Diet has long been of paramount importance to me.
Even before I knew much of anything that was going on with nutrition, I had feelings of intuition around certain foods I would see people eating.
One example of that was a time when I saw one of my old friends and his dad pull out little packages of cracker sticks with the very artificial-looking, dark yellow cheese that comes in a see-through, sealed package. These are the kinds of snacks that you would find in a ‘Lunchable’.
This kind of food is marketed to kids (sadly), but I watched my upper-teenaged friend and his middle-aged dad enjoy these and I couldn’t help but think how weird that was. This was a regular occurrence for this friend and the rest of the friend group as well.
Certain things like that, I would look at with some degree of amazement that they had no interest in what kind of ingredients went into making that “food”; they were just ready to enjoy it.
Again, this is before I had ANY knowledge and I still couldn’t bring myself to eat certain things. Now, I’m even harder to make budge.
But this illustrates the way we eat, especially in the western world today. We have tons and tons of temptations around us that really aren’t natural foods, but are marketed as snacks or treats that you can have when you “deserve it.”
The problem with this is that these foods are artificially-enhanced and therefore highly addictive once you start eating them. There’s a reason you can’t put the chips or the cookies down once you open the package. This is why I do my best to not even open the package because I know that once I do, it will be hard to stop.
So these snacks become an integral part of our diets, whether intentionally or not, because they’re absolutely everywhere and they create cravings within us once we know how great they taste.
In fact, it’s easier to find junk food than it is to find real food. Isn’t that a crazy idea?
Most places you stop for food, whether it’s a restaurant, grocery store, gas station, or wherever, will readily supply you with processed junk food but can’t guarantee a meal consisting of whole foods only. To me, that’s a very strange part of reality.
My point here is that it can be a real fight to eat well. It seems to be designed that way for some reason.
I may have grown up eating some junk food but I know that I want to eat well because I care about my long term health.
What I do to constantly keep myself on track, meaning that I eat mostly whole foods without suffering through it, is that I’ve adopted what I call the “damage control diet”.
This is the diet that you use to transition yourself from lots of processed, artificial, junk foods to almost entirely whole foods. The diet allows you to maintain control over yourself without feeling the need to binge eat or call it quits on the whole idea because it’s too hard.
I would ideally eat the paleo or keto diet, similar diets also include the primal diet or the bulletproof diet.
The names aren’t all that important, my point is I want to eat nutrient-dense foods that consist of lots of fat and protein, lots of micronutrients, not too many carbs, and almost no sugar. I want to eat all real foods (plants and animals) and not feel like I’m suffering through it, while also feeling great within my body and mind.
I know that this is doable, but I still have a lot to learn and discipline to form around eating this way because it is indeed hard to break away from certain habits.
For example, it would be hard for me to break away from sweets because I’ve eaten a lot of them my whole life. Cookies, ice cream, and granolas are a few of my guilty pleasures.
The way that I get myself to eat healthier is by eliminating bad ingredients from my diet. This forces me to stay within certain bounds so that even when I’m eating something indulgent, I at least agree with the ingredients and the amounts I’m taking in. This is the “damage control” aspect of the diet.
What I do specifically right now are a few different things:
1). I eat gluten-free.
Gluten is a protein found in wheat, barley, and rye, which means I avoid eating any of those.
From what I have seen, gluten can contribute to lots of problems within the body: leaky gut, inflammation, gastrointestinal distress, IBS, acid reflux, skin rashes, allergies, ADD/ADHD, brain fog, and more.
For these reasons, and the fact that many people are unaware if they are gluten-sensitive or not, I figured it would be smart to get rid of it for a while and see how I feel.
2). I avoid all forms of soy.
Soy is thought to be a hormone disruptor in the body, being that it contains phytoestrogens which can mimic estrogen in the human body.
Soy, as well as wheat, is not particularly nutrient-dense either, making it an easier choice for me to rule out of my diet. I find that foods that often serve as fillers and binders (think soy lecithin) are unneeded when it comes to nutritional quality.
Furthermore, soy and wheat both are almost entirely GMO-grown in the US, making it much less enticing to eat.
3). I avoid all industrial seed oils.
These are cheap oils that are very poorly extracted from their plant counterpart and make for very unstable oils when heat is applied to them. This process makes the oils oxidize without us being aware, and ingesting what’re essentially rancid oils that can create unnecessary inflammation in the body.
These oils include: canola oil, vegetable oil, corn oil, soybean oil, cottonseed oil, and probably more that I’m forgetting. When I see these oils listed in an otherwise good product, I put it right back.
That being said, this is how I eat 95% of the time. Sometimes, the occasion calls for me eating some wheat flour or some crappy oil when there’s a birthday, there’s no better options, or I just want to enjoy myself.
This is how I perform “damage control.” I eat in a way that is passable in terms of nutrition for me right now and it is completely sustainable.
I choose and accept when I eat these forbidden foods again and my life goes right back to the way it was the next day.
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