Start Fresh
We all need to understand how to listen to our bodies better. The best way to do that is with a reset.
When we take away processed ingredients, packaged meals, and snacks and once again let our taste buds and stomachs enjoy delicious protein, fat, fiber, and greens unsullied by harmful chemicals, we relearn how to eat the way we were meant to eat—to satiety. You then become more aware of your body, its habits and reactions, and your tendencies and patterns. It’s only then you can make the mental shift to a strong, confident, and very chill state of #mind.
Allow yourself some time away from trigger foods (and even extend that to toxic people and actions in your daily life). While this can sound intimidating (especially over the holidays), knowing what foods are particularly reactionary for you is invaluable! When our body is full of a bunch of stuff that shouldn’t be there, it functions differently. We learn to live a certain way and don’t even realize what it’s like to not feel like crap.
To start, try a month of “clean eating”. My site includes a bunch of recipes to start with, and as always, taylor those to your specific dietary needs. You will have some missteps, but that’s okay. You will still most likely be wayyyyy better than wherever you started. Let this be the healthiest month of your life. Throw away or donate any foods that would be holding you back. Leave out the toxins. Get rid of the stuff that tempts you.
Typical trigger foods (ones that most ppl have some kind of reaction to):
anything unnaturally white (flour, sugar, grain)
sugar (check labels! At the most should have 5g per serving max. Known to cause headaches, and mental clarity issues and way worse)
dairy (allergens, mucous builder, also contains hormones bc boobies)
veggie oil blends (mental clarity and way worse. Basically becomes toxic in heat. More explanation to come!)
grains (leave out if you’d like to see if you’re reactive. If this is too hard, go for organic brown rice, quinoa, rolled oats)
anything processed (or uses too many ingredients you don’t know)
meat with added hormones (these go straight to your body too)
alcohol (if this is tough, bring sparkling water and lime and maaayyybbeee some clear alcohol)
soy (including edamame and soy sauce as they naturally have estrogen which mess w your hormones. Also most processed foods use soy)
Alright, now that we have thrown out all the old stuff (expired, containing toxic oils, added preservatives, sugars, hormones and whatever else), what is left to eat?
🥦First of all, 75% of EVERY plate should be vegetables. This is something you should try for the rest of your life. Most things can be fixed in your diet by getting natural vitamins and minerals from living vegetables. The fresher, the better, organic when possible. This is where you want every kind of color, as that means a variety of nutrients. Grill them, season, bake, saute with some butter and garlic. #eattherainbow
Meat with no hormones, grass fed. (obviously this is optional per your diet) Basically the expensive, grass fed happy animals that get to eat all kinds of stuff than just bran. This means more variety and nutrients for you).
Fish (pick your favorites, and don’t forget about the oil packed sardines and anchovies for cheap ). Just dont go for the deep fried anything. The oils are toxic once heated to this level, unless they are using peanut or some other expensive oil, which most restaurants are NOT.)
Butter, ghee and oil and good fats (the expensive kinds since quality matters in a huge way here. Most cheap canola and veggie blend oils are already spoiled by their production process and wreak havoc inside your tummy and brain).
Nuts and seeds (all kinds, except for peanut. these are actually legumes.)
Fruit, but please note: this is NOT A JUICE CLEANSE. Juices just extract the sugars and take out all the filling fiber. We want to limit our sugar intake as much as possible. Fruits are limited to 20g per day (about a handful of berries, 1/4 cup max).
Spices and herbs (ginger, garlic, cinnamon, salt, pepper are just a start! And their nutritional benefits are compounded when cooked together)
Once you feel steady in your results, you can begin reintroduce various food items one at a time to see if you react to them (or leave them out for good). If you do want to do food testing, allow three days per different food item. Eat the item on Day 1, and take mental note of how you feel with each bite and within the hour or two after you eat, and even 24+ hours. Days 2 and 3 are to ensure the food effects are again out of your system and not contributing to any other reactions as you try the next food.
Some programs to help with this:
Bulletproof 30 day upgrade, free online guides. Very well written and concise, along with tons of other free material. I love some of the information found on the Bulletproof site, however I have heard some criticism on some claims made on the coffee program. That being said, there is still much to be learned. Always make your own judgements of things!
Dirty dozen and Clean 15 - Identify the top produce every year to hold onto more pesticides (possibly because of thin skin), and others that have better protection from them (and less need to go organic)
Cambiati Wellness Program - in class program in California that basically re-taught me how to eat. I bought myself this program on a whim when i turned 30 and it basically changed my life and relationship to food. In a nutshell, it is a gut cleansing diet for a month that focuses on eliminating toxins and eating good veggies, proteins and fat. Some would call it an Anti-Candida Protocol (you can find your own research online, but be careful of magic pills.), something i had never heard of, and gave a ton of support and weekly meetings to go over tons of info, along with supplements and products to help combat cravings. Pricey, (about $500 for the class and the month of vitamins and supplements), but I would recommend it to anyone suffering from anything health wise. Literally anything. My list of ailments before i started (when i started really thinking about it) was bad sleep (waking up consistenl through the night), acne, brain fog (which became much more apparent when finished with the program). I had no idea how much was effected by food.
P.S. You don’t have to wait until after the holidays to start. ;) But, even if you want to hold off to the new year or later, start slow. Just start noticing the triggers around you and what it would take for you to be successful. This is a hard exercise. It has been a year and a half and I am still learning, and will continue to make adjustments, as well as push off triggers. Be nice to yourself. Pay attention to the self talk in your head. Would you allow anyone else to talk to yourself the way you do? Don’t guilt yourself if you give in, and enjoy the occasional treat.
