it can be extremely difficult to know what is best when it comes to your diet. The information that you hear changes often! Something that is touted as being bad for you will eventually become something that is good for you. It can be confusing to know which diet you should follow or which diet is best for you. Want help deciding which diet is best? Today I want to talk to you about the two secrets that all the food fanatics don't want you to know. And yet the one thing that they also have in common!
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Where are we today with diets? We have three "basic" diets you're familiar with. There's the standard American diet (SAD), the vegetarian and the vegan diet. Today we also have the keto diet, we have paleo diet, we have whole food plant based diet, the Mediterranean diet. Any many more!
How are you supposed to sort through it all and know which diet is best for you?
Every single person that touts their diet thinks that it's the one best diet for everyone. This is not true!
There are two secrets that I'm going to share with you today that will significantly decrease your confusion, and your anxiety and your stress when you're trying to figure out which diet to follow.
What I mean by "diet"
First, I want to clarify what I mean when I use the word "diet."
When I talk about diet, I am simply talking about the food that you eat.
I am not talking about going on a diet or being on a diet. In fact, I believe that dieting is not a good thing to do, even when you're trying to release some of your weight. (Note: From an energetic and mindset point, you want to focus on releasing your weight, not losing it. If you lose something, that generally means you want to find it again.)
The idea is to permanently change how you eat. It's important to eat in a way that is sustainable for you over the long haul that will give you the most health benefits that you can get from your food.
What is the point of food? Food is meant to nourish our bodies, to sustain our bodies, and to give us life and energy and health and vitality. Of course, there are also a lot of emotional and social aspects to food as well. These aspects can be both positive and negative for us. Overall, think of your diet as simply what you choose to eat.
Hippocrates is credited with the quote, "Let food be thy medicine, and let medicine be thy food." This means that it matters what you put into your mouth. And what you eat is designed to help you live your life to the fullest. And that's what this is all about.
Secret #1: You are different.
Here is the first secret that you need to know when it comes to deciding how you should eat.
You are different from other people.
You are different from others, not everyone is the same. We are all different. This means that the foods that are good for someone else are not necessarily the foods that are good for you.
Pretty obvious, right? But we tend to overlook this simple but critical fact when it comes to food.
Do you respond to a medication the same way your friend does? Can you tolerate spring without allergies, while your best bud sniffles for months when the flowers start to bloom?
We're all different for other aspects of our health and well-being, and we're different when it comes to our food needs, too.
Your nutritional needs are different from my nutritional needs, and your needs for particular foods change throughout the course of your life. When we talk about food, it's not just about, "Is this particular food good or bad?"
A better question is, "Is this particular food good or bad for me?"
The diet that's best for you is not necessarily the same as the diet that's best for your spouse.
From my energy work, I've also discovered that it's not just about the physical nature of the food, and whether it's good or bad for you. It's also about the energetic underpinning, the energy that's in the food that you eat.
The people I call the food fanatics, the vocal proponents of different diets, would have all of us eat the same thing. All of your fanatics that are hardcore, whether it's vegetarian, paleo, keto, whole food plant based, or whatever the current food fad is, believe that everybody in the world should be eating that way.
And I want to tell you, that doesn't work. It does not work.
There are two great examples of this. One is going to see an acupuncturist and the other one is 1000 year old medical system called Ayurvedic medicine. If you go to see an acupuncturist, and you receive a treatment for a certain illness, you and I may have the same illness. But the acupuncturist is going to treat us differently. Because we are different, our constitution is different. How we are made is different and what we need to heal is different.
Ayurvedic medicine is the same way. I love Ayurveda because it categorizes people into different groupings based on physical character traits, emotional character traits and mental character traits. And depending on your specific constitution, your dietary recommendations are going to vary. And they're going to vary from season to season.
This is secret number one to consider. You are different from the person next to you, which means your dietary needs are different. The diet that's best for you is not necessarily whatever the current fad diet is.
This means you'll need to do some experimenting to see how you feel with different foods. You could try an elimination diet (but do a rotation and eliminate dairy, meat, grains, and beans, for example), keep a food journal, and increase your awareness of how you feel when you eat certain foods.
Secret #2: Environment matters
Okay. Here's the second thing, the second secret that these diet fanatics don't want you to know. And this is really, really important as well. It goes along perfectly with the first one.
Here it is:
It matters how your food is raised.
When trying to decide which diet is best, it makes a difference how your food is grown and raised. And I'm not just talking about organic or not organic.
Let's compare two adults. One was raised in a healthy, happy, supportive home. One was was raised in a home where he was not supported, where the home was not healthy and happy. You will have two completely different adults based on those environments.
The same is true of your food.
The chicken that is raised in an environment where it is allowed to be outside, to enjoy sunshine, to peck at the ground, to run around, and that has a nice comfortable place to sleep at night, is not the same food as the chicken that is raised in a conventional farming practice where it is stuffed in a box with a bunch of other chickens were it doesn't have enough space, where it doesn't have light, and where it doesn't have fresh air.
You are eating in that case, a chicken that has spent its entire life being undernourished or malnourished and living in a stressful environment. And the experience of that chicken is passed on into that food that you now eat. The experience of the chicken that is happy and outside and has sunshine and free roam is passed on to your body when you eat it. Which would you rather put into your body for nourishment?
They are not the same foods.
Refer to the posts on trauma and how it affects you. If you're constantly stressed, that affects your whole body. It's the same for an animal. If you eat an animal (or a plant) that is constantly stressed, that stress is passed on to you. Both in a physical way and in an energetic way.
So when I hear people say, well, meat is bad for you, or animal products are bad for you or wheat is bad for you, that's a completely inaccurate generalization about food. Hold on, we need to talk about how is that meat raised. For example, there is a difference in the composition of the nutrients that are in grass fed, free range meat from cows compared to meet that is not raised in the same way.
Now let's talk also for a minute about grains. Because I know grains are a huge concern. There are so many of you who I'm going to assume are gluten intolerant. Wheat is not inherently good or bad. It's just like any other food that is here for our consumption. The food itself is not inherently good or bad.
It matters how the food is raised.
The wheat today that we are getting in our food is not the same week that was grown 100 or 200 years ago. Also, if you are eating wheat that is not organic, like so many other of our crops it is routinely sprayed with pesticides, which you are then ingesting into your body.
So it is very critical to look at how the food is raised and the environment that the food is raised in.
One change that makes any diet good for everyone
Although these food fanatics all seem to disagree, to their credit, there is one thing that almost all of them agree upon.
Personally, I really wish everyone could get together and support this one dietary change. Because if you made this one change in your diet, you would:
- be so much healthier
- feel happier
- be more energetic
- need fewer medications
- release weight.
What is this one change? It's this:
Severely restrict or completely eliminate all processed foods.
When I talk about processed foods, I'm talking about things like chips, and crackers, and donuts, and bagels, almost all of the foods that you see in the middle aisles of your supermarket. Those are all processed foods. If you can do your best to restrict those things from your diet, you will feel significantly better and have much better health and vitality. If there's one change I can encourage you to make that is going to be it.
Feel like you could use some guidance?
If you want more guidance about the energetic nature of the food and what is best for you, I would love to help you with that! I do this regularly for the majority of my clients that I work with at some point.
Perhaps you're already eating what seems to be a healthy diet, yet you still struggle with certain health difficulties. Maybe you're trying to release weight, get pregnant, heal digestive issues, or deal with chronic pain and inflammation. There are dietary changes that are specific to you and your individual needs that can help you overcome those things.
When you are on a journey of improving your health, your wellness and your well being, it's important to consider what you're putting into your body. We all need different things, and our bodies are different physically, and they are different energetically from other people.
Your body may or may not want to eat things that would otherwise be considered healthy. Just because green beans or apples or carrots are good food generally speaking, does not mean that they're a good food for you. And so if you have any questions or concerns about that, I would be happy to help you determine what type of foods you should eat for where you are in your life right now.
Which diet is best for you?
- Experiment! You are different from the person next to you, and so are your dietary needs.
- How your food is raised matters.
- Reduce or eliminate processed foods as best as you can. Your body, mind and spirit will thank you.
What type of diet have you found works best for you?
