Ditch the diet, forget the food fads, nourish your body and listen to your gut
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The confusion around nutrition, foods, and diet is overwhelming. Diets may work short-term to achieve weight loss but are not sustainable and do not support long-term health. With all the hype about miracle diets, superfoods, and supplements; throw in food allergies and intolerances, which are on the rise, and it gets even more complicated. Then add medications, food combinations, chemicals in food, previous infections, gut health, stress, and those wonderful hormones, and we have so many permutations and combinations that even a statistician would find it difficult to make sense of it. Even the purest plant-based, organic, wholefood diet that offers many benefits may become detrimental to some over the long term due to high levels of oxalates and histamines (something I personally experienced).
As a health and wellbeing coach and personal trainer I offer support with nutrition and am often asked to ‘just tell me what I need to eat’. Although I love to share recipes and ideas, this simple ask is one that must be explored much further with every individual before getting close to anything that resembles a definitive weekly menu plan. My approach focusses on understanding my client then supporting them to build a healthy and sustainable relationship with food based on nourishing their body and improving their gut health.
Celebrate your uniqueness
We are all unique and when it comes to diet and nutrition there is definitely no ‘one size fits all’. Our nutritional needs are as diverse as we are. We must approach our nutritional challenges as unique individuals, considering the many different factors that influence our needs, which change as we journey through life. The obvious ones being our sex, age, height, weight, build and energy expenditure, some of which are considered in ‘diet’ plans but there are so many other factors relating to our genetics, gut health, our microbiome and much more of which science knows only a fraction about. It's essential to invest time in understanding our bodies to establish a healthy relationship with food and make optimal dietary choices for our wellbeing.
Focus on nourishing your body
It is important to prioritise our health by nourishing our bodies for a sustainable lifestyle, rather than focusing solely on appearance or reaching a specific weight to meet external standards. While external metrics can be useful for tracking progress, fixating on a certain number may lead to unhealthy behaviours and have negative effects on long-term well-being. For instance, relying solely on BMI for health assessment can be problematic as it does not differentiate between fat, muscle, and bone mass. This explains why some muscular athletes have a high BMI despite low body fat levels. Additionally, individuals with normal BMI values can still have poor health indicators such as high blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
Focus on your gut (instinct)
We now know our gut and brain are linked and one can influence the other, in fact, our intestines resemble a second brain. We know that gut health plays a key role in our immunity, our weight control, our mental health and influences many other chronic diseases. Current research is delving into nutritional intelligence which is exploring the idea that humans innately choose food based on how it will benefit their body, perhaps a gut instinct? Whether this is true or not has yet to be proven but what is true is that we often mindlessly eat without listening to our bodies. Intuitive eating is a concept that encourages people to trust their body's signals and make food choices without restricting themselves. This encourages a more mindful approach to nutrition. Without being mindful when we eat we may respond to what we think is hunger when it is not, we rush to grab a quick bite and don’t take time to taste or chew our food and we often continue to eat something way beyond the feeling of being full. Practising mindful eating that involves paying attention to your food in the moment, without judgment is a way to experience food using all your senses and to listen and respond to the feedback from your body. There is no doubt that our gut health is fundamental to our overall wellbeing so if we can tune into it and improve it we will feel the benefit.
Final words
As a coach, I support my clients to build a healthy relationship with food, helping them to shift their mindset to focus on nourishing their body and supporting their gut health. We explore the many individual factors that impact why, when, how and what they eat to develop guiding principles and strategies which support their goals and overall wellbeing. Together we develop a stronger mind-body connection, listening to their body and exploring what works for them and what doesn’t. As we develop a better understanding, I the offer support and advice with nutrition plans and recipes which they can experiment further to find what works for them. This approach takes time and experimentation but results in a better understanding and sense of self and provides them with the necessary tools to maintain a healthy lifestyle.
Here are my ten guiding principles to encourage a healthy approach to nourishing our bodies
Avoid ultra processed foods (UPFs) – my rule is if the ingredients are not in my cupboard, it is a no. A quick glance is often enough to see that something that should be simple has far too many ingredients listed.
Avoid refined sugar – this helps maintain your response to sugars which can spiral out of control. The more you eat the more you crave.
Drink enough water – water is vital for overall wellbeing but specifically for digestion and gut health.
Eat a wholefood rainbow every day – this is an easy way to get a good diversity of plant-based food to feed your gut microbiome. The different colours offer different benefits. Get your purples from red cabbage, beetroot, blueberries, blackberries etc…
Spice it up - don’t forget the herbs and spices, many offer gut healthy benefits. Replace UPF sauces with fresh herbs and spices
Think about when you eat - fasting overnight allows your digestive system time to rest and digest. I try to cut off at 7pm and drink water, this vastly helps my sleep also.
Think about why you are about to eat – the power of the mindful pause. Are you really hungry or are you thirsty, stressed or bored? Ask yourself if this nourishing my body? That minute of a pause can create friction to prevent mindless eating.
Think about how you eat – practice mindful eating. Savour and chew every mouthful. Give your body time to digest and respond to the food.
Think about how much is on your plate – check your portions and take some off your plate. Don’t be afraid to leave some
Practice the 80/20 rule – be easy on yourself. If you are doing most of above most of the time don’t beat yourself up if you have a bad day. If you do the above most of the time your mind and body are building strength and resilience to deal with a bad day.
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