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In this podcast I’ll be exploring Diet:

• I’ll explain why dieting doesn’t always equal health
• I’ll talk about the two main types of diets that all other diets can be grouped under
• I’ll talk about the one true diet that I believe everybody should be on
• Finally I’ll highlight a few techniques that you can use to fine tune your real food nutrition

CLICK HERE TO LEARN WHAT ARE THE BEST FOODS TO GET YOU LEAN

Diet; dieting; to diet; to be on a diet; and for some people don’t even mention the ‘D’ word. For anyone who has dealt with body weight issues hearing the word diet brings up a lot of other words:

• Restrictive
• Tasteless
• Boring
• Struggle
• Willpower
• Low energy
• Anger
• Frustration
• Pain

 
Notice how there’s no mention here of an improvement in health.

Diets are mainly used to reduce your weight and yes all diets will change your weight and modify your body composition, short-term. It doesn’t matter what diet you go on you will lose both muscle and fat in the first few weeks.

The problem with any diet when used for far too long, way past its due by date, is that you may end up losing a lot more healthy muscle than non-healthy fat and even more importantly you will eventually create havoc, chaos, and a huge imbalance in your hunger, satiety, stress, growth, and reproductive hormones. Meaning that if you follow a diet purely to reduce your weight and to change how you look that diet will work in the here and now, but in 6 months or 6 years this same diet will cause a cascade of health problems making you a very sick, sad, and surly person to be around.

The reason for this is because the main type of diet people use to reduce their weight and to look good in the mirror is a limiting diet. Anytime you limit the foods you eat you run the risk of missing out on vital nutrients. That is nutrition your body and mind need for vitality. Long-term deficiencies in nutrients may make you look good in the mirror, but it’s the hormonal havoc that these nutritional deficiencies cause that is at the root cause of many diseases including cancer.

It’s not just food you limit in these body image diets, but anytime you limit your way of thinking and feelings toward food and your relationship with food you limit your entire human experience. Your mindset, which was once open to the many possibilities in life, is now closed off to a collection of experiences that life has to offer. Limiting your way of being can cause a lot of distress and this emotional and mental stress will change your physiology creating real physical stress in your body. Remember the body and mind are one and the same, the bodymind.

I’ve mentioned one type of diet already, a limited diet where you limit your eating and your way of being to achieve a body image goal. There is a different type of diet and what differentiates this diet from a limited diet is that it doesn’t restrict foods in the same sense because it’s not based on looking good, but based on thinking, feeling, and doing good and this other type of diet accomplishes this goal through healing. This healing diet I call a limitless diet.

A limitless diet is followed for health and life reasons and not for body image reasons alone. The reason this type of diet is limitless and not limiting is because your why is much bigger than just looking good in the mirror. Your why could be to overcome a disease like cancer, to have more energy to play with your family and to get work done, or to be able to think clearly in order to start and finish a personal, a professional, or a community project you’ve been thinking about for a long time.

When your why for following a diet is bigger than just how you look in the mirror than the foods you restrict yourself to eating no longer seem so, restrictive. Whereas a limiting diet is about scarcity where you feel like you lose and miss out on foods in order to lose the weight, a limitless diet is all about abundance and where you feel awesome dropping the foods that will stop you from realising and sharing that abundance.

What I’m saying here is that no matter the diet whether you go on a medical or detox or paleo or vegan or vegetarian or low calorie or low carb or low fat or a crash diet or even a religious diet if it’s to look good naked and nothing else you will feel limited, restricted, and neglected in every ounce of your being. However, if you use this diet to improve your health, to improve your life and the health and life of other people you will never feel like you’re missing out and you will be nothing but thankful for having a way of eating that is helping you make a difference in the world.

Now that’s not to say that wanting to look a certain way is wrong. Far from it. Being a vein person is a great motivator and inspirer for change.

What I’m saying is that dieting purely for looks is a lot more difficult and harder to stick to than when you’re dieting for other reasons. Hence the statistic that 95% of dieters regain all of their lost weight and then some. So unless you’re one of the 5% who can live through a limited period of your life thinking in a limited mindset you may want to rethink why you’re following a particular diet.

A limited diet is very difficult to integrate into your life, a limitless diet on the other hand doesn’t need integration as it becomes a part of your life and following it becomes a part of who you are and your lifestyle.

Now there is actually one diet that trumps every single other diet out there. This diet is one diet that I believe every person should be following and the cool part about this diet is even if you’re on it just to look good naked you won’t feel limited in any way, shape, or form. This one diet for all is a limitless lifestyle diet no matter your reasons for choosing it.

There’s not really a name for this diet because there’s no one-size-fits-all approach with it. There’s no prescribed food list of restricted and allowed foods. There’s no specific end to this diet either. Like I said it’s a limitless lifestyle diet so it only ends when you end.

This diet is many other things. It’s:

• Original
• Individual
• Adaptable
• Flexible
• Customisable
• Attainable
• Relatable
• Educational
• Delectable
• Flavourful
• Nutritional
• Healthful and
• Spiritual

 
You will definitely find out who you are on this diet.

This diet is unique to your physical, sexual, emotional, mental, and spiritual needs and no other person on this planet will be eating the same foods, at the same times of day, in the same portion sizes to you even though both of you are on this one single diet. Same goes for twins. Just because you can eat broccoli with tonnes of butter with a nice piece of steak at this point in your life doesn’t necessarily mean your identical twin can eat the same way.

Okay so now I’m just trying to think how to describe a diet that is different for each person.

The whole point of this diet is to find the right foods that work for you and the wrong foods that don’t work for you and by work for you I mean after you eat a certain food does it make you look, feel, and perform better in life and if you continue to eat this food overtime is it helping to improve your financial and health status, is it improving your relationships, and most importantly is this food making you a happy, joyful, pleasurable, and peaceful human being full of vitality, love, and laughter.

So I guess you could call this diet a diet of discovery or a process diet because as time goes on you will be fine tuning and figuring out the foods that you should be eating and shouldn’t be eating in this moment. On this diet you will find some foods that worked for you 6 months ago may no longer be serving you now and the right foods that are working for you now in a few years time may turn out to be the wrong foods for you. This diet is constantly changing and evolving and it’s the process that you focus on while eating this way, not some far off distant goal or outcome.

To begin this unique individualised diet it must start with real food. I’ve talked about real foods compared to fake foods in podcast number seven and eight so listen to those for more detail, but basically if it came from a man-made packet instead of a nature-based pasture it’s not real food.

So starting with real food the next step is to find out what foods are creating a low-level inflammatory, immune, and stress reaction in your body and which foods aren’t.

One simple way of doing this is by tracking your heart rate. Fifteen minutes before eating the food you’re testing measure your resting heart rate for 60 seconds to get your heart beats per minute. After finishing the food wait another 15 minutes before measuring your heart rate again. Be sure to keep yourself in a relaxed state during the entire process. If your heart rate increased up to 9 beats per minute retest the food. You really want no increase at all in your heart rate, but anything under 5 beats per minute is fine. If your heart rate increased by at least 10 beats per minute then your body is reacting to that food and it’s best not to eat that food for another 3 to 6 months before retesting it again.

One of the oldest methods to find out if your body is reacting to a food in a negative way is by following a strict elimination provocation diet. This diet integrates well with your unique diet that you are working on discovering as they both have the same basic idea. Eat the foods that work for you and don’t eat the foods that don’t work for you. Plus both diets keep you in a limitless mindset as they’re both about discovering your own unique diet. The main difference being that at the very beginning of your new way of eating with an Elimination Provocation diet you cut down on the highest allergenic foods and other foods that a lot of people are intolerant and sensitive to. The other difference is that most people do an EP diet once and believe that’s how they should be eating from now on until forever. Whereas with the unique diet that your customising for your own needs you are continually improving and testing and removing what works and what doesn’t work over your lifetime.

So after 90 days on the EP diet you begin introducing one at a time 4 days apart a new food and keep track of any changes in your bodymind. If you react badly keep that food at bay for another 3 to 6 months before reintroducing it again. If you respond positively that food stays in your diet until the next time you want to test if it’s working for you or not.

Check out The Elimination Diet book by Tom Malterre and Alissa Segersten for more detailed information including food elimination introduction lists, meal plans, and recipes.

Another method you can use to find out if the foods you’re eating are making your bodymind happy or not is by muscle testing. Muscle testing, also known as applied kinesiology, is based on the energetic being of your body and is used to diagnose and treat many health issues by testing how your body reacts to certain objects or questions. With regards to foods you could hold a food with one hand close to your chest and heart and hold up your other arm keeping it straight. You would get someone else to press down on your extended arm and if you’re able to keep your arm straight and in place then that food would be acceptable to eat. If your extended arm becomes weak and drops down then that food should not be eaten at this time.

Another thing you’ll need to discover is how much fats, proteins, and carbohydrates you should be eating, that is what is your ideal macronutrient ratio. One way to find this out is by keeping a body language log. You want to track your satisfaction, energy, and mood levels after each meal. Regarding satisfaction one thing to keep an eye on is whether you’re still hungry or crave sweets after a meal. If you’re still hungry then you may have had too many carbs. If you’re craving sweets than maybe you didn’t have enough carbs or you had too much fat and protein. When it comes to energy levels if it didn’t get noticeably better after a meal you probably had too much fat and protein and if you feel absolutely wiped out and ready for a nap that’s a sign of too many carbs. Finally, with your mood if you’re anxious or irritable than you most likely had too much sugar and you’re crashing after the meal.

For more information on real food and for a body language log that you can use to track your macronutrients I highly recommend Sean Croxton’s eBook The Dark Side of Fat Loss. It talks about real food and other holistic ways of improving your health and includes a really nice one page body language log that’s intuitive and simple to use.

Remember:

“There’s no one true diet for all.”

So the next time someone says there is and that these are the only foods you should be eating for the rest of your life and they don’t allow for flexibility and adaptability and growth, well don’t accept it blindly. It doesn’t mean you can’t use restricted diets in limitless ways. It just means these diets should only be used for short periods of time before moving onto the next one.

But instead of going on a diet why not make your diet a part of your lifestyle. Because there is one true dieting process for all and with heart rate monitoring, elimination diets, muscle testing, and body language logs you will find out and realise for yourself the one true diet that works for you and that makes you happy, healthy, whole, and complete. Forever.

Amen!

Links and Resources

• WGP 007: Food Nutrition – What is Real Food?
• WGP 008: A Real Food Manifesto
• The Elimination Die — Tom Malterre, Alissa Segersten
• The Dark Side of Fat Loss — Sean Croxton

 
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