Articles > Diet - 5 tips for optimal health
I always thought that to change my body looks, all it takes is sports, I can eat everything, and be in any mental and social state I want. Over the years, I have realized that exercise would take you from healthy to healthier and is not the key to health. COVID pandemic transformed the way we think about our lives for most of us. I signed up for several programs at MindValley, a great online university for personal development, which helped me upgrade my way of thinking and transform physically. I lost 20 kilograms, managed to get the body of my dreams, and most importantly, my energy levels skyrocketed. I was so happy with what I achieved that I set a goal to help everyone who wants to maintain optimal health, and in 2021 I was certified as a health & fitness coach. I want in this article to share with you some tips for maintaining health and the things I have done and led me to where I am today.
The tips - in short
Measure
Record hot your body looks not just the weight
Fruits in the Morning
Reduces the sweat craving during the day
Nutrient Richness
Add foods with high nutritional value
Deep Breaths
Breath deeply to releave stress
Hydrate
Avoid fake hunger and improve digestion
We came to talk about diet, so what is diet? No one has really explained us what that means exactly. Most of us think it is a temporary thing in which we change our diet or in simply put eat to lose weight, but according to Wikipedia diet is: "All food consumed by an organism, or alternatively, the diet regime of an organism". In fact every animal has its own diet, i.e, an elephant eats what it needs (plants) in order to live and reach the expected dimensions and abilities of its body. In contrast a tiger, eats meat and not plants and gets everything he needs from the meat. A good example is to look at termites or beavers that produce lots of nutrients from no less than trees. Humans do not have this ability because of our physiology.
Humans, like any animal, have athe foods from which we produce the nutrients that our body needs. For several hundrand thousand of years we were hunter-gatherers and ate meat and plants (omnivores) but since the industrial Revolution, we have been eating foods some of which are not beneficial to us at best and harmful to us at worst, because our bodies are not suppose to consume them at all. This situation has led us to a global epidemic of obesity that harms the general health of mankind, which in turn burdens the health systems (1), the economy due to the many patients, the environment due to the heavy production of food (2) and more …
here are some things you can do today to improve your health, maintain normal weight and proper health throughout your life.
1. Hydrate
So true most people know that water is important and our body is made up of two thirds of water. But what you may not know, is that humans have only 2 real types of hunger
1. Thirst
2. Nutritional deficiency
The rest are simply our habits or feelings that are not real hunger, such as an empty stomach (separate article). We sometimes confuse thirst with real hunger for several reasons:
A. We just do not drink enough in general so do not know if we are thirsty or hungry.
B. Unlike fruits and vegetables that provided fluids to our ancestors, the industrial food we consume is dry in terms of its water content.
C. Digestion of food is a process that requires water, the more we eat dry food we feel more thirsty which seems like hunger.
D. People tend to drink a lot of other drinks such as coffee, tea or various juices (God forbid) and consider them as water. Most of these drinks do not hydrate the body and therefore will not be considered as a substitute for water.
So true most people know that water is essential and that our body is made up of two-thirds of water. But what you may not know is that humans have only 2 types of hunger
1. Thirst
2. Nutritional deficiency
The rest are simply our habits or feelings that are not true hunger, such as an empty stomach (separate article). We sometimes confuse thirst with a hunger for several reasons:
A. We just do not drink enough in general, so we do not know if we are thirsty or hungry.
B. Unlike fruits and vegetables that provided fluids to our ancestors, the industrial food we consume is dry in terms of its water content.
C. Digestion of food is a process that requires water, the more dry food we eat more we feel thirsty, which seems like hunger.
D. People tend to drink a lot of other drinks such as coffee, tea, or various juices (God forbid) and consider their water. Most of these drinks do not hydrate the body and therefore will not be considered a substitute for water.
So what to do? Remind yourself to drink 2-3 liters of water a day. Today many apps help remember or just make a reminder on your computer, mobile, or even in your diary. In addition, you should take a bottle of water with you to the office or where you work, so you will catch two birds with one stone by not polluting the environment with disposable cups, and you will be able to stay focused at work because you will reduce the times you fill cups.
2. Deep Breaths
Breathing is essential in our lives, we can live for months without food, a week, and more without water, but we will not live more than a few minutes without AIR. In the hectic modern life, we tend to breathe shallow, which is built to keep us alert and in the beta brain wave (brain frequencies). This type of breath over time increases stress levels, which is known to damage the body systems and cause obesity even more. It is assumed that when the body experiences long-term stress, it activates systems that maintain fat stores because it feels threatened (3). Preserving fat stores was probably our ancestors ’natural response to the threat and helped them survive winters without food and deal with predators. Proper and complete breathing, even for two minutes a day, can lower the pressure threshold and give us the option to shed inflammatory adipose tissue from our bodies (4).
Here is a simple breathing exercise that will fill you with air and reduce stress: Take a breath that will fill your stomach for 5 seconds, hold for 5 seconds, exhale and empty your stomach for 5 seconds and hold for 5 seconds, and repeat the action 6 times and you have two minutes of breathing that lowers stress.
3. Nutrient Richness
Today, we have abundance, so we tend to eat 'tastier' food. Its food companies and scientists, I was among them, make every effort to make our dining experience ultimate. Some of these foods are composed of the three macronutrients (protein, sugar, and fat), which improve the taste experience. A great example of this is ice cream, which consists of these three in perfect balance and thus makes us want more and more. However, such foods do not exist in nature, so consuming them is probably not a good idea. While their caloric contribution is high, their nutritional value (which gives our body the ability to perform actions and regenerate) is low. So we get a lot of energy but are not fed from it (not really getting what the body needs), this diet leads to increased hunger because we eat but do not get nutritional value, and the body asks for more, which makes it difficult for us to lose weight. Have you ever tried to eat a lot of broccoli or salad? You can not eat a lot of it because you satisfy the body's need for nutrients, and it, in turn, lowers the desire to eat because it is satisfied. Here is a simple breathing exercise that will fill you with air and reduce stress: Take a breath that will fill your stomach for 5 seconds, hold for 5 seconds, exhale and empty your stomach for 5 seconds and hold for 5 seconds, and repeat the action 6 times and you have two minutes of breathing that lowers stress.
So what to do? The simplest thing actually is, at your own pace:
A. Increase the nutritional value you get from food by eating various vegetables and fruits. Green smoothie recipe in the pic.
B. At the same time, reduce the foods that are not nutritionally beneficial to you, such as ice cream, pizza, cookies, and others..
4. Fruits in the Morning
Our ancestors would not have survived the harsh seasons on Earth if they weren't experts in finding sugar. Therefore the humans who knew how to produce energy and preserve it best from sugar are the ones who survived and endowed us with these genetic traits. Eating sugar triggers the production of Dopamine which sends a direct signal to the brain to consume more sugar (5). But alas! Today there is no problem of nutritional deficiency, on the contrary, there is too much abundance, and unfortunately, the legacy remains as we continue to be addicted to sugar.
Fruits, honey, and very little maple syrup were almost exclusively the sweet taste in nature. Imagine a person who saw an apple tree 200,000 years ago. That person, an expert in energy conservation, would eat one, and then his brain would tell him to eat more and more until he was no longer able to, because who knows when he would see such a tree next time or if the fruit on it would last at all.
So how do you get around the urge to eat a lot of sugar during the day? Start the day by providing a significant amount of healthy sugar by consuming fruit in large quantities and variety for a period (one week / two weeks). But even this habit can develop as problematic, so try to lower the amount of fruit each time until you no longer need them. In any case, eating fruit in the morning is better than cakes in the afternoon.
5. How to Measure success
A good enough reason is what motivates us (discover your purpose in a separate article) and achieving results keeps us motivated. If you have decided to start a health transformation, take your picture in minimal clothing and a discreet manner. Most of the time, weight does not drop at first, and as a result of boosting your daily water intake, it may even increase. Do not settle for weight loss! It's just a number! Tracking with photos and looking in a mirror is much more effective. It best illustrates the change.
I promise you by maintaining these good habits (and here I have brought just a few), you will be healthier and maintain optimal health without much effort.
Remember, building good habits and avoiding habits that do not serve us requires perseverance, awareness, and an action plan (about building habits in another article).
1. Drink more water – To prevent fake hunger and improve digestion.
2. Breath deeply – Spend time breathing deep breaths instead of shallow breaths.
3. Eat nutrient-rich foods – Add nutritionally high-value foods.
4. Eat fruits in the morning – Helps with sugar cravings during the day.
5. Follow your progress – Document your physical appearance in the mirror not just your body weight.
1. Collaboration NCDRF. Worldwide trends in body-mass index, underweight, overweight, and obesity from 1975 to 2016: a pooled analysis of 2416 population-based measurement studies in 128.9 million children, adolescents, and adults. Lancet. 2017;390(10113):2627-42.
2. Willett W, Rockstrom J, Loken B, Springmann M, Lang T, Vermeulen S, et al. Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT-Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems. Lancet. 2019;393(10170):447-92.
3. Sominsky L, Spencer SJ. Eating behavior and stress: a pathway to obesity. Front Psychol. 2014;5:434.
4. de Kloet AD, Herman JP. Fat-brain connections: Adipocyte glucocorticoid control of stress and metabolism. Front Neuroendocrinol. 2018;48:50-7.
5. Lenoir M, Serre F, Cantin L, Ahmed SH. Intense sweetness surpasses cocaine reward. PLoS One. 2007;2(8):e698.
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