HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Happy new year, especially, to those who want to finally start eating healthy and steer clear from The Diet Traps.
First, I must acknowledge up front that I know of no one, including myself (John Allen Mollenhauer, founder of nutrientrich.com) who eats perfectly all the time. Nor do I think that eating perfectly should be a goal. When we strive for perfection, we are bound to fail. This is all too common in today’s all-or-nothing society. However, that does not mean that we should not strive to succeed to eat the healthiest that we CAN!!
It’s a given that our stress levels are higher today than at any other time in history. Dare I say, we are even more stressed than our ancestors who lived during the age of the dinosaurs. Indeed, it would be very stressful to be chased by a dinosaur at risk of being eaten, as well as to live in a cave, but my assumption is that our ancestors weren’t being chased 24 /7 by the stress of always having a million things to do. YOU are, however, so cut yourself some slack! What you will learn eating a Nutrient Rich diet as part of a PerformanceLifestyle will enable you to deal with that.
It’s also a given today that we are faced with more food choices and influences (conscious or not) than at any other time in history. There is a myriad of reasons why someone might eat a nutrient poor food from time to time. So again, cut yourself some slack. Start developing a healthy psychology around food, starting NOW. No more excuses! Establish philosophies that support you in today’s day and age, without settling for life threatening consequences. Throw away your weight loss magazine articles, because here’s how to keep a diet resolution that you will love!
The 7 Essentials Ways To Keep a Diet Resolution That You Will Love:
1) You resolve to eat a Nutrient Rich diet. Any other type of diet resolution that you follow, will fail you. What do I mean by “Nutrient Rich”? I mean foods that have all the nutrients your body needs to run as efficiently as possible so that you may succeed in other aspects of your lifestyle. Nutrient Rich foods do not contain any “anti nutrients” (Ref: Dina Kimmel, RD) that your body does not need or that may be actually harmful to your body (e.g., dietary cholesterol and saturated fat, significant amounts of animal protein). Anti nutrients lead to failure. They will have a negative influence on your health and your weight no doubt, but the bottom line is, if it’s a nutrient poor diet, you will not be able to sustain it. Period. Either you will eventually go nuts to get your needs met, or your health will suffer as your body gives out like a broken down car. Neither works.
There are hundreds of Nutrient Rich diets (as many as there are nutrient poor diets) which will help you eat for optimal health. The key to remember is that in order for a diet to lead you to succeed, it must be Nutrient Rich. Here at nutrientrich.com, we will not only teach how to eat Nutrient Rich and how to avoid nutrient poor food disguised as Nutrient Rich food (or the wolf in sheep’s clothing), but we will also teach you that there is not just one way to eat Nutrient Rich. Then again, we are more than happy to share with you what we consider to be the “gold standard” Nutrient Rich diet program.
2) You must remember that Nutrition is only one aspect of a successful lifestyle. If you are are having difficulty with what you are eating, or how much you are eating, or if you want to learn how to to disease proof your body, minimize nutritional stress – the kind of stress you get when your body is trying to deal with disease promoting foods, like refined salt, refined sugar, significant amounts of free oils and animal protein etc) – and achieve your goals more effectively, then learning Nutrient Rich nutrition is the key.
But learning Nutrient Rich nutrition by itself, albeit an essential aspect of your lifestyle, is still only one aspect. How you manage your energy, and activity levels are also essential to your success. There are 12 fundamental lifestyle skills you need to know if you are going to live in balance, with vibrant health and peace of mind, at or near your natural weight all year round, and they go way beyond the study of nutrition alone. Learn them and you’ll eat better than ever before with us cutting through all the confusion for you!
3) You must understand that “eating better” is not a goal. Yes, I said it, eating better is not a goal. Heresy! If eating better is your goal, then will you will stop eating better once you lose weight? Most do. It also means you are not eating healthy right now, which will ultimately lead you to repeat your 2011 New Year’s resolution of “lose weight/eat healthy” for 2012. You’ve got to start eating healthy right now, and then continue eating healthy; it’s not a goal, it’s a given. Your goals are what you achieve as a result of your health and the ability to perform well. So take your lifestyle to the next level by learning how to eat Nutrient Rich first.
Once you are eating better, you will start to think better and then live better so you can live or or near your natural weight all year round.
Here at nutrientrich.com we are teaching you the next level of healthy eating. We will help you earn your “black belt” in nutrition! If you were going to learn martial arts, would you want to learn from a green belt? NO! So start learning how to truly eat healthy and start developing the lifestyle mindset for why you eat Nutrient Rich, and you will be more successful in life.
Any master of martial arts will tell you this: you are actually still a beginner when you get your black belt; you are an expert, but just an expert in the basic skills of the art. That’s when you start the process of mastering the art, by reaching higher levels of expertise, in degrees. We will teach you how to progress to mastery as well.
4) You must get in touch with true hunger (Ref: Dr Fuhrman). True hunger is the only real gauge for how much you need to eat. If you are hell bent on driving yourself crazy with overly structured meal plans that say you have to eat 5-6 times a day, or those that make you tied down measuring every single portion, then you are going to have difficulty with this one. Matter of fact, if you eat Nutrient Rich meals, 5-6 times a day, chances are good you will actually become overweight! I’m sure either this has happened to you, or you know people this has happened to. That method of eating only works for nutrient poor diets where you are barely getting your nutrient needs met. This subject is a scientifically complex subject, but you will see how simple it is, once we help you get it!
5) You must have a good reason to eat healthy. If you don’t, it will just be easier to mindlessly eat whatever and get caught up in addictive habits. Don’t think of food as an addiction? Think again! The world is full of nutrient poor addictive foods that will keep you in failure mode and stuck in diet trap after diet trap in search of the answer to healthy eating. When the reality is, the answer has been there all along. More than just eating healthy, you want to be eating Nutrient Rich foods so that your body can function and perform well. This will inevitably result in living at or near your natural weight all year round, as well as disease proofing your body. But to get free of the diet traps, you need to have a greater reason than simply “eating healthy”. You need a reason that makes eating healthy, a no-brainer, and just the way you eat.
A good reason is one that inspires you to want to learn how to eat healthy by eating nutrient rich foods, and how to steer clear of diet traps. Eating healthy needs to be something you become passionate about for a bigger reason. Keep in mind, too, that the best New Year’s Resolutions are specific. “Lose weight” will lead to failure; “Learn how to eat healthy in order to have a successful lifestyle to achieve some bigger goal” will help lead to success in not just the nutrition component of your lifestyle, but in ALL components of your lifestyle!
6) You must realize that there is no such thing as “falling off the wagon”, unless you truly fall off of a wagon because weren’t wearing a seat belt. This metaphor is so destructive, you can’t imagine. It seems innocuous, but it’s not. It’s “diet speak” for a level of perfectionism that will ensure you don’t stick to anything in your life and it gives rise to a very unhealthy, unsupportive psychology. Remember what I said earlier: society tends to be all or nothing. Don’t be part of that thinking, because you will fail. The entire diet industry is built on it. We want you to succeed.
You’ve got to start developing some higher concepts when it comes to your plans not playing out exactly the way you want them too. For example: If you eat a Kit Kat, then get experienced in resolving to say, that “I ate a Kit Kat” and be done with it. We’ll discuss this more within your nutrientrich.com membership.
7) You must “get” that a true resolution is one that “resolves” a problem. To resolve a problem, you must raise your standards, and make sure that the resolution actually solves the problem. Do you want good health, a disease free life, longevity, sustainability and performance, and to lose weight and live at or near a healthy and natural weight? Well, that’s not going to happen with a high protein, low carb diet, or a diet based on grains, or foods so concentrated in carbohydrate that you are consuming more than your body needs; let alone a diet based not even on food but instead on pills, powders, or potions… It’s only when you eat a Nutrient Rich diet successfully for health, performance and natural weight loss that you will get those results.
Bonus:
8 )To lose weight the Nutrient Rich Way: Eat Better, Not Less! Learn how to make every calorie count, instead of just counting calories.
I did my best to come up with The 7 Essentials Ways To Keep a Diet Resolution That You Will Love including addressing the etymology of a resolution itself and a bonus!
Have fun with these! All of us here at nutrientrich.com, and The Lifestyle Coaching Center, look forward to helping you eat a Nutrient Rich diet as part of a successful lifestyle.