When you’re dealing with a chronic symptom or disease, you know the frustration of the ups and downs. You feel like you’re on a good path and you haven’t had any flairs in a while, then WHAM your symptoms come seemingly out of nowhere. You don’t know where to go next because you’ve already tried several medications and diets. You think you’re running out of options. Now may be the time to give natural nutrition a try.
Why Do Diets Fail?
Diets aren’t meant to last. Ultimately, the creator of the trendy diet is in it for money.
Most diets work pretty good short term. The majority of diets that are popular now are ones that severely limit carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are used in the body mainly for energy. If you eat more than you need for energy, they are stored in the body as glycogen to be used for quick energy later. Only so much glycogen can be stored so when those stores are full, excess carbohydrates are stored as fat.
The typical American eats about 55-65% carbohydrates each day; and most of that is coming from quickly processed, simple carbohydrates, not from the natural nutrition of fruits and vegetables. To justify eating this percentage, activity levels need to be very high. Instead, most Americans live a sedentary lifestyle. Therefore, the excess carbohydrates most people are eating are being stored as fat.
When someone goes on a trendy diet, the amount of carbohydrates they eat gets dramatically reduced, even to the point of needing to tap into their own stores to use energy. Fat stores get used and water gets released with glycogen making the trendy diet a hero because weight is lost quickly.
But if weight is your only motivation, you will quickly give up because a) those diets aren’t sustainable long term, and b) you will hit a plateau and stop losing weight soon. Unlike with natural nutrition, something will have to change.
Why Do Medications Fail?
Having a prescription and being on a medication long term is a part of many people’s physical and mental health treatment plans. If this is you, you know the frustration when taking a medication to control a symptom/symptoms works for a while, but then suddenly stops working. You have found temporary relief for months or even years and now you are struggling with the pain, fatigue, anxiety, depression, autoimmune symptoms or another symptom you thought you had overcome by taking that pill every day.
There are many reasons medications stop working. This is referred to as reduced efficacy with time and duration. Efficacy refers to how effective the medication is. To lose or reduce efficacy means the medication isn’t working or isn’t working as well as time goes. Some of the most common reasons this can happen is building up tolerance, constantly changing stressors, and metabolic changes your body makes.
When diets and medication fail, it’s all the more reason to give natural nutrition a try.
What is Natural Nutrition?
Natural nutrition isn’t a diet. Diets are looked at as short term and therefore won’t last. Natural nutrition is a lifestyle. It is changing your lifestyle to eat the way your body is naturally supposed to eat. Natural nutrition not only is about “what” you eat, but also “how” you eat.
How to Implement Natural Nutrition
I’ll break natural nutrition down into three easy steps.
What to Eat for Natural Nutrition
When following natural nutrition, I teach my clients to eat as much real food as possible. If you can make at least 75% of your diet coming from real food, you will feel dramatically different. Real food means food that is not processed or very minimally processed. Real food has one ingredient. Or if it has more than one, all the ingredients are real food…not words you can’t pronounce.
How to Eat for Natural Nutrition, Part 1
Stress, poor diets and medications can all effect multiple areas of digestion including stomach acid, enzyme activity, and the microbiome. When following natural nutrition, digestion is a main focus. The stomach needs to be very acidic to breakdown protein. Enzymes need to be active to prevent bloating and pain. And the microbiome is essential for almost everything in the body so feeding it well is extremely important. Working with a functional nutritionist is important to know your individual shortcomings and where you need the support in the digestion area.
How to Eat for Natural Nutrition, Part 2
I know I harp on stress all the time, but if you remain in “fight or flight” instead of “rest and digest” while eating, you will not digest your food well. Gas, bloating and pain are common symptoms of this common problem. Natural nutrition practices will prevent the constant fight or flight response and help you rest and digest.
Let’s Connect!!
If this is your story, I’d love to hear it! Please comment back to me or reach out here. And if you found this helpful, please share it with someone you feel may find it helpful as well.
