Are you someone who uses the internet to look up various diet, detox or nutrition options? Because of the volume of material online it may be easy to think that a perfect food or optimal diet exists to eliminate pain, illness, fatigue, weight problems and at the same time create a happy and beautiful life. Just find the one diet, food or program that fits your unique needs. I hope you have found that there is no perfect food or optimal diet.
However there is a food path that can strongly support your health and strengthen your immune system. The variety of transformative foods are so powerful that I consistently lead my clients to make food changes that matter to optimizing quality of life, energy and health. In our love affair with convenience foods, I find that the best foods for health are the ones most often avoided — the wide variety and color of vegetables! If you have tried a cleanse, detox diet or even the Whole30® program, then you have been introduced to a focus on plant foods.
Every detox diet has a prescriptive food plan to create success, but that diet will also eliminate foods viewed as harmful. Without a reason to continue a detox program, most will opt for familiar or comfort foods after the cleansing period. It seems that food habits are stubborn. In my practice significant change for improving your health comes with creating a long term shift in eating habits beyond following a diet or short term detox prescription.
What you choose to eat can be a difficult topic to meaningfully discuss, or alter as a life pattern. Traditions, emotions, stress, food bias, food phobia, time pressure and relationships all influence personal food choices. A diagnosed health concern may help transform a generalized commitment to just eat healthy into a more deliberate focus. Learning to make daily choices for the foods that support your health, and happiness, is hard work. It seems easier to choose short term detox and diet programs than commit to a food and lifestyle makeover.
The simple nutrition truth is that your body needs you to eat colorful foods, especially vegetables, every day. In my nutrition practice I recommend to my clients to look at their fist as their personal serving size; then consider that every day your body needs a minimum of 4 fistfuls of colorful veggies, plus 2-4 fistfuls of leafy greens along with any fruit, whole grains, or protein foods that you may choose to eat. This mighty variety of plant foods provide the complex nutrition potential of vitamins, minerals, enzymes, phytochemicals and fiber to nourish every cell of your body. Good health depends on plant-based foods!
Buy fresh, local, non-GMO and organic produce whenever possible. Instead of a detox or diet, what matters most to your body and health is to eat abundantly of colorful plant foods — fruit, vegetables, leafy greens — every day!
