If you want to feel your best both mentally and physically, good food is essential. Food is fuel for your body and information for your cells. It helps write the program of how you will feel and perform each day.
Nutrition for optimal health doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact, one of the most accurate summations of what to eat for good health comes from a journalist, not a physician, dietitian, or scientist.
Now, that may be a bit of an oversimplification - Michael Pollan is a world-renowned journalist, having written for more than 30 years on science, nature, and culture. He has been recognized as one of the best American Science writers. So it’s safe to say he’s no slouch.
In nutrition, we all have the tendency to get distracted by “shiny objects”, the latest supplement or fad diet. But, just like you have to build a house on a good foundation, your health relies on creating a solid foundation. This foundation comes from first getting the basics down of food and nutrition and then enhancing it afterwards. There’s no sense in timing your fancy protein shake after a workout if you eat junk the other 11 hours (see below) of the day.
How to Build a Strong Foundation - the Basics
Eat food.
Sounds like a no brainer, right? Real, whole foods, are edible things your great grandparents would recognize as food (another Michael Pollan tip).
Think of these as single-ingredient items at the grocery store.
Beans
Oats
Nuts
Blueberries
Spinach
Eggs
Single-ingredient foods are minimally processed and have less sugar, salt, preservatives, and industrialized oils that can cause inflammation and make you feel lousy.
What isn’t food?
Pop-tarts
Twinkies
Instant noodles
Bread/crackers/cereal bars with 20+ ingredients that you don’t recognize!
Think of these items as low-grade fuel that will quite literally gum up your engine.
The chemical soup of preservatives, artificial colors, and thickeners in ultra-processed foods are known triggers for Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). Processed foods in general also increase the risk of heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, and death (1,2,3). Cerebrovascular disease refers to diseases of the vessels that supply blood to the brain.
Can you think of anything more important to feel your best than making sure your gut, heart, and brain are healthy?
Not too much.
Healthy eating means three things:
Listen to your body
Eat enough to fuel you
Don’t eat so much that you are stuffed
This refers to both an excess of calories as well as constant eating. A hunger scale can be useful for deciding when to eat and when to hold off.
You also want to give your body some downtime without food. Keep your eating within a 12-hour window to rest, digest, and repair.
Periods of intermittent fasting are associated with many health benefits including improvements in (4,5):
DNA repair
Body composition (lean muscle tissue increase, body fat decrease)
Cognitive health
Blood sugar management
Cancer risk reduction
Digestion
If 12+ hours seems like a big commitment, even simply skipping snacks and fasting in between meals can be beneficial.
Eat Mostly Plants.
The health benefits of a plant-based diet are well documented (6). What does it mean to eat mostly plants? Salad is probably the first thing that comes to mind but eating a plant-based diet doesn’t mean a life sentence of boring bowls of lettuce. Plant foods include beans, nuts, seeds, vegetables, fruits, and whole grains.
Plant foods are high in vitamins, minerals, fiber, and plant compounds known to prevent and repair damage to tissues known as phytonutrients.
Does this mean you need to give up eggs, meat, and cheese to be healthy? No, not at all. High-quality animal foods like organic, grass-fed beef, free range poultry, and wild fish can all be enjoyed.
For optimal health, it's a good idea to keep the animal portion of your diet to 30% or less of what you eat in a day. It doesn't have to be an exact science, just use your plate as a reference. Using this method, it doesn’t take a Registered Dietitian to figure out that a 20 oz steak is probably too much meat.
The Benefits of Nourishing the Body
The mind and the body aren’t separate units - they work in coordination and are influenced by each other. Eating good food nourishes our physical health and mental health by way of the gut-brain connection.
The gut is responsible for much of our overall picture of health. It:
Aids in digestion
Regulates immunity
Protects against bacteria
Synthesizes some vitamins
Aids in growth and development
Stimulates neurons of the enteric nervous system to send signals to the brain via the vagus nerve.
So, as we explore what food is required for optimal health, it starts with gut health. Good gut health translates into optimal whole-body health.
Get Started with Three Questions
Start progressing toward optimal health by giving your diet an upgrade. The next time you sit down to eat, ask yourself three questions:
Is this food? (Would my great grandmother recognize it as food?)
Is this enough food and not too much?
Is my plate mostly plants?
By asking yourself these questions every time you eat, you’ll slowly train yourself to fuel your mind and body for optimal health.
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