How to fit Balanced Nutrition into our busy lives?

Thank you to those who joined us in person or virtually as we embark on this wellness journey together! It was our pleasure talking about everything wellness! Balanced diet is on top of our minds these days!

Here is the link to the recording from the workshop: https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/JyetElXezcKBJRc8z6boK7974gK82ynsnQV51X3f8TqIemHZVir6VMXn5PLu71fc.wUskHn6aRhsfuui7?startTime=1629557086000

Also, you can access my presentation and the wealth of tips I shared here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Nso9PuBcxjGYNvj-OQqTKYLeOFLtC-a1/view?usp=sharing

In the balanced diet workshop, I begin with history as to how our diet quality got to this level. We can relate to times when our parents, grandparents, and grand grandparents used to spend a lot of time in the kitchen and make foods from scratch without any Vitamix and food processors and Instapots in their kitchen. I cannot imagine my life without those kitchen gadgets.  Our lives got busier and so to help us came inventions to make our lives easier. 

Big food corporations saw the market for convenience foods and jumped onto it. Because they employ neuroscientists whose job it is to make the chips, cookies, crackers, and many other processed and ultra-processed foods as addictive as possible. Big food companies are doing this to increase their sales and making items shelf-stable so their profits increase. They are not doing it for our health but so many products claim to be healthy and we unknowingly put it in our carts hoping it is good! Not saying all are bad, but unfortunately, the majority of them are. So the first thing you need to do is learn to read the label and the fewer the ingredient list, the better it is. Cleaner products have 5 items on their ingredients vs processed ones that have 30 items.

Processed and ultra-processed foods fill our grocery stores shelves and some of them get into our pantries and refrigerators. Ok, you might think I don’t eat chips and cookies- so I am safe. Unfortunately no! Quaker 1 minute oats, energy bars, energy drinks, zero-calorie drinks, fruit juices, even your ultra-high temp (UHT) milk would fall under ultra-processed foods. UHT milk stays stable for 6 months without refrigeration. Just imagine if even bacteria is saying no to get close to the milk, why are we consuming it thinking it should be a part of our balanced diet and think it is nutritious drink? Think about it…

This is one of the many reasons why the core of my balanced diet advice has always been to start with removing  these culprits from your balanced diet intake:

1.            Sugar

2.            White Flour

3.            Industrial seed oils and

4.            Artificial food coloring

If you avoid these 4 things, you’ll eliminate the vast majority of ultra-processed food from your diet—thus reducing the possibility that you’ll get addicted to the “Frankenfoods” that now comprise almost 60% of calories in the Standard American Diet.

My 21st-century wellness advice is to “STOP counting calories and START counting chemicals”.

The go-to strategies for a balanced diet that I wanted to leave you with for superior health are:

1. Clean your pantry – remove sugar, white flour, artificial colors, and ultra-processed foods

2. Meal planning and prepping

3. Start your day with a balanced breakfast

4. Go to the refrigerator, not the pantry, for snacks

5. Stock up on healthy foods in your balanced diet– eat more fruits and vegetables

I hope all this encouraged you to tackle one healthy goal today!

If you have more questions that come up along the way, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

In health,

Niti