I’ll share with you a few insights on each of these going-nowhere approaches to losing weight that make up most of the $50B diet industry supposedly about helping you lose weight, when really it’s about keeping you diet trapped!

• Nutrient Deprivation: or manipulation is about drastically cutting or eliminating carbohydrate out of your diet. The problem with this approach is that our bodies run on carbohydrate for fuel and we ALL have a sweet tooth, for that very reason. Carbohydrates are sweet, even natural carbs. When most people cut their carbohydrate they typically cut out plant foods, where there is ample, natural carbohydrate, and base their diets on fish, chicken and other meats which are also devoid of carbohydrate and great for quick-fix weight loss (water loss). The minute you do this you are now eating nutrient poor because animal foods are nutrient poor, missing whole categories of nutrients; the most important being phytochemicals. You can’t be healthy this way, therefore you will always have weight and health problems.
  
  
• Proactively eating less: This is dieting, and most people are proactively eating less on top of nutrient deprivation. Meaning, the nutrient needs their body is striving to meet, aren’t getting met, and now they are eating less on top of it! This is like having your food on the break and the gas pedal at the same time; you will chase your tail this way. Nobody can do this, unless you are an adept dieter almost warrior-like with deprivation. Some people can do it, as they buy into the “heroic” story of weight loss thinking that they must live this deprived live to deal with their lot in life. It’s a great accomplishment, losing weight, but it’s not heroic and doesn’t require heroism. It requires that you understand how to eat in a nutrient rich way, as part of a successful lifestyle.
  
  
• Dependency on exercise to burn calories: This is the all time biggest sham ever! Exercise is not about losing weight, it’s about getting fit. Sure, you use more calories when you exercise; your weight will fluctuate with increased activity levels and usually in the right direction, but trying to burn up nutrient poor and nutrient barren calories by relying on exercise is a futile way of life. It also does not prevent your from experiencing health complications even if you were to maintain a lower weight.
  
  

There is a diet trap that is holding almost everyone back from getting all the health and natural weight loss benefits they want and it is eating 90% or more nutrient poor food! No matter what type of diet you go on Paleo, low carb, vegan, vegetarian, low fat, low cal, low glycemic, gluten free etc… if you are eating nutrient poor you will struggle guaranteed, or sell yourself short from getting ALL the health benefits that you deserve from a nutrient rich healthy eating style.

To name the top health benefits…

• Detoxification from the accumulation of saturated fat, cholesterol, refined and added oil, salt and sugar that are causing problems in your system.
  
  
• Reversal of diet style-induced diseases, like diabetes, and heart-disease…
  
  
• Natural Weight Loss, which happens when you know the cycles your body has to get through before you eat again.
  
  
• Slower Aging and a younger look, which happens when you aren’t eating overstimulating food that promotes inflammation, and super fast growth…
  
  
• Maximized Longevity, which is the natural result of getting more nutrients in less calories, causing less stress, wear and tear on your body, and managing your energy!
  
  

When you lose weight the nutrient rich way, you engage in the same natural process that healthy people living at or near their ideal weight engage in to maintain their healthy state. You get ALL your nutrient needs met, get free of substances you’ll inevitably have to withdraw from (detoxify) that create addictions, and eat when you are truly hungry… when all three of these dynamics are in play, you WILL lose weight, only now in a nutrient rich way!

Make the Switch to Rich; begin the Nutrient Rich® Healthy Eating Plan with Nutrition Transition support.

Instead of depriving yourself and only eating small portions of high-calorie foods that aren’t going to give you the nutrients that you need , and will leave you feeling hungry, eating nutrient-dense, appropriate-calorie foods will keep you satisfied at a much lower calorie count. Believe it or not, you’ll be able to feel satisfied on anywhere from 1000 to 2000 calories per day, as opposed to the usual 1600 to 3000.

What’s the trick?

Well, there’s no big mystery to the equation. You’ll be receiving many more nutrients for each calorie that you intake, so what you eat will actually count and fill you up. The Chinese population eats more calories than Americans do, but they’re actually 25% thinner. This is simply due to the fact that the average American diet is made up of at least 37% of calories that come from fat, as well as excess amounts of refined sugar and carbohydrates.

High fat and high sugar can totally destroy your metabolism, leading to long-term weight gain… no matter how many calories you’re eating. Yikes!

Or maybe you’re one of those people who has tried diet after diet, hoping to lose those last 20 pounds, without any visible results. All hope is not lost for you, my friend. You can tweak your taste buds with nutrient-rich healthy eating and learn how to be satisfied with fewer calories, on a permanent basis.

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health have set dietary guidelines for those hoping to reach their goal weight. These guidelines state that women should eat less than 1200 calories per day, and men should eat less than 1600.

After studying a number of top diets in-depth, it has been found that nutrient-rich healthy eating is the only way to meet these National Institutes of Health calorie requirements, while still getting the proper fiber and nutrients that you need each and every day. Even some of the sample menus published by the National Institutes of Health for 1200 and 1600 calorie plans don’t meet the recommended daily values set in place by the government.

Why is that? The sample diet plans simply aren’t nutrient-rich enough. Most of the food choices on the diet plans are surprisingly low in important nutrients, like vitamin K, chromium, folate, and magnesium, which can be found in a 90% plant-based diet.

But there’s no need to worry about your calorie count when you’re eating nutrient rich. Eating your way up to 90% or more plant-based nutrient-rich foods doesn’t mean that you’re on a diet. And, you don’t even have to become a vegan or vegetarian, since a vegetarian diet doesn’t necessarily guarantee good health.

People who don’t eat animal products, but continue to gorge on pasta, bread, bagels, and other refined carbohydrates may be eating low-fat, but they’re definitely not getting enough vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals to protect their health. Refined grains are dramatically low in fiber, so they also won’t help you to feel full after eating them. This again leads us back to the cycle of constant overeating due to a lack of nutrient-dense foods that are low in calories, causing your body to naturally feel full after a meal.

To spell it out for you, eating a strict vegan or vegetarian diet is not always the same as eating a 90% or more plant-based nutrient-rich diet. A vegetarian may eat a diet made up primarily of refined grains and processed health food products, yet they may still be missing out on valuable fruits, vegetables, and beans to balance their nutrition. But let’s not forget about the fact that vegetarians in the US have significantly lower cholesterol rates because they are not eating animal products. This reduces the risk of cancer, heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and obesity, causing them to live longer. So, whether or not you are a vegetarian, you can receive many of the same benefits by eating 90% or more plant-based nutrient-rich and cutting back dramatically on the animal products that you eat.

By the way, with all the talk on global warming – imagine losing weight the nutrient-rich way, and reducing the environmental impact of the foods you eat. According to http://www.farmusa.org/,

a diet full of animal products is not only responsible for disease, but it requires 10 to 20 times as much land as a plant-based diet. More than half of the soybeans and grains in the world are fed to animals, resulting in a serious food waste. To give you a better idea, if meat consumption in the US dropped by even 10%, it would free up enough food sources to feed millions of starving populations in the world.

Animal agriculture has also caused mass devastation by cutting down forests for cattle pastures. Animal feed crops have a constant need for irrigation, using up 80% of all water available for human consumption and causing serious water shortages all over the world.

Eat the nutrient-rich way – it is good for you and for the planet!

When I first launched Nutrient Rich.com in 2005, our motto was “eat better, not less”. The idea was simple, the better you eat, the less you need to eat.

That original tag line seemed simple; however, it also opened up many dynamics and raised many questions.

For instance, the biggest question was; can you eat unlimited amounts of plant based, whole, nutrient rich foods?

Well, the answer to that question is NO!

At first maybe, when you first begin your transition from nutrient poor eating to Nutrient Rich, healthy eating it may seem like you can and that you should. But then, something changes. The more you eat nutrient rich, the more your body becomes nutrient rich and then you simply don’t need as much food.

The law of quality selection kicks in.

Believe me, that was a difficult lesson for me to learn especially since I was used to eating so much food in my earlier days as a bodybuilder, in the off season that is

Over the years we continued to talk about eating better, not less, a play on “taste great, less filling”  slogan from the famed Miller Beer commercials but we have evolved in our thinking as we realized that it’s not as simple to just say “eat better, not less”. It’s probably one reason why we brand Nutrient Rich as the next level in healthy eating, because there are so many concepts to learn when it comes to Nutrient Rich versus the “better” but often still nutrient poor way of eating that most people do.

So in this post I’m going to share a few more thoughts on the subject.

Are you eating less of more, or more of less?

If you find yourself eating less of more, you are eating a Nutrient Rich diet. If you find yourself eating more of less, you are are eating a nutrient poor diet or a diet that is nutrient barren.You can learn more about The Food Class System here.

Eating “Less” is only possible when you are eating nutrient rich food.

Eating “More” is driven by taking in less nutrients, nutrient poor foods, and needing to eat more to get more nutrients; unless you are merely eating for stress or recreation which is a different subject.

conversely,

More nutrients equals nutrient rich foods, and less nutrient equals nutrient poor foods.

So you can see, depending on what “more or less” is attached to, it creates a converse dynamic.

The more nutrient rich foods you eat, the less you need to eat. You don’t have focus on eating less, it will happen naturally. This is not possible when you eat a nutrient poor diet, unless you require that chronic feeling of hunger that let’s people know they are dieting. Those people only feel like they are doing something when they feel hungry all the time.

When you are eating a nutrient rich diet you don’t have a chronic feeling of hunger – you just aren’t hungry in the same way. I found that I only experience true hunger, a term that Dr. Fuhrman sourced, after I haven’t eaten for a while, or after prolonged physical activity where my immediately accessible nutrient reserves are depleted.

The less I ate, “naturally”, not “proactively”, the more I could experience true hunger.

The more I ate of less, (nutrient poor) or for the wrong reasons, the less I could experience true hunger.

Here are two reasons:

1. Nutrient poor foods bring with them a withdrawal factor, headaches etc. that are often confused as “true hunger”. This is because nutrient poor foods are not just nutrient poor from what they don’t contain. They are nutrient poor because of what they do contain that the body does not need.
2. Living in a chronically anabolic state (meaning you are always eating and keeping the bodies energy in a position where it can rarely focus on digestion, assimilation and utilization) is not a good thing.It’s also probably the biggest detractor from slower aging and longevity. Just ask the Calorie Restriction advocates.
   • Note: as you may have noticed, I’m not a fan of calorie restriction.  I believe that proactive restriction of calories leads to the wrong mindset and I have seen many a CR (calorie restriction) advocates take it way to far. This is one case where more can be less in the wrong kind of way.

You can over eat with more of less and when you eat more of more nutrient rich foods for the wrong reasons and over “nutrify” the body that only ends up leading to excess FAT!

It’s very important for you to understand true hunger. Once you do, you will start making the right decisions that are best for your PerformanceLifestyle.

I told you this post might be a mind twister.

Happy new year, especially, to those who want to finally start eating healthy and steer clear from The Diet Traps.

First, I must acknowledge up front that I know of no one, including myself (John Allen Mollenhauer, founder of NutrientRich.com) who eats perfectly all the time. Nor do I think that eating perfectly should be a goal. When we strive for perfection, we are bound to fail. This is all too common in today’s all-or-nothing society. However, that does not mean that we should not strive to succeed to eat the healthiest that we CAN!!

It’s a given that our stress levels are higher today than at any other time in history. Dare I say, we are even more stressed than our ancestors who lived during the age of the dinosaurs. Indeed, it would be very stressful to be chased by a dinosaur at risk of being eaten, as well as to live in a cave, but my assumption is that our ancestors weren’t being chased 24 /7 by the stress of always having a million things to do. YOU are, however, so cut yourself some slack! What you will learn eating a Nutrient Rich diet as part of a PerformanceLifestyle will enable you to deal with that.

It’s also a given today that we are faced with more food choices and influences (conscious or not) than at any other time in history. There is a myriad of reasons why someone might eat a nutrient poor food from time to time. So again, cut yourself some slack. Start developing a healthy psychology around food, starting NOW. No more excuses! Establish philosophies that support you in today’s day and age, without settling for life threatening consequences. Throw away your weight loss magazine articles, because here’s how to keep a diet resolution that you will love!

The 7 Essentials Ways To Keep a Diet Resolution That You Will Love:

1) You resolve to eat a Nutrient Rich diet. Any other type of diet resolution that you follow, will fail you.  What do I mean by “Nutrient Rich”? I mean foods that have all the nutrients your body needs to run as efficiently as possible so that you may succeed in other aspects of your lifestyle. Nutrient Rich foods do not contain any “anti nutrients” (Ref: Dina Kimmel, RD) that your body does not need or that may be actually harmful to your body (e.g., dietary cholesterol and saturated fat, significant amounts of animal protein). Anti nutrients lead to failure. They will have a negative influence on your health and your weight no doubt, but the bottom line is, if it’s a nutrient poor diet, you will not be able to sustain it. Period. Either you will eventually go nuts to get your needs met, or your health will suffer as your body gives out like a broken down car. Neither works.

There are hundreds of Nutrient Rich diets (as many as there are nutrient poor diets) which will help you eat for optimal health. The key to remember is that in order for a diet to lead you to succeed, it must be Nutrient Rich. Here at NutrientRich.com, we will not only teach how to eat Nutrient Rich and how to avoid nutrient poor food disguised as Nutrient Rich food (or the wolf in sheep’s clothing), but we will also teach you that there is not just one way to eat Nutrient Rich. Then again, we are more than happy to share with you what we consider to be the “gold standard” Nutrient Rich diet program.

2) You must remember that Nutrition is only one aspect of a successful lifestyle. If you are are having difficulty with what you are eating, or how much you are eating, or if you want to learn how to to disease proof your body, minimize nutritional stress – the kind of stress you get when your body is trying to deal with disease promoting foods, like refined salt, refined sugar, significant amounts of free oils and animal protein etc) - and achieve your goals more effectively, then learning Nutrient Rich nutrition is the key.

But learning Nutrient Rich nutrition by itself, albeit an essential aspect of your lifestyle, is still only one aspect. How you manage your energy, and activity levels are also essential to your success. There are 12 fundamental lifestyle skills you need to know if you are going to live in balance, with vibrant health and peace of mind, at or near your natural weight  all year round, and they go way beyond the study of nutrition alone. Learn them and you’ll eat better than ever before with us cutting through all the confusion for you!

3) You must understand that “eating better” is not a goal. Yes, I said it, eating better is not a goal. Heresy! If eating better is your goal, then will you will stop eating better once you lose weight? Most do. It also means you are not eating healthy right now, which will ultimately lead you to repeat your 2011 New Year’s resolution of “lose weight/eat healthy” for 2012. You’ve got to start eating healthy right now, and then continue eating healthy; it’s not a goal, it’s a given. Your goals are what you achieve as a result of your health and the ability to perform well. So take your lifestyle to the next level by learning how to eat Nutrient Rich first.

Once you are eating better, you will start to think better and then live better so you can live or or near your natural weight all year round.

Here at NutrientRich.com we are teaching you the next level of healthy eating. We will help you earn your “black belt” in nutrition! If you were going to learn martial arts, would you want to learn from a green belt? NO! So start learning how to truly eat healthy and start developing the lifestyle mindset for why you eat Nutrient Rich, and you will be more successful in life.

Any master of martial arts will tell you this: you are actually still a beginner when you get your black belt; you are an expert, but just an expert in the basic skills of the art. That’s when you start the process of mastering the art, by reaching higher levels of expertise, in degrees. We will teach you how to progress to mastery as well.

4) You must get in touch with true hunger (Ref: Dr Fuhrman). True hunger is the only real gauge for how much you need to eat. If you are hell bent on driving yourself crazy with overly structured meal plans that say you have to eat 5-6 times a day, or those that make you tied down measuring every single portion, then you are going to have difficulty with this one. Matter of fact, if you eat Nutrient Rich meals, 5-6 times a day, chances are good you will actually become overweight! I’m sure either this has happened to you, or you know people this has happened to. That method of eating only works for nutrient poor diets where you are barely getting your nutrient needs met. This subject is a scientifically complex subject, but you will see how simple it is, once we help you get it!

5) You must have a good reason to eat healthy. If you don’t, it will just be easier to mindlessly eat whatever and get caught up in addictive habits. Don’t think of food as an addiction? Think again! The world is full of nutrient poor addictive foods that will keep you in failure mode and stuck in diet trap after diet trap in search of the answer to healthy eating. When the reality is, the answer has been there all along. More than just eating healthy, you want to be eating Nutrient Rich foods so that your body can function and perform well. This will inevitably result in living at or near your natural weight all year round, as well as disease proofing your body. But to get free of the diet traps, you need to have a greater reason than simply “eating healthy”. You need a reason that makes eating healthy, a no-brainer, and just the way you eat.

A good reason is one that inspires you to want to learn how to eat healthy by eating nutrient rich foods, and how to steer clear of diet traps. Eating healthy needs to be something you become passionate about for a bigger reason. Keep in mind, too, that the best New Year’s Resolutions are specific. “Lose weight” will lead to failure; “Learn how to eat healthy in order to have a successful lifestyle to achieve some bigger goal” will help lead to success in not just the nutrition component of your lifestyle, but in ALL components of your lifestyle!

6) You must realize that there is no such thing as “falling off the wagon”, unless you truly fall off of a wagon because weren’t wearing a seat belt. This metaphor is so destructive, you can’t imagine. It seems innocuous, but it’s not. It’s “diet speak” for a level of perfectionism that will ensure you don’t stick to anything in your life and it gives rise to a very unhealthy, unsupportive psychology. Remember what I said earlier: society tends to be all or nothing. Don’t be part of that thinking, because you will fail. The entire diet industry is built on it. We want you to succeed.

You’ve got to start developing some higher concepts when it comes to your plans not playing out exactly the way you want them too. For example: If you eat a Kit Kat, then get experienced in resolving to say, that “I ate a Kit Kat” and be done with it. We’ll discuss this more within your NutrientRich.com membership.

7) You must “get” that a true resolution is one that “resolves” a problem. To resolve a problem, you must raise your standards, and make sure that the resolution actually solves the problem. Do you want good health, a disease free life, longevity, sustainability and performance, and to lose weight and live at or near a healthy and natural weight? Well, that’s not going to happen with a high protein, low carb diet, or a diet based on grains, or foods so concentrated in carbohydrate that you are consuming more than your body needs; let alone a diet based not even on food but instead on pills, powders, or potions… It’s only when you eat a Nutrient Rich diet successfully for health, performance and natural weight loss that you will get those results.

Bonus:

8 )To lose weight the Nutrient Rich Way: Eat Better, Not Less!  Learn how to make every calorie count, instead of just counting calories.
I did my best to come up with The 7 Essentials Ways To Keep a Diet Resolution That You Will Love including addressing the etymology of a resolution itself and a bonus!

Have fun with these! All of us here at NutrientRich.com, and The Lifestyle Coaching Center, look forward to helping you eat a Nutrient Rich diet as part of a successful lifestyle.

Full and Fulfilled!

Reprinted with Permission:

The Pleasure Trap. Dr’s Alan Goldhamer DC, and Doug Lisle PhD.

Making Every Calorie Count is the key to the Nutrient Rich Way of Eating. The only way you can get satiated with few calories is to eat nutrient dense foods!

Just look at at this graphic above…

See what happens when you eat oil? Lots of calories, pure fat and no food in your stomach.

Now see what you get when you are eating Fruits and vegetables. Lots of food and still the same calories!

What’s the point of fighting to eat foods that are going to make you fat and sick, and not even satisfy your desires to eat?

The key is learning how to eat the nutrient rich way, great tasting foods that will satisfy you with fewer calories; which by the way, also just so happens to be the ultimate food formula for longevity.

The sample equations are talking about just eating natural foods, now factor in eating Nutrient Rich Recipes and oh my god you are in for one amazing satiating treat.

The Next level in Healthy Eating, is to move beyond nutrient poor foods (only in small quantities if you eat them) and start eating 80-90% or more nutrient rich foods.

This is now you lose weight naturally.

I then shared the turning point for Rosie which led to making the deeper changes in her life, and her lifestyle so that she could lose weight naturally and do it successfully. The Turning Point – Setting an Ambitious Life Goal

A big motivation for losing weight was waking up every morning with the pain of a closet filled with beautiful clothes that didn’t fit. Wearing the same outfit for over two years because nothing else fit did not bode well for this “wanna-be fashion designer/model”. Simply stated, I love clothes. But more than the clothes, my self esteem and confidence suffered. Non-existent may be the better term. Not feeling comfortable in your body does uncomfortable things to your head. Add to that the fact that I teach fitness and weight loss for a living and you’ve got the perfect storm for feeling like crap.

I came home that night and told my kids about what I wanted to do. Their response… “Mom, you’re always talking about how you want (ed) to do this… so MOM, if you want to do it, stop talking about it and just do it”. A simple, easy attitude adjustment reminder from the kids. “JUST DO IT ALREADY.” It seems like everyone was ready for me to do it, the question was…Was I ready. With a little nudge from my co-worker and kids, I finally was! (Let me interject a moment of gratitude as I appreciate that my kids did listen to me!)

Now, here is the full story of Strength Beyond Muscles – The Natural Weight Loss Transformation Story by Rosie Battista.