a time to see what ails you or what increases your symptoms.
First, I added in some basic fruits without a problem. Citrus can be an allergen for many but citrus had no negative impact on my symptoms.
I then went with a bigger more common allergen and added back in eggs. No trouble with eggs.
So, I added in some cheese and yogurt. This quickly created some noticeable sinus issues and mucus production, but nothing too crazy. So far so good.
Grains came next and thankfully brown rice didn’t seem to irritate my skin, so I added back in bread. Within minutes of eating it, I began to have stomach pains. The memories of all my childhood years of stomach pain came back to me quickly. I had found my first real allergen. I continued by adding in some pasta and gluten-related products. Quickly many symptoms that had left without notice began to creep back in. Brain fog, fatigue, irritability, and joint pain all returned within a day or two. There it was. My nemesis – It was GLUTEN! I couldn’t believe it. All those years as a kid with chronic stomach pain. All those trips to the doctor’s offices and hospitals only to be told it was a “nervous stomach” were finally answered. I had a gluten sensitivity that went undiagnosed for years.
It was a pretty big turning point in my health and lifestyle choices. I avoided gluten for years and watched 98% of my skin and other symptoms disappear. This discovery started me on a deeper quest to understand how nutrition affected me and my patient population. I encouraged and prescribed many of my patients to try the elimination diet with much success. I was happy to see a major change in their health from a simple change in their nutritional perspective.
Man cannot live on bread alone
Somewhere along the line, I began to experiment with the most popular Fad diets. I tried most of them with varying success. I went Paleo for almost 5 years. Raw Vegan for 28 days. Keto and intermittent fasting for about 8 weeks (not great for an ectomorph). Raw juice cleanses. Anti-inflammatory diets, Whole 30, Zone Diet, Mediterranean diet, Pescatarian, etc. You name it and I most likely tried it.
Last year my wife and I tried the GAPS diet. We read about its benefits and with the knowledge we had gained over the years, we agreed that it may be a worthwhile diet to try so that we could possibly heal our leaky gut problems. We thought it was the best chance to restore our normal gut microbiome. We made homemade bone broth, Kombucha, fermented veggies, and even collagen gummies. We stayed on the GAPS diet for almost 5 months before we decided to return to Paleo. The Gaps diet did seem to help heal up our guts a bit, but with many years of attempting restrictive diets, it didn’t create the WOW moment we were looking for. If we could stay the course for multiple years, then maybe it would have been the Holy Grail of diets. Who knows?
With all these diets we noticed that many of them have 2 things in common.
- They are hard to sustain in real life with work, kids and social gatherings.
- They all revolve around eating real food and removing processed crap.
So, which is right for you? Well, that depends on who you ask. In this day and age with technology at our fingertips, we have a plethora of information. With all of this information comes misinformation. Each diet is backed up by multiple studies on why it is the best diet and the only way to live a healthy life. So, which scientist is right?
Well, I don’t know. The experts can’t agree on anything that they aren’t being paid to agree on and we as the public are left to sift through the information, purchase the books and dedicate time to finding out what works for us. Every expert has an opinion, but rarely do they agree. Being your own advocate is my best advice.
“If you really want to be healthy, you need to make health your hobby”
-Nick the DC
The #1 Rule to Create a Healthy Diet
It’s simple and is a cornerstone of all of these FAD diets that I mentioned above.
1 simple rule will improve your diet.
1 simple rule will cut your inflammation.
1 simple rule will allow you to own a healthy diet.
1 simple rule to follow when eating out.
1 simple rule to avoid all the fad diets.
1 simple rule to regain your connection to nature and the food it provides.
My 1 rule for creating a healthy diet is…
EAT - REAL - FOOD
Yep, that’s it. That is the 1 simple rule for creating a healthy diet. Impressed?
Let me elaborate, Real Food in my definition is the food that God intended us to eat. Now don’t get me wrong, food has been modified with all of our technologies and advancements, but you can still get close to the real God-given life sustenance if you try. The hybrids and crossbreeds we have created are often compared to the likings of GMO’s, but this is far from the truth. Some of these man-made foods have been manipulated but not chemically altered and can easily be assimilated into a Real Food diet without much question.
I do my best to find foods that are minimally processed and as close to there natural raw state as possible. I also avoid GMO’s, prefer organics, and look at where and how my animal products were raised. Biodiverse farms like the one in Biggest Little Farm depict what the world could be like if we all had the same mindfulness for our planet. Instead of trying to solve a problem with newer technology that only serves to further the problems of an out of sync ecosystem, let’s try and solve problems by using a biodiverse model. Create an ecosystem that values sustainability. After all, you are what you eat and what it ate.
Understanding where your food comes from is truly important. Many of our ancient traditions and rituals revolve around processing food in a way that would utilize every aspect of its being. In the chapter on relationships, I also make mention of many making sacrifices and praying over their food as a sign of respect and gratitude for the living entities that would soon nourish our cells.
What Counts as Real Food
When looking at processed food, the NOVA classification of processed foods can be a great resource for a newbie. There are 4 groups of processed foods.
- Is unprocessed or minimally processed foods.
- Processed culinary ingredients.
- Processed Foods
- Ultra-processed food
So here it is, eat only foods that are real. This would fall primarily into group 1 and group 2 on the chart above. Eat them as raw as possible. Spruce them up with a little fire when it’s meat or when you are looking at making a dish that calls for steamed broccoli. Sure, cooking can cause some nutritional degradation, but at least its real food and not processed, bleached, preserved crap.
“The longer its shelf life,
the shorter yours.”
The bottom line is don’t stress if you are eating real God-given food. Your body is made up of 37 trillion living cells all communicating with your Innate Intelligence. Those cells can survive off of calories from boot leather but they will thrive off of calories from real living cellular nourishment.
Avoid processed crap, Eat Real Food and your body will be happier, healthier and more congruent with its genetic makeup.
Now that you know the 1 basic rule, I would like to return to a more complicated question.
Do you have a more specific goal?
For most of you, I will assume your goals revolve around health restoration and not just aesthetic appeal. (Not that there is anything wrong with looking good, feeling good and smelling good.) The rule of eating real food is a simple way to live that 90/10 healthy lifestyle but individually you might need some more focus to achieve more specific goals. For these more complex goals, I’d recommend a reset diet to start and modify as needed.
Earlier in a blog post, I relate to you the idea of living a 90/10 lifestyle. I certainly agree with this notion of moderation unless you are trying to achieve a specific and worthy goal. If you are committed to achieving a more coveted goal, then there is no other way to go at it, but with 100% of your self-commitment. Take the O.A.T.H. All the grit, all the determination, all the time until you achieve it. Then you may want to choose to relax a little and turn on the autopilot button.
Our demanding social culture doesn’t make it easy for us to achieve our dietary goals. I always encourage my patients to commit to 30, 60, or 90 days when attempting to heal themselves. Often patients will tell me that they tried a diet or removed gluten and/or dairy for a few weeks to no avail. They didn’t achieve that A-HA moment it takes to continue. Most studies indicate that it takes a few weeks to remove gluten allergens from your digestive tract and let your body’s immune system calm down. It may take much longer for your gut and skin to fully heal.
For those of you embarking on this journey for the first time, I think it’s important for you to take some time eliminating and detoxifying your system. You can choose any elimination diet of your choice. I created an elimination diet that can be supplemented with vitamins, minerals, and detoxification compounds when needed. (more on that later) It’s a simple process as it follows my 1 simple rule. Eat Real Food.
Real Food Reset
I’m not a big fan of detoxification diets as it can lead people to believe that you can eat what you want as long as you clear it out once in a while. This isn’t the lifestyle I’m trying to convey. For that purpose, I think of this as a reset. A cleaning of the slate, a starting over, a 100% turn around so that you can lead a 90/10 lifestyle. This is a pressing of the reset button if you will. Control, Alt, Delete!
This obviously does work as a detox diet but is intended to reveal your food sensitivities in an attempt to create health as well as strengthen your conviction for creating health. In my opinion, a reset diet should be done every 7 to 10 years. At some point, a reset diet should have little to no effect on a person who is living in congruence with their ecosystem.
For more on the Real Food Reset, click on the link.
If you would like a free 30 day Real Food Reset Plan click on the link.
If you would like to know what a 90/10 diet can look like, click on the link.
If you would like a consultation, click on the link.
One Adjustment Action Step
- Don’t start a new diet until you have thoroughly thought out your goals. Here is a blog post on just that. Reality, Responsibility and Resolve. Don’t use procrastination as an excuse to continue eating crap until you take your life seriously. You can easily start adding fresh real food every day and avoid fast, cheap, boxed crap right now at this moment.
- When you know your dietary goals, read up on how to achieve them. Modify any plan that directs you to buy highly processed food or drinks. If you need help, reach out. I’ll do my best to point you int he right direction.
- When you are ready, you can start the Real Food Reset. We follow the Restrict, Repair and Re-associate plan to eliminate common allergens and focus your diet on nourishment of your cells.
- When you have completed this process and are ready to move onto the 90/10 Lifestyle, we can help there too. This applies to those who have clearly depicted their problem foods and want to try and eat healthy while carrying on in modern-day life.
- If you are just learning about your health, I encourage you to check out the remaining Innate Essentials that can help you achieve the life you want.
For many, diet is one of the hardest variables to control in their daily life. Many can consistently and routinely work out for an hour each day. The hard part is controlling what goes into your body for the remainder of that day.
It is also hard on most to switch to a new lifestyle while still attempting to keep up with their old lifestyle. What I have found is that you must stick to a plan long enough to create a new repertoire of recipes and taste buds. Long story short, you need to commit.
Begin by getting to know new recipes and new flavors. Learn how to incorporate them into your life. This will help you to change behaviors when you feel the need to reach for something sweet or salty or just psychologically satisfying. Comfort food.
It’s interesting to note that you are a myriad of different behaviors. Just try telling hangry you to calm down. It’s impossible. A craving is a physiological impulse intertwined with some psychological entity that is you. Having a plan and sticking to it can help reduce the outbursts and cravings that you present.
Healthy routines and rituals will carry you through the hardest of times.
Nick the DC
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