Category: Articles

Last weekend I had to deliver an intense course to a large group of my peers. I had prepared for the event for several months, and I wanted it to be just right.

Part of that preparation was caring for myself properly during the week before. For those seven days I ate no sugar and drank no alcohol. I had regular, healthy meals, went to bed early, exercised every day and took my vitamins. As a result, when the day arrived I was full of energy, my brain worked great and I didn’t get the cold that every second patient was bringing into the office.

When the event was over, I drank a very delicious glass of pinot and ate a gorgeous dessert and, most important, I fully enjoyed every last bite. Did I get sick from it? No, I stayed well and have been all week.

Although many of us may disagree, food is not an enemy. Food can be a tool, a resource or a source of pleasure–all of which are valid. It’s being conscious of which choice you make, and how often, that matters.

In the week before my event, I used my diet as a tool to support optimum health and function of my body. Avoiding the sugar and booze allowed my immune system to function at its best, fighting off all of the bugs that came its way before my busy weekend.

In the day leading up to the event, I used food as a resource, fueling my brain and body for eight hours of speaking and being on my feet.

The night after my event, I used food as a pure, unadulterated source of pleasure and celebration. Experiencing food in this way resulted in a boost to my serotonin levels and a charge to my immune system.

As we head into a Thanksgiving weekend full of food, booze and fun, I encourage you to eat consciously and with intent.

My intent will be to ENJOY!

Over the years I’ve had hundreds of people come to me completely confused about what to eat. Should I go low fat or low carb? How many calories should I eat? Should I be vegan or paleo? Is butter good for you, or is margarine better? Does organic matter? What is GMO?

It’s a scary world out there with respect to what you eat, and each week there is another study on how we are getting fatter or sicker or both. The stakes seem to be getting higher for getting it wrong, yet it seems almost impossible to get it right.

Truly, it is hard to get it right–changing your eating habits is incredibly difficult. But part of the challenge is that we get too caught up in complexity. We obsess over details that don’t matter to the average person.

In the interest of simplicity, here are two simple guidelines that, if you can get them right 80-90% of the time, will change your life. These rules will do wonders for the average person–unless you’re extremely sick, or a high performance athlete, you should take them seriously.

Note: I’m stealing liberally from Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food. His “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” mantra is about as simple and effective as you can get.

Rule #1: Eat REAL Food
Your diet needs to be composed of food that is…food. Things that nature makes. Not things that science makes. Here are a few tips

• Real food has few ingredients. The most real food has one ingredient. Like apples. Or cucumbers. If you can’t tell me what all the ingredients are without looking at the label, then you’ve moved further away from real.
• Real food is identifiable. It’s “close to source” – it looks like where it came from. A blueberry looks like a blueberry. A Pop Tart looks like a roofing tile.
• Real food tends to be stored in your fridge. Not your cupboard or freezer. That’s why you should shop more around the outside edges of the grocery store.
• Real food is grown with fewer chemicals. The chemicals they spray on your industrial food don’t always make it to the ingredients list. If you can find and afford organic, it’s worth it.
• Real food is difficult to find in restaurants. If you want real food, prepare it yourself at home. Learn to cook. It’s not hard. And no, the drive-thru is really not that much faster.

A tomato is more real than a steak. But a steak is more real than a loaf of Wonder bread. Try to focus your shopping and eating as high on the real scale as possible.

Rule #2: Focus More on Vegetables
Even when your food is “real”, you need to also make sure a good portion of it is also plants. I’m neither vegetarian nor vegan, but we eat a lot of meals that are. Almost every patient I have needs to eat more vegetables. They’re the “most real” food you can find.

“But I don’t like vegetables.”

Too bad. Grow up. You can eat crap or you can be healthy. Not both. There are thousands of ways to prepare vegetables, and you’ll like some of them.

In a nutshell, I’m basically suggesting you eat mostly produce, with some meat and dairy, nuts, and healthy oils. Very little bread, pasta, and crap in boxes and bags. That’s it. That’s all you have to remember.

The Benefits
The best part about these rules is that if follow them you don’t have to worry about all the other stuff. If you follow these rules you’ll:

• Consume fewer chemicals
• Eat fewer calories
• Get more nutrients
• Eat less gluten and processed wheat products
• Be more hydrated
• Improve a host of health markers
• Reduce reactions from food intolerances and allergies
• Improve your digestion
• Increase your energy

And plenty more, all of which will happen by default. You won’t need to count calories or wonder about paleo versus low carb versus low fat. You’ll just be healthier.

We occasionally hear of people who exercise every day, who have impeccable diets, who deal with stress well, and have lives they are happy with, who still end up suffering a stroke, or a heart-attack, or cancer.

These stories are difficult. Not only does it seem unfair, but the stories can make us think, “So what? Why exercise? Why try to eat well? It clearly didn’t work for that person.”

The argument is tempting, but it misses a bigger and much more important part of the story.

• Lifestyle changes actually do help. There is a mountain of evidence to support that a healthy lifestyle can dramatically reduce your risk factors for countless conditions. The outliers–the stories of the avid health fan who drops dead–tend to get attention precisely because they’re unusual.

• Lifestyle changes help with severity and recovery. These same people who have invested in their health? When they do have a problem it’s less severe. They die less often. They have less serious complications, and they heal faster then their less-healthy peers.   A 50-year old man who exercised, ate well, and didn’t smoke, may still have a heart attack. But his lifestyle has built a stronger heart with a network of extra vessels that can be used as a “backup plan” if a blockage occurs.

The body is a complicated machine. Like any machine, it can still break down even when it’s properly maintained. But that’s no reason to give up on taking care of it.

Being healthy is not just about “not getting sick”. It’s also about the ability to heal and adapt. Ask the 50-year old who survived the heart attack. He’ll tell you the maintenance is well worth it.