I assume that you, whoever you are, have spent most of your life eating a great deal of processed and packaged food, lots of sweetened foods, candy and straight up sugar, tons of vegetable oils in the form of French fries and chips, plenty of caffeine and chocolate, and processed meats like store-bought bacon and sausage.
If this is the case, your body has been under tremendous strain and is tragically undernourished. Sure you may have cleaned up your diet and have been doing much better, eating whole foods, more fresh fruits and vegetables, etc., but the foundation upon which nearly all of us are built is structurally weak. I know hardly a soul, especially of my generation, that didn’t grow up eating mostly crap.
To recover, the following things need to happen, but don’t get overwhelmed feeling like they all have to be done at once. That is not the point. The point is to slowly begin to incorporate these things into your lifestyle. A goal requires work, and few of us have the patience and determination to accomplish goals set up in a burdensome way. So don’t think of your diet as a goal, but a series of habits rather that you get used to over time. If you are going to make goals, make your goal improvement, which keeps you moving forward no matter what ?mistakes? you make. If you set out to be perfect, you are delusional and setting yourself up for guaranteed failure ? or extreme freakism if you do succeed. Notice that I don’t use the word ?never? in the following recommendations. This is a lifelong nourishment program. It is part of the ‘sustainable, self-nurturing lifestyle? that I encourage my clients to cultivate. So here it comes?
1) Prepare more of your food from scratch from whole, unadulterated foods. This doesn’t have to consume your whole life, but there’s no way around this first step.
2) Eat full, balanced meals based on fat and protein with a small amount of complex carbohydrates*, at regular intervals (every 3-5 hours), and never skip meals, especially breakfast which should be eaten within 1 hour of waking.
3) Along the same lines, rarely eat a carbohydrate, fat, or protein alone. Combine the three together methodically for stability.
4) Use the stability of this eating style to virtually eradicate sugar (including nearly all fruit and natural sweeteners), refined grain, caffeine, alcohol, and other addictive stimulants from your life. Don’t get all phobic about it. A couple exceptions per month aren’t going to kill you. This is surprisingly easy with strict adherence to steps 2 and 3, which should not be underestimated. At the very least, try not to eat these foods two and three days in a row, allowing ample recovery time.
5) Eat more raw foods, particularly fat. Raw butter is worth your troubles and money to obtain. Think of it as a delicious supplement. Shoot for ? pound (1 stick) per day. Raw coconut oil in lesser amounts is great too, as is avocado. Meat, fish, and eggs are also excellent raw and perfectly safe to eat, especially when following step 6.
6) Buy high-quality, properly-raised food. Grassfed and pastured meat, eggs, and dairy can be purchased from small local farmers doing it right. Organic produce can be purchased from local farmers? markets during summer and most supermarkets in winter. Wild-caught seafood can be found anywhere.
I could go on for a while, but this is a good start. Experimenting with short fasts, eating bone broth soups, eating fermented foods, taking a long break from grains, etc. could have all been mentioned, but don’t overwhelm yourself with all that just yet. Start simply. Start realistically.
Sample day that incorporates principles 1-6?
Wake up 7am
Lunch 12pm:
Snack 4pm:
Dinner 8pm:
When You Must Compromise
When (not if!) the occasional sugar, fruit, sweetener, caffeine, or alcohol is consumed, at least make sure that it is not ingested alone on an empty stomach. Everyone knows that alcohol on an empty stomach has a more pronounced effect on your biochemistry. The same goes for sugar. Consume these only after plenty of complimentary fat and protein-rich foods have been ingested (i.e. ? have sugar, fruit, and alcohol with or after a full meal and not before). This prevents the overly dramatic rise and fall of blood sugar levels ? the primary reason for eating balanced meals at regular intervals as noted in steps 2-3.
As a final note this is not a panacea, it’s a start that can significantly benefit most people who share a common problem (erratic blood sugar and imbalanced major hormone levels). Serious health conditions including digestive disorders may require a different emphasis, such as the consumption of primarily raw foods, simple easily-digested carbohydrates, and other healing dietary approaches.
* Common complex carbohydrates to be eaten with every meal and snack are corn, beans, peas, lentils, potatoes, turnips, sweet potatoes, celery root, nuts and seeds, and all grains (natural sourdough fermentation ideal). They are stressed because their absorption rate is slower which keeps blood sugar levels more balanced, helping to overcome sugar and stimulant cravings. However, there is one catch worth noting. These are by far the most difficult to digest foods. If you have problems digesting complex carbohydrates, it may be more important that you take the opposite approach, eating only simple carbohydrates from raw fruit, honey, vegetable juices, and fermented dairy. For some only the raw honey is tolerable, which is the most easily digested carbohydrate food. In addition, those who are able to eat the complex carbohydrates, once significantly recovered (no cravings, ideal body composition achieved, etc.), can once again return to what are truly the healthiest of all carbohydrates ? raw honey, raw vegetable juice, and raw fruit (but be careful!).
Matt,
Really appreciate and respect your insight and information. My question is about the amount of fat that you recommend to be consumed. It’s almost scary to think about consuming this much
F-A-T – much less eat it. Any additional info you can share to lessen my fear of this going straight from my lips to my hips?!
Great comment.
First of all, calories and fat have little to do with bodyfat storage. Storage of fat is triggered by elevated major hormones insulin and cortisol. It’s possible to lose weight on 3,000 calories a day while not exercising and gain weight on 1,000 calories per day while exercising. More on this can be found on my last post, Overweight and Starving?
Secondly, coconut oil and butter have the highest concentration of medium chain triglycerides, which are the least likely to be stored as fat because of the unique way that they are metabolized. See Spotlight on Coconut oil (October).
Thirdly, grass fed butter is one of the richest sources of CLA, a fatty acid that mobilizes body fat and is even sold as a weight loss supplement.
Fourth, fats are the most satiating foods and can help eradicate overeating and constant hunger — for those who do have an issue there. You are unlikely, even consuming a ton of fat, to consume more total calories on a high fat diet.
Fats in combination with proteins and moderate amounts of carbohydrate foods are also the best tools for healing metabolism and eradicating the physical state that causes excess body fat storage.
It is no coincidence that the earliest diets for the once rare disease of obesity were high fat, high-protein, mostly meat-based diets. Nor is it a coincidence that books with the following titles have been published…Eat Fat, Lose Fat/Eat Fat, Look Thin (both based on coconut oil). It’s also not surprising that the largest heart disease study ever conducted, the Framingham, MA study, showed that the more calories consumed and the more saturated fat consumed — the lower the body weight and the lower the risk of heart disease (as stated by former director Michael Castelli).
And, I don’t recommend outrageous amounts of fat. The eskimo and Masai ate over 1 pound of pure fat daily and had no obesity, no heart disease, no exceptions. 1 stick of butter and a couple tablespoons of coconut oil per day with a little full fat milk, cheese, and meats will give you, at most, 200 grams of fat in a day (1800 calories). From protein you’ll get 500 calories, and from carbs you’ll get about 400 calories — total daily intake of 2700, which is exactly where caloric intake should be for a relatively inactive adult. Any less, or with heavy exercise, and even that would be too little.
Try it, raw fats like truly raw grassfed butter heal, purify, and nourish the body like no other substance. Even if you gain weight at first, once the metabolism heals over time the weight will come back off, and your body will be in a much healthier and replenished state.
Thanks again for the comment!