What Really is Healthy Eating?

“You don’t need a silver fork to eat good food”

Very often I hear people saying… so and so is a health freak. Always consuming health drinks, protein shakes, smoothies, supplements. A typical image of a plate of salad is labelled as ‘healthy’ and potatoes considered unhealthy especially when fried, nuts are fattening, rice is diabetogenic and fruit has too much sugar which is not good. Sometimes, people try to convince themselves that when they are having dates or jaggery instead of sugar, it will always be healthy. Last week I was served a huge helping of what was called “sugar free” cake that sent my blood sugar spiralling sky high. It was from a very healthy cake shop that even put the word healthy in the treats they bake. When I asked what was sugar free about it, I was told it contained palm sugar instead of refined cane sugar. It is still glucose and fructose and it does not matter where it came from, for a diabetic, it is equally bad. They exploit the semantics of the situation and called it ‘sugar free’ because it did not contain what we buy in the market as sugar.

Huge stereotypes exist about how bad it is to eat carbohydrates, and fatty oils will make you fat. People often land up counting calories and that is such a fallacy.?One gram of fat or oil has approximately 9 calories, carbohydrates have approximately 4 calories per gram, and proteins also 4 calories per gram. But volume for volume, the amount of calories in half a cup of oil or fat, and half a cup of carbs like rice or wheat, and half a cup of protein as in fish or meat, is completely out of any rationalised calorie intake.

So, what really is healthy eating? When you enrol for our six-month health coaching program that transforms people’s lives to being active, healthy, in balance at the right weight for your body type, free of lifestyle diseases and major issues, the first thing we do is to work with you about what really is healthy eating.

Many dieticians and nutritionists count your calories and restrict your intake (that is why it is called dieting). Many fads come and go, like GM diet, or keto diet, all of which do not offer balanced nutrition. Occasionally some people achieve their desired weight and health parameters, but you are essentially going against the body’s own chemistry, and eventually 90% people with dieticians go back to their original way of eating.

Sometimes dieticians achieve cult status because some celebrity has endorsed them and they then take liberty in telling people one standard formula which they believe works for everybody. They become wildly popular and charge big bucks but achieve the same temporary results.

But a Health Coach, and especially an Integrative Nutrition Health Coach does not have one formula that works for all. The Health Coach joins in the client’s health journey and gently engineers a co-created solution that works in irreversible ways to transform the health of the client through deep seeded intentions and lifestyle change.

In order to achieve transformation of food and eating habits to healthier ones, the rules are simple. Food needs to serve the following purposes:

1. Food must be tasty, sufficient and satisfying
2. Food should nourish the body
3. Food should detox the body
4. Food should heal the body
5. Food should keep the body disease free and build immunity
6. Food should build strength and keep it active
7. Food should help the body grow

With most of my clients while we begin with the food on your plate, and work out what works best for you to nourish your body, we quickly move into ways in which we nourish our mind, heart and soul as well. Because these are all intricately linked.

There are some basic principles of healthy eating which I explain to all my clients. Once you know how the body responds to sugar, protein, carbs and fats, it is easy to evolve these principles for most folks. There is usually an increase in vegetables, fruits, and salads. Usually a decrease (but not total elimination) in carbohydrates, and that is necessary because most folks consume too much carbohydrates. Substitution of simple carbs with complex carbs. Enhancement of micronutrients. Introduction of detox elements in diets. Introduction of healthy fats. I will attempt to eliminate or minimize the usage of processed and refined foods. Introduce some simple probiotic elements like pickles, kefir and kombucha. There are a few more general rules of healthy eating we try to inculcate.

One thing I noticed, healthy eating allows the body to achieve balance. The first six months of adjusting to new food principles, achieves major transformation as it did for me and my clients. The balance includes achieving the best weight suited for your body, the health parameters as in lab tests come into the normal range for diabetics, pre-diabetics and obese folks particularly. Activity levels increase and reversal of many lifestyle related problems begins to happen. But it does not mean that the change stops there. Continued healthy eating means continued healing and surprisingly even three years later when I look back, the first six months, though significant transformation had taken place, seem to be left behind and newer dimensions of well-being at all levels seem to emerge.

So, folks, don’t think that you can eat anything you like, and burn off the calories with exercise and achieve good health. That’s not how it works!

Wishing you good health always….

Aneeta Madhok, PhD

Integrative Nutrition Health Coach