Nutrition - Where to start!?
Let’s be honest with ourselves for a second shall we? How healthy have you been eating? .. Really?..
The average person in the United States has an objectively horrible diet, with a whopping 71% of adults either overweight or obese. Some may think they are eating healthy but don’t realize that much of what they are consuming is not healthy for them. Sadly, most don’t even know where to start. With all of the different diet gimmicks, programs, and competing information where do we begin? How can we sift through all the mixed messages and get to something that makes sense? Something manageable, and sustainable?
Here at Starlight, we have a simple, yet complex answer. The truth is: No one solution will fit everyone all of the time. We grew up our entire lives being told that everybody is different so we should expect that their diets would likely differ as well. What works for one person may not work for another. Often, even one solution that works may not fit you at all times through your life as your body and / or health goals change from year to year. It is for that reason that we do not recommend spitting out one cure all solution that fits everyone but instead recommend learning a suite of ideas and nutrition concepts that you can add to your toolkit. Additionally, learning a strict dietary regiment to obtain perfect health is meaningless if it you don’t have the will, desire or even financial ability to stick to it. My former disabled patients on fixed incomes, for example, did not appreciate the advice that they need to eat more fruits and vegetables when they could not afford them. The goal here is to learn systems & concepts that are sustainable, adaptable, can fit your life and ultimately lead to healthier choices. If your idea of eating healthy is simply to go on a "diet" for a few months then go back to your "normal", then that isn't the right approach. The goal here is to create a "normal" that leads you to a healthier and happier life.
So lets talk about what to add into our nutrition toolkit! What do we need to learn? First off, you need to understand that before you begin any kind of nutritional change, you have to have a few concepts in mind.
1) What is my goal? Is your goal to maintain your weight? Is your goal to gain muscle? Burn fat? Is your goal to Improve your blood pressure? Improve your kidney function? Reduce your risk of gout attacks? Understanding your goals, and understanding that your goals can change from year to year, month to month, and even day to day, influences what type of dietary program you should be following at that time.
2) What's my personality? You also need to have an honest discussion of who you are as a person, your preferences, your needs and your desires. For example, lets say your goal is to lose weight, but your personality is the type that hates all the work that’s often associated with it. Well it's unlikely that a diet program that involves weighing all of your food on a scale, tracking calories and carbs will work well for you. Chances are you'll get burned out, quit, and just wind up frustrated.
3) How do I feel? One of the most subjective parts of the entire process. How do you feel on the diet both physically and mentally? Lets say it fits your goal, it fits your personality, but then you don’t feel well on the new diet? It is important to understand that many diet regiments can take several weeks for the body and mind to adapt to changes. A couple of days on a new plan and often people may quit before they've acclimated to it, so sometimes it can be beneficial to stick with a plan. But other times, it's just as important to listen to your body and understand when a diet isn't right for you. If your plan has you physically feeling like your starving, completely distracted because you constantly feel hungry and unfulfilled - then maybe it's not that you're failing at eating healthy, its just that that particular plan is wrong for you. Likewise, if you're miserable and sad because you've restricted yourself from foods that you love then be honest with yourself! Mental health is important to! You can start by trying to find healthy alternatives that satisfy those needs, but sometimes it's okay to occasionally treat yourself (keyword: OCCASIONALLY) The goal is to become healthy AND happy, not hungry and miserable. Figuring out specifically, what it is about a plan that is making you feel worse, helps immensely in your ability to adapt a program to fit your individual needs
4) Do I even remember what I ate? Ahhhh… the good old memory problem! Do you remember what you had for breakfast today? Do you remember what you had for lunch? How about yesterday? The day before? The day before that? How about last week? If you walked into the kitchen today to grab a snack could you tell me how many times you've eaten that snack this week? This month? This year? Tracking is one of the easiest, and simplest methods of learning what your diet looks like and get an accurate representation on what you are doing, and what you're not. I can’t tell you how many times during a patient interview I've heard "I eat plenty of fruits and vegetables" only to find after a food diary that they only had them once every 1-2 weeks and the rest was filled with junk and a shameful expression on my patients face. Before starting any new diet plan, you should begin by simply writing down, on paper, in black and white, what you've been eating and drinking. No.. You don’t have to count calories or anything like that, just jot down what you're doing and take a look at it after a few weeks. If you tend to get aches and pains or sudden tiredness maybe jot that down too. You might be surprised by what all went in to your stomach and might even notice patterns between what you eat, when you eat and how you feel! I once had a patient who went through all the effort of cutting out gluten in their diet thinking they'd lose weight because it was the bread that was the problem.. but forgot about the liters of soda they were taking in each day. The best way to know where to go, is to know where you've been. You must understand why your diet wasn’t working for you so you can adjust and not make the same mistake next time. You can start by helping yourself to remember what your diet is
Ok so we've discussed some basic concepts. Now what!? Here at Starlight Health, part of our practice is getting to know, educate and teach our patients how to get and stay healthy in a meaningful way. We are happy to go through what our patients unique needs are and are more than happy to help counsel them on a suite of different approaches to address them. Please feel free to schedule a consultation with us at any time by clicking this link https://www.starlighthealth.com/signup
Starlight Health is a small mobile Family Medicine practice located in Fort Collins, Colorado. We offer unlimited house calls, extended visit times between 30-90 minutes and the ability to directly call, email, text or video chat through telemedicine with your healthcare provider all for one low monthly fee. By contracting directly with our patients and not the insurance companies, we can offer steep discounts on labs, medications and various other services at near cost. We have affordable plans for individuals, families as well as employer groups. If you would like to learn more about our practice please go to www.starlighthealth.com
To learn more about Direct Primary Care in general please go to: