Making healthy choices should be easy. The problem is, however, that many individuals find themselves confused as to how to implement new health knowledge into their daily lifestyle.
Eat breakfast
The first phase involves one main goal, and three sub-goals.
The main goal for this phase is to eat breakfast.
Health and training guru Dan John makes it simple, “If you didn’t eat breakfast this morning, don’t ask me anything else about nutrition.” Breakfast is essential for health, energy, performance, fat loss, and training adaptation.
3 evenly spaced meals per day
Along with eating breakfast comes the goal of eating a minimum of 3 evenly spaced meals per day.
In this phase, you should also be adding nutrient density to your meals by increasing the amount of fruit and mainly veggies consumed.
This will add crucial vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, phytochemicals, and fiber to your system.
This also prevents bone weakness, muscle breakdown, and stress-related disease.
Increasing water intake
Increasing water intake is also essential in order to increase blood flow and keep the muscle tissues functioning well.
The only items to limit during this phase are candy and pop and heavily sweetened foods since they are high in sugar and are detrimental to anyone with a nutritional focus in mind.
This first phase should be your singular nutritional focus until it is a consistent part of your daily life.
Increase the number of nutritious choices
Now that the first stage has introduced some good better choices and eating habits, you are ready for phase 2.
The goal of phase 2 is to simply increase the number of nutritious choices. Adding a basic meal preparation strategy can be very useful in making sure that you do not have to turn to quick-fix choices for food such as microwaveable meals, canned food, pre-packaged foods and drive-through fast food.
You will at this point want to add some healthy whole grains, fruit, healthy fats, and even more veggies to your everyday meals.
The most digestible and readily nutritious way to eat vegetables is to steam them.
You will now want to limit deep-fried foods, sugary baked goods, refined grains (white or processed bread), and unhealthy fats (cheese, red meats except in their leanest form) since these all work to ruin your metabolism, body composition, and body functions.
Lastly, governing meal sizes is of great importance. Try to make each meal of similar size to avoid the classic “massive late dinner” situation that throws most people off the caloric scale. Once again, you will want to stick with this phase until it is consistently applied and thoroughly implemented.
Getting into phase 2 and making it consistent is quite an accomplishment, and provides an excellent nutritional base for health and performance. By now you are greatly reducing risk factors of food & stress-related diseases that are a major pandemic in the western world by a great degree.
Macronutrient ratios and serving sizes
Phase 3 is where things begin to get a bit more specific. With phase 3 you will want to start paying more attention to macronutrient ratios and serving sizes of food.
With this, you can start adding more organic foods such as free-range, grass-fed, and superfood options.
A food log is extremely useful in this phase, especially at the start (3-5 weeks), and tune-ups when needed.
For those who seek to better their body composition, this is also the phase in which meal frequency should be increased to 4-6 smaller meals per day. Just getting to this phase puts you at a decent level of nutrition, and the focus should be maintaining consistency of all the levels before progressing.
Advanced principles
Phase 4 is rather advanced and is difficult to manage on your own, so I will save this for nutritional coaching clients. As for the phases, everyone starts somewhere, but your focus should be on consistency with a phase before moving on. Coaching is also available to anyone who is having difficulty progressing through and maintaining a phase.
Optimal nutrition is attainable for everyone, but we must be willing to take on lifestyle change as a value and personal priority.
In review:
Phase 1:
• Breakfast
• 3 even meals each day
• Consistent hydration
• Limit sugar intake
• Avoid foods you know do not work for your body.
Phase 2:
• Increased use of vegetables, plant-based foods,
• More frequent use of healthy fats and lean meats
• Decreased use of deep-fried food, processed foods, saturated fats, salt or sugar-added and foods.
• Moderate meal-sizes
Phase 3:
• Switch unlabeled foods for certified organic foods
• Maximize use of whole foods
• Use a food log to hold yourself accountable or to receive coaching.
Phase 4:
• Further study and application of advanced principles.