There is eating, and there is fueling your body.

They are related, but they are not the same.

In this post, you are about to discover the most important development in nutrition that there has ever been--and maybe ever will be, and the implications that you are either about to just discover or get clearer on will have a credible influence on how you eat, why you eat, and when you eat, for here on out.

Sticking to a diet program is not what is important, rather, it's the knowledge and understanding you apply to your eating style that will enable you to not only eat better, naturally, but to ultimately, optimize the way you eat for weight, energy, health and quality of life results, far beyond what most people can even imagine right now.

To begin understanding it, you've got to discern the difference between eating and fueling your body:

1. Eating is the act of consuming food, and it is tied to all kinds of things from nourishment, to enjoyment, to social activity and more.
2. Fueling your body requires that you eat, but it's based on giving your body what it needs to function and perform well. When you fuel your body right, not only will you function and perform well, you will also look and feel the way you want to as well. This is what is meant to be the basic premise of eating.

Unfortunately, today, "eating" has gotten so far away from the basic premise of why we eat food that it takes a real wake-up call to realize that we are addicted to eating poorly and for the wrong reasons! And, trying to make up for all of that with simple-minded, single-variable diets that that don't solve the real problems, are all a colossal waste of time, even if you do "lose some weight," in the short term.

At the end of the day, it all comes down to learning how to fuel your body right, properly and effectively, and in a way that you enjoy; that works for you. You should not do so in a way that prevents you from experiencing uncomfortable body processes, but legitimately works "for" you and solves the problem that drives most people to eat in ways that work against them.

What's the problem?

In the context of fueling your body, we have been sold on the idea that we need the macronutrients-- carbohydrates, protein and fat, in our diets, and usually in some specific ratio, or to the inclusion or exclusion of one or the other, more or less of one or another, or this type or that, etc. This is at least some truth in all of these points, but what we have overlooked is that these "calorie-" containing nutrients are not the basis of a healthy way of eating.

It's the micronutrients-- the vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, phytochemicals (phytonutrients), and fiber that matter more than calories. Micronutrients have no calories, but they do determine how many calories you will end up eating and for what reasons.

For the purpose of this post, which is focused on fueling your body, I'll refer to these micronutrients, as "nutrients" and macronutrients as "calories," which is a distinction I learned from my mentor Joel Fuhrman. M.D.

What's never been quite clear for most people is that fueling your body, the most basic premise of eating, is about giving your body what it needs to function and perform well, first and foremost, and that is not simply the intake of carbohydrate and calories. This is the role that micronutrients play in conjunction with the appropriate amount and kind of calories (real food carbohydrate, health-promoting protein and essential fat) that you need.

That switch in emphasis from calories to nutrients, is what makes the difference in the results you experience--the Switch to micronutrient rich eating that is calorie appropriate, not calorie-rich and poor in nutrients.

I think this is why Eat to Live has been such a big success. It's author, my teacher, gave rise to this distinction and it is a big one; it is THE one in my opinion that matters most in nutrition. It's given rise to the work that I do here--helping people to eat healthy as part of a performance lifestyle, which focuses you on your real goals in life, unleashed from the hidden lifestyle challenges that hold you back--eating micronutrient poor is one of the hidden challenges that holds you back from living well.

Weight loss is not a natural goal, and is based on eating in an unhealthy manner, and then manipulating the amount of macronutrient "calorie" content to eat less.This is a vicious cycle that I hope you will not engage in, during 2013. For the same matter, thinking that the gluten content or the glycemic index, or whether or not you eat a small amount of animal products or not, are in some ways, whole answers on their own, will also keep you stuck. Each is important, but is not the whole answer to healthy eating.

Even focusing on fueling your body with nutrients first, and calories second, is not the whole answer, but it is the cornerstone or foundation of a healthy eating style. When you get this right, you will get everything else right, too.

So, to begin fueling your body right in 2013, focus on eating micronutrient-rich foods first, which are naturally lower in calories, and contain normal and natural amounts of calories that you can increase or decrease based on your activity levels. Increase your activity levels and you will naturally eat more. Do this, and watch what happens to your weight and health. When you make this "Switch" everything changes.

Up next, I'll be talking about the two most successful ways to eat. Learn them and you'll develop a nutrient-rich healthy eating style of your own.

It's the power of low-calorie, micronutrient-rich superfood drinks and a nutrient-rich healthy eating plan, working hand in hand for you, in your life. .

The post Fuel Your Body Right--Nutrients First, Calories Second appeared first on Nutrient Rich.

Right now, we say 80% of our population is overweight.  I say 90% sometimes because if I exclude people who smoke cigarettes which is about 10% and people who acquire diseases keeping them thin which is about 3% or 4%, then we’re close to like, I don’t know, more than 90% of the population has to be considered overweight.  So that immediately wipes them out of the potential for living a long life where they reach their elder years and maintain an excellent health.

So one thing we have to do, we certainly have to control overeating.  We have to control hunger as a means of living a long time because long-lived people do not overeat and don’t stuff themselves.  They’re not addicted to the food.  They don’t really have any strong addictions in like they don’t have a lot of alcohol consumption but a little of alcohol consumption is possible.  They can’t eat a load of junk food but a little as possible to still survive.  In other words, they’re not really addicted to any strong food to be relatively thin. In the Eat to Live book and my writings on the website, we talk about controlling hunger.  The 3-dimensional model takes into account calories of food, the volume of the food which includes fiber volume and, of course, the nutrient density of the food.  Any diet style or nutritional advice that doesn’t take into account those 3 dimensions of hunger isn’t quite giving you the optimal ability, opportunity to control your hunger and to maintain an optimal weight.

In other words, we have to consider all those variables.  Most diets just control calories.  They just try to count portion sizes, reduce calories and don't control for volume and nutrient intake, which leaves you craving and feeling ill all the time if you don’t constantly eat food. 

But there are some diets out there which just try to teach you to eat volume but they don’t control the nutrients.  They didn’t understand that the body needs sufficient amounts of nutrients, especially antioxidants, biochemicals that fuel the detoxification mechanism of the body.  And without a sufficient volume of those nutrients, our body maintains a high level of toxic waste products that then lead to withdrawal-like symptoms or so-called hypoglycemic sensations when you’re not eating food because your body is always borderline malnourished.

So one thing that the nutrient rich diet style and this lifestyle I recommend teaches is that nutrient density, nutrient per calorie density is critically important.  That’s one thing that makes it stand out from other nutritional advices - that it recognizes that the nutrient per calorie density of food is something we have to consider when looking to design a diet for optimal health.  Because as we get a diet that’s higher in nutrients, we need more foods that have a high nutrient per calorie density that supplies us with a large amount of volume and a large amount of nutrients which make us demand accordingly less calories and prevents overeating. 

At the same time that high nutrient density diet which prevents us from overeating, at the same time supplies us with a high level of phytochemicals and antioxidants that are necessary to survive a long time in our toxic world.  We don’t live in the same world that was around here 2000 or 5000 years ago.  We live in a more toxic world today and we particularly need a diet rich in foods that maximally fuel the body’s detoxification and self-reparative mechanisms.  And that diet of course has to be high in those phytonutrients, which are in natural food, especially green vegetables, various fruits, beans, seeds and other high nutrient foods that scientists have discovered are rich in those phytonutrients and antioxidants.

> Part 3 Avoiding Toxicity and Deficiencies

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Dr. Fuhrman is a New York Times best-selling author, nutritional researcher and board certified family physician specializing in nutritional medicine.  Learn more by visiting his informative website at DrFuhrman.com.

John Allen Mollenhauer is the founder of nutrientrich.com a Nutritional Education Trainer, and leading authority on Performance Lifestyle, which teaches people how to live a healthy lifestyle successfully and develop Your Lifestyle to better achieve your goals.

The post Dr. Fuhrman on Why Nutrient Rich Eating is Unique and Essential to Your Success – Part 2 - Controlling Overeating appeared first on Nutrient Rich.

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.

The post The 7 Essentials Ways To Keep a Diet Resolution That You Will Love - Warning, This Works. appeared first on Nutrient Rich.