What exactly is a diet? Should I be on a diet or follow a diet? How do I choose a diet that is best for me? These are all questions everyone one of us asks ourselves at some point when food selection becomes more than just filling the void we call hunger. Are you a slave to hunger? Just waiting for another round of gluttonous indulgence? Or do you need to eat to sustain a healthy body for living that demanding life to the fullest?

Is a 5-star chef more knowledgeable about nutrition than a garage mechanic? Maybe, maybe not. Is a nurse more knowledgeable about nutrition than a garage mechanic? Maybe, maybe not. Some chefs know how to make the most amazing dishes, yet when they get home they eat highly processed and packaged food products with little regard to health and longevity. Many doctors are blind to diet related illnesses and symptom complexes due to their full participation in the fast paced lifestyle of today’s successful American.

Being smart doesn’t mean you are making healthy choices. It’s also doesn’t mean you know what healthy even is. Because we have no real traditions in American cooking that we can rely on as healthy with centuries of trial and error we sift thru the global selection that is our smorgasbord and feast to whatever our tastebuds delight. Constant battle of gratification vs meeting our nutritional needs. And now we have been lulled into believing that we are diseased because of these choices. Genetically flawed.

It’s sad to see an 8-year-old child whose weight is so out of control because of very simple diet choices. Its not sugar, although that is part of the crutch. Our addictive compulsive choices are leading us into the over carbed over starched diet that has clogged colon walls and starved bodies for nutrients keeping them in a feeding frenzy if you will that only leads to serious obesity and illness. White flour and heavy processed foods are killing our intestines and creating an epidemic of diabetes and dementia.

I am not a doctor. None of the information included or presented in this website is in any way a claim or prescribed method for curing any disease. What I am presenting is a simpler way to approach food selection and eating with methods that are proven throughout centuries in various cultures. Depending on how one is living their day to day and the demands physically, mentally, etc. ones diet will need to adjust for those activities to ensure the body is well nourished to meet the demands of daily life. Eating large amounts of protein and carbs only to sit at a desk for 7-8 hours will be very difficult to focus and think efficiently, not to mention numerous intestineal problems that will manifest. Knowing what to eat and when is the secret to ending the diet challenge.

Why are carbs bad for you? Are they bad for you? Let’s think more about the foods that are carb heavy that we want to avoid and why. Bread, pasta, crackers, chips, and any product that contains flour especially white flour. Also included in this list are starch heavy potatoes and white rice. What’s wrong with bread? What if it’s a wheat germ type bread? The answers are very simple.

Products with highly processed flour such as white flour and cake flour are quite sticky when wet. Add protein and/or fat and watch this turn into a form of glue if you will. These 2 things without an enzymatic catalyst are a gut problem waiting to happen. The protein and carb have to be processed by the small and lower intestines. Without vegetables this will stick to the walls and not digest very easily. Eating a burger and fries thinking that coke is all you need to wash it down is as naive as it gets. Its down right denial.

An old friend who I went to grade school with mentioned recently that he didn’t like vegetables. He was a "meat and potatoes" guy. He also weighs 275 or so. I didn’t ask but I imagine he probably sh**s pebbles weekly or something with as clogged as he is. No matter how smart you think you are your body and your mind need vegetables. Not a few carrot sticks at lunch or lettuce and tomatoes with the double cheese burger. Half of everything you eat should be vegetables. Build up and break down foods. Life can be short and miserable without the right vegetables.

As technologically advanced as we have become we are still humans who need a balanced diet to live healthy. We know we need vegetables but we are addicted to the carb goo and that’s what we reach for. Some crackers, chips, breakfast bar, pasta with so called cheese, anything with flour, and bread products are our staples day to day. No secrets no mysteries or complex formulas to figure out. There are cultures with no diabetes, no Alzheimer’s or dementia etc. All because of diet. Even if you are an Olympic gold medalist who needs 4000 calories a day to sustain, vegetables are essential to a balanced diet. Half vegetables and half carbs, protein and sugars. Choose your carbs and starches wisely as there are many choices that do not involve white flour, bread or any heavy processed products of any kind. They taste just as good and are good for you. It’s all in the preparation.

A very simple tool that I have used at different times over the years and one that I think many will appreciate as a weight gauge tool is calorie counting. A professional athlete noted that he used calorie counting to gauge and maintain weight. In on and off season, depending on the calories needed to fuel, the weight maintained was at an average of 10lbs per every 100 calories. This is for normal day to day with minimal training. I found this to be very accurate in my day to day as well. 1800 calories daily = 180lbs.

A cup of peanuts has 800 calories. This is one of those that I have easily overlooked time and time again because they are so easy to keep eating. I do not want to weigh 200lbs so I keep track when I am eating proteins and carbs. Women who want to weigh 120-140lbs again better count those calories. Build a diet that works for your lifestyle day to day to be healthy and look just as good. Most women eat almost as much as their husbands. 180-220lbs is not uncommon. Both 50lbs overweight. 2500 calories adds up fast so calorie counting is a must.

Women have different needs then men. So many women who take care of their families by doing the shopping and cooking etc. are unaware that they need to eat foods that are good for them and support their bodies just as much they need to provide the same for their children and husbands. Lymphatic and reproductive health are critical to maintain and easily overlooked as we stack up the carbs and colon clogging meal choices. Maintaining proper PH balance alone is critical for women, which most men never consider until they are infecting their partner regularly. Eating the same foods as the rest of the family will keep you unhealthy and eventually lead to illnesses that may be to challenging to recover from as you get older.

Our gender roles have changed dramatically over the last century. Throughout history women have existed primarily within the shadows of a man with expectations to care for and support him and his offspring to her fullest capacity as a human being. The vast majority of all Americans 200 years ago ate primarily to survive. Flour wasn’t processed like it is today and there were no packaged products to grab on the go. Women were the masters of mixing flour with animal fats amd protiens to make biscuits and breads that stuck to the intestines giving calories to the body for longer periods of physical labor and endurance. Most vegetables were eaten closer to raw form and lots of pickles were a part of the early American diet. A smart wife knew how to balance these on a simple scale and care for her family.

Today we all have the choice and are expected to participate in the food selection and perhaps preparation. Women have their own needs to consider and need to be proactive in order to sustain good health. They often have the hardest time with diet change as it may be more drastic than for men to get healthy. Men live in fear of testicular cancer, but women face high risk of breast cancer due to lymphatic health problems as well as ovarian and uterine diseases, which are on the rise. Its critical to start good eating habits by the age of 30 or it will be 5 to 10 times harder to do and usually take a disease or illness to motivate those necessary changes.

Many many Americans use supplements daily. They rely on them to fill in the gaps for lack of better nutrition in diet or other source of deficiency. Depending on the type of supplement, herb, mineral, synthetic blends etc. there may be some benefit to this. Herb supplements can be very effective and can serve a critical role in mitigating health problems and disease. Mineral supplements can be much harder for the body to process and most often these are not used by the body in the ways we hoped, but instead create kidney, liver and bladder problems.

The synthetic supplement business has become widely accepted as mainstream due to the amount of sport supplements out there and how broad the use for many of these products are. Without research into each product, it is very difficult to know how legitimate it is and how well the body may benefit from its use. The supplement industry is one that has minimal regulation and testing requirements. None prior to bringing any product to market. In light of this I tend to discourage use of supplements without thorough research into the products, the ingredients, and the need one may have for this.

In general the body responds much better and is able to absorb much faster all of its nutirents from food sources. In my experience mineral supplements tend to create more problems than noticeably solve so I only use herb supplements for non-nutritional use. Get your nutrients from food and your body will thank you. If you are an athlete and think you need supplements do your research. Not only into the products you want to use, but at problems that arise from its use as well as ways to achieve those goals with food. There are numerous athletes out there who live a truly healthy life. Eat 4-5000 calories of nutritious food that gives them exactly what they need throughout the day for competing. Even professional athletes who do not eat animal protein, only plant, which I find hard to sustain. Food is life. Live it.

Expectations are different from coast to coast regarding diet and health. Living in California people are expected to be proactive and make better food choices. Many standards that start as trends begin there and spread throughout the rest of the country. I have lived in communities where no fast food restaurants are allowed. Period. You are a hater if you don’t recycle and an egotist if you drive a gas guzzling SUV and don’t have 4 kids or live in a rural area. The entire west coast has vastly different eating habits than the rest of the country. They also have the best access to mass produced vegetables and fruits throughout the year.

There is a saying in Oregon “If you don’t have any garden fresh vegetables you don’t have any friends”. Meaning many people have gardens and the access to quality produce is invaluable. I remember living in New Orleans 30 years ago and discovering “The Greens” cook book. This is a famous restaurant in San Fransisco with a farm that provides its produce and more. Amazing recipes and an inspiration to me over the years I recognize that the west coast is very different than the rest of the country regarding food and health.

The East coast is not too different than the Midwest if you separate the upper east and Florida. Soth Florida has deep Latin/Cuban cultural influences yet in the north it is similar to Alabama and Georgia with typical high calorie and carb heavy diets. Most people living in cities in the upper northeast have to walk a lot day to day. Not just in New York. The east coast has also been the main hub for many European immigrants and guests over the years that have handed down traditions from France, Italy, Spain etc. that are hundreds of years old. Some even thousands of years.

The remaining 85% of the country has little expectations of healthy eating habits. Primarily because they do not have traditions that include any. From lower class to upper class healthy eating is for vegans and sick people. Real men eat steak and potatoes and women love a good chicken pot pie or casserole. People have to drive everywhere so lethargy is already the common starting point to any activity throughout the day. Depending on the region of the Midwest eating may be the most exciting times of the day. Boredom leads to anxiousness, which is multiplied on carbs and protein. This leads to more eating as there just anything to do or look at other than TV, church and sports.

Tuna casserole is a tradition in the Midwest. Anything that's in in a biscuit, anything with gravy, and anything with cheese. Green bean casserole is a traditional vegetable dish or a salad with ranch and more cheese. And potatoes are vegetables. Most food items are packaged and processed. A lot of white flour throughout the day in many things not to mention heavy trans fats and sugars. This way of eating is an epidemic. But what is the alternative? Carrot and celery sticks all day? Raw broccoli with ranch dressing?

Today knowledge is everywhere at the tips of our fingers. If you have decided to or are already being proactive and eating 50% of your diet in certain vegetables then its all down to choices day to day, meal by meal, of what to eat and how to balance that with your daily activities. Living in the Midwest there will likely be a harder curve to having access to the right foods if eating out and on the go. More work for meal prep as well. But once you find the right recipes and find comfort in the routines of eating well you will never look back. Food will taste 100 times better than from your local chain restaurant and be 100 times better for you.

At our core everything we do is for love. Primarily receiving love from others. Approval and affirmations drive us, just take a look at Facebook and Instagram. It's in our hardwiring. We need to be able to relate to others and harmonize with them to have that common understanding for us to approve of and affirm. If you eat differently then others may not approve. They will most likely question and depending on how you answer will inevitably cast some type of judgement about what you are eating and why. And for this reason, many people will follow the pack no matter how unhealthy the practices may be. We harmonize because that is how we are genetically programmed. This is why some traditions are hard to change.

It is important to look at how we are living and why we would sacrifice health and wellness for ourselves and our families. No change will ever come unless you care enough about yourself or someone else to start a new pattern, a new tradition, and sustain it. We are what we eat. How and what we eat shows how much we care about ourselves and our families. Demand your husbands and kids participate in food prep and understand why they need to change their eating habits. If you love them and yourself you will make the change. If you already have then Bon Appetit! An adventure in food awaits!