A Heathly Mind and Body Starts with Good Nutrition

A Heathly Mind and Body Starts with Good Nutrition

A Heathly Mind and Body Starts with Good Nutrition

Do you have difficulty concentrating?

Have you ever experienced mood swings?  

You are often tired? Have any of these concerns harmed your career?

If you are looking for a place to start in the improvement of your global health and your cognitive function, I strongly recommend you prioritize your nutrition.  

Food is the most powerful medicine you have to control your health and it is 100% under your control.  

This article will give you the base to start.  Everyone should be aware of the basics of nutrition.

Let me ask you, were you groggy waking up this morning, or energized?  Did you find it hard to focus, or are did you feel unstoppable?  Were you in a bad mood, or did you feel joyful?  Were you still tired or energized?

Now, try and remember: what did you eat yesterday?  

Have you made a connection between the way you feel and what you ate? Nutrition plays a crucial role.

The food you eat can be either the most powerfulform of medicine or the slowest form of poison.

CHANGE YOUR DIET AND YOU CAN CHANGE THE WAY YOU FEEL

As odd as it may sound, before becoming a Health Coach, for me I found food was mainly a way to stop being hungry and a tool to maintain a healthy weight. 

It wasn’t until I burned out that I realized that eating was the crucial, key elementto feeling good in my head and my body.

I took a month off from my Human Resources job to listen to my mind and my body. I experienced how nutrition is one of the few key elements to a healthy mind and body.

Instead of paying attention to calories, I focused on nutritional values.  After only a few months of changing my lifestyle, mainly by watching my nutrition, my mind was clearer and I had lots of energy! Living a healthy lifestyle is all about balance.

Why is proper nutrition so important? 

When you eat right you experience :

–      More energy

–      Increased concentration levels

–      Better cognitive ability

–      Better and more stable moods

–      Increased and more stable metabolic rates

–      Healthy weight

–      More restful and restorative sleep

–      Disease prevention

–      Reinforced immune system

The key insight is that your brain is an organ, similar to a computer; connected to everything else happening in your body. Improving your brain function starts with improving your body by optimizing all the inputs and taking out the bad influences. As computer programmers say, « garbage in, garbage out ». 

The brain is resilient.  It can recover and heal when given the right conditions.  Nutrition provides those optimal conditions.

Understanding the basics for good nutrition 

« When you take out the bad stuff and put in the good stuff, the body knows what to do and creates health » Mark Hyman. MD.

I do not pretend to be a nutritionist.  However, what I have learned in my Health Coaching course, my continuing education and my experience with clients, places me in a position to teach you how to « start eating foods that matter ».   One element to keep in mind is each of us has our own bio-individuality.

In this article I will share universal principals based on Doctor Mark Hyman’s research, that you may use to adjust your reality.

Bio-individuality is the idea that each of us has unique food and lifestyle needs. It is the understanding that no food philosophy or diet can yield the same results for everyone.

For example, food affects the neurotransmitters in your brain and can have an immediate effect on your mood.

Studies have shown that low-quality, high-fat diets and obesity are associated with depression. If you feel lousy, depressed, foggy, tired and unable to make positive and empowering decisions, the problem may be on your plate, not in your mind.

NUTRITIONAL TIPS TO HELP  YOU TO TAKE CHARGE OF YOUR GLOBAL HEALTH AND YOUR COGNITIVE FUNCTION

1)   Glycemic load and chronic disease

Mastering glycemic load is more important than mastering calories.  « The glycemic index (GI) has proven to be a useful nutritional concept, providing new insights into the relationship between foods and chronic disease. Observational studies suggest that diets with a high glycemic load (GI x carbohydrate content) are independently associated with increased risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.”

The glycemic load of a meal tells us how much of and how quickly a fixed quantity of a specific food will raise your blood sugar and insulin levels.  The slower the levels rise, the lower they are, the better.

Controlling the glycemic load is not very hard.  You need to combine protein, healthy fats, whole food, fiber-rich, low starch carbohydrates from vegetables, nuts, seeds and limited amount of whole grains and low-sugar fruit and prioritise food with Low glycemic load.  I will give more precise example further down.

2)   Reduce inflammation

Anything that causes inflammation will, in turn, cause insulin resistance.  

How can you recognize inflammation?  

Inflammation is something we are all familiar with, from a sore throat, an allergic reaction, digestion issues, headache and so much more.  It is a hidden fire created by your immune system as it tries to fight off bad food (sugar, processed food…) stress, toxins etc.

My article has a double intention; firstly to make you aware of what you eat and how it can feed your health or make you sick, and secondly to name the most common foods that create inflammation and insulin resistance.  

It would be next to impossible to list all the foods that create inflammation as each of us has a different bio-individuality.  Allow me to identify which foods don’t serve your mental and physical health.

Inflammation is like a fire inside your body, an insidious, low-level burn that can damage your organs and your brain. Put out that fire and your overall health will improve and you’ll strengthen your memory.

Most common foods that trigger inflammation 
  • Cow milk
  • foods that contain artificial sweeteners and refined flour

You can find them in most industrial pastas, breads, soft drinks, and deserts that you can find in your local grocery.

Foods you may want to favour

With your favourite spaghetti sauce, you may want to replace pasta with fresh spiral courgette.

Try to replace wheat bread with quinoa or Sarasin bread.

Try to replace cow milk with Coconut or almond’s milk

The best way to evaluate if these foods challenge your body and brain is to eliminate all of them for 4 weeks and reintegrate them one by one, one per week to gauge your reaction.  

Are you bloated?  

Do you experience headaches?

Are you having trouble concentrating? Etc.

3)   Nutrition powerhouse:

Our current Western diet contains too much sugar, processed fats, salt, additives, hormones and pesticides. In contrast plants contain nearly all the vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, phytonutrients, and fiber in our diet.  

These are essential for keeping our biology in balance and, in particular, for regulating our metabolism and weight.

High quality nutrition is one of the most important strategies for a healthy brain and body. Poor nutrition is self-sabotage. Think of nutrients as fertilizer for your brain and your body.

4)  Maximize detoxification

Detoxification is the process of clearing toxins from our body by neutralizing or transforming them so they can be eliminated.  Approximately eight hours after eating our last meal the processes of digestion, absorption, and assimilation are completed and the body enters into detoxification mode, a function we don’t think about often.

A healthy body, used to eating natural foods, needs around four hours to cleanse and detoxify itself from all the waste products of normal metabolism.

This is without counting the toxic overload of modern life. Favour food that will contribute to keep your metabolism as clean as possible.

Although the word toxin sounds scary, most people don’t grasp precisely how toxins interact with human physiology and how long this has been a problem for humans. Toxins block the function of cells, which leads to insulin resistance.

Food to favor

– Greens: Cruciferous vegetables are especially important for enhanced detoxification. These include broccoli, kale, colar, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, bok choy, Green tea, citrus peel.

– Eat garlic and onions, both lower cholesterol and blood pressure.  They are antioxidants, anti-inflammatories and enhance detoxification.  Eat them everyday if you can.

– Drink 8 to 12 cups of water a day to help aid elimination.

Prioritize these basic elements in your diet.  Lifestyle is also super important to support your diet and to have a clean mind and body.

The simplest ways to support your body’s natural ability to cleanse and detoxify daily is also by exercising, which helps in reducing your stress, sleeping well, etc.

The goal is to enhance the elimination and prevention of toxin build up in the body.  The more methods you use for toxin elimination and prevention, the more you will assist your body in detoxification day to day.

CREATE THE PERFECT PLATE

Composing the perfect meal or snack is an essential life skill.  It is most important to avoid eating quickly.  Avoid consuming carbohydrates alone as they raise your sugar and insulin levels.

Here’s how your plate should look: 

Plant based color food : Fill your plate with 50% low-starch vegetables such as kale, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, tomato, eggplant, leek, onion, cucumber, Green leafy vegetables, celery, asparagus, zucchini, lettuce, radish, arugula, mushroom, snap pea, bok choy, bell pepper, watercress, cauliflower, etc.

Proteins: Grass-fed and pasture-fed meats and wild, small and sustainably farmed fish.

Healthy fats: Salmon, sardines, olive oil, coconut oil, flaxseed, Omega 3 supplement

– You can complete your plate by adding either one-half cup of whole grain like brown rice, quinoa

Of course, keep in mind we all have our own bio-individuality

Eat real food

Eat real food, avoid highly processed foods and factory-manufactured foods.  Avoid any food with more than five ingredients on the label, unless they are all things you recognize, such as tomatoes, water, basil, oregano, salt.

Avoid/cut

– Refined sugar and starch: Anything made with White sugar, flour pasta, etc

– Anything you can buy at a drive-through window. This one is a no-brainer.

– Anything with ingredients that are difficult to pronounce. These products surely contain substances that belong in a chemistry set, not in your body.

– Anything that didn’t exist one hundred years ago, we didn’t need a label to tell us that our food was local, organic, and grass-fed; all food was whole, real, unadulterated, traditional food.

– Anything with artificial sweeteners.

– Any food with more than five ingredients on the label, unless they are all things you recognize, such as tomatoes, water, basil, oregano, salt.

(Source : Book What the heck should I eat, Mark Hyman)

Healthy fats are essential

While carbs are not essentials, healthy fats are. Without enough of the right type of fats, your biology breaks down at the very root.  

If you don’t get enough or you eat too much of the wrong kind, you will not have the building blocks you need for healthy cell membranes, which are needed for optimal insulin function and blood sugar control.

Omega-3, Salmon, sardines, herring, sardines, herring, wild salmon, avocado, olives.  For your salads use extra virgin oil, or walnut oil.  

When cooking at high-temperature use sesame oil or coconut oil.  The important thing about cooking with any oil is not to heat the oil over its smoke point, it denatures the oil and it can be bad for your health.

Nuts protect against heart disease, by reducing LDL (bad) cholesterol and combatting inflammation.

In the well-known Harvard Nurses Study, women who ate nuts daily had a 30% lower rate of heart disease.  Try almonds, walnuts, pistachios.

Eat your antioxydants

These special mitochondria-boosting foods increase energy and reduce oxidation, or rusting.  

A good sources are: dark berries, yellow vegetables, dark leafy greens such as kale, black rice, other sources like herbs such turmeric, rosemary, ginger, coriander. 

The deeper the color is, the more the antioxidant content.

Vous pouvez expliquer les bienfaits des antioxydants

The 4 pillars for good health 

– Food quality

– Exercice

– Quality sleep

– Mind body connection.

If you focus on the quality of food and not the quantity, you will feel satisfied, while naturally avoiding cravings and attraction to foods that will not nourish you.  We get the most pleasure in life when we focus on quality.

Healthy Mind and Healthy Body are simple daily lifestyle choices. Everyone wants to live an active, vibrant life for as long as possible.

While we don’t have a guaranteed way to prevent dementia or any disease, we do have increasing evidence that engaging in healthy lifestyle habits may help.

It is easier to achieve goals, be happy, have great relationships, do everything you want, if you have a health brain.  If you don’t have a healthy brain, everything else is harder.

The human body is a self-healing, self-renewing, self-cleansing organism. When the right conditions are created, vibrant well-being is its natural state. 

To round things off, don’t forget to nourish your soul. The future of medicine is “no medicine.” If we return to a more natural life, our bodies become the best doctors.

Cultivate authenticity.

If you want to improve your diet and your health, write to us now through our contact form.

Leave a Comment