The current health trends in this country call for an urgent paradigm shift. I encourage people to become active and engaged in the process of choosing food for themselves and their families in a way that does not rely on information disseminated by the food industry. My mission at Mind Body Nutrition is to be a paradigm shifter– to catalyze change in the individual and in our culture.

The first step in meaningful, permanent lifestyle change is having reliable, objective information about what is actually in our food and how it acts on our bodies. Putting our food habits into historical, international and even political context becomes important for understanding larger forces that drive our preferences (beyond our taste buds.)

The second step is then understanding how food works on your unique constitution. No one diet works for everyone. This premise– Bioindividuality– means that each individual must discover the foods and proportions that lead their body to a state of balance– and to respect that even their close relatives and children might have a different profile. The discovery of your constitution (to be differentiated from your symptoms of imbalance) is process that can reveal what foods and habits can bring you into balance, heal you and eventually allow you to live with much higher quality of life for decades.

Every body has different needs. Some thrive on dairy products, some really just don’t. Some bodies get great benefit from lots of glutinous whole grains while other bodies are damaged by their presence. Any dietary theory that purports to be THE perfect eating system for the human body is flawed because it is bound to be inappropriate for some people. Some people thrive on a diet of all raw food, and some people need cooked meat in the winter to keep warm. The trick is to figure our what YOUR body needs and learn to listen when it’s complaining.

The third step, then, is to explore the emotional and lifestyle issues that obstruct a person from stepping into the habits and preferences that support them. This is the nitty gritty of how to take baby steps towards drinking enough water, eating a good breakfast, finding recipes for deep leafy greens that you love, shopping and meal-planning tricks so you don’t find yourself hungry and near a drive-through.

Then there are the other aspects of self-nourishment– how you are “fed” by your life. Have you ever met someone who seems to be able to eat absolutely every kind of food– healthy or not– and remains healthy and positive? Or have you met a person who is very precise about every thing they put into or onto their bodies, yet they still don’t seem “well?”

It may come down to factors that Joshua Rosenthal calls “Primary Food.” These four aspects of your life are;

* rich and intimate relationships
* enthusiasm for your career
* a sense of a larger meaning to your life, and
* a program of physical exercise

If those four elements of your life are going well, then your health is likely to have a solid foundation. But of course our lives are always shifting and changing and our bodies are always talking to us about the changes. Illness and pain can be messages your body is sending you about how to redress imbalances. We’re never perfectly, permanently in balance but we can develop our listening skills so that we get less out of balance. Extreme emotions, extreme foods and extreme habits tend to send our pendulum swinging wildly. That gives illness an opportunity to take hold. (If only our body would send us an email instead!)

Eating well for your unique constitution helps to calm the swinging pendulum. It introduces more equilibrium into your life so that you can keep your balance more easily in all situations.

By and large, most Americans could do with eating less meat, dairy, sugar and processed foods– or as Michael Pollan sums it up, “more leaves and less seeds.” But when focusing on your diet, we don’t create a “DON’T EAT” list. Rather, we explore ways to add new and interesting foods to your diet in a way that might help you to feel new equilibrium in your body. Feeling good is compelling. Willpower is not, as it turns out, the key to long-term lifestyle change.

We look at the interactions in your life between “primary” food and “secondary” (actual) food and try to work with the whole picture. A person can’t achieve their personal full potential without eating well. Eating well is only a means to an end, but it is crucial foundation to living your best possible life.

Your Food Becomes Your Life!