It’s hard to find a perfectly healthy human being these days. Many people, especially those of us who travel a lot or live in places far from where we have our roots, have some sort of frustrating and nagging health issue that we can’t seem to resolve.
In the past few months my shoulder has frozen. Yes, it’s a thing and it’s pretty common too, especially amongst women who are going through hormonal changes. It’s driving me a bit insane, not in the least because I am in the business of being healthy and because it is a very painful reminder that sometimes, despite our best effort, stuff happens and that being healthy is an an-going process of course-correction.
Whether it is a frozen shoulder, low energy levels, lower back pain, acid reflux, an increasing waistline, skin rashes or poor workout recovery, the question that most often pops up when we deal with these kinds of concerns is this:
“Is it my diet?”
Everyone knows that nutrition plays a powerful role in our ability to feel our best and so it isn’t strange that our diet is the first thing we turn to in order to try and resolve and manage our health issues.
And that’s when Pandora’s box is opened… Google takes you on a deep dive into the confusion and often-conflicting world of nutrition. Well meaning friends and family members give you different tips and advice. You decide to stop drinking alcohol, or you remove gluten from your diet, eliminate sweets or you start taking coconut oil for breakfast or that new super food that promises health nirvana.
If you’re lucky, you have found your magic bullet but usually (I’d say 90% of the time) you just feel more confused about what’s working and what’s not.
From my own experience, and that of helping many clients resolve their frustrating health issues, there is a simple and systematic way to make your diet work for you and it is based on the understanding that you are unique.
Rather than to replicate what your best friend is doing or blindly follow a trendy detox diet you want to recognize that you need to discover your own unique non-negotiables: the things you need to have in place in terms of diet and lifestyle habits to feel your best. Your unique and current circumstances, metabolic type, background, genes, health issues, age, fitness level, etc. are what determine these non-negotiables.
What is important to note here is that your non-negotiables can change along with your circumstances. This is relevant to everyone but especially expats and frequent travelers who regularly find themselves in entirely new surroundings, which can trigger health issues and may require course correction.
The best way to figure out your non-negotiables is a 2-step process:
- Clean the slate – a short period of doing everything right, eliminating all potential dietary culprits, of allowing your system to reboot. The way I approach this with my clients in the area of nutrition is to first do a detailed health assessment during which we look at health history, lab tests and symptoms in order to identify underlying imbalances. This in turns gives us information about which foods or diet habits are potentially contributing. We then eliminate those culprits, just long enough to start feeling significantly better, which usually happens pretty quickly.
- Tune in – a short period of re introducing foods and carefully tracking to identify what works for you and what doesn’t. Your body is sending you signals all the time, you may not be able to hear them properly right now. Once you have stopped the chatter you’ll be better able to tune in, listen and respond.
Sounds pretty simple, right? But if you approach this process in a systematic manner, you stand a good chance of figuring out what works for you so that you feel energized, alert, positive and on top of your health.
Need help figuring this out? Sign up for a free Nutrition Breakthrough Session here so we can discuss if and how I can help you.
Be Well.
