Nutrition Fundamentals

Many clients ask us how they can maximise the benefits of their adjustments and reduce stress in their system.

Working on your nutrition is an area that will have a huge impact on your vitality, providing valuable nutrients for healing and recovery; while reducing stress in your system that holds you back.

Each individual has unique specific nutritional needs, however in our many years in practice we’ve found that the application of the following fundamentals will create a profound benefit. The key areas include meal timing and composition, mindful eating habits, your cooking methods and some additional hot tips for success. These are covered in depth below:

Meal Timing

• If eating breakfast, eat within 1 hour of rising to minimise cortisol imbalance
• Avoid snacking completely and aim to have two or three good meals at meal times 5-6 hours apart. Our body takes 3-4 hours to move out of the fed state (onboarding mode) back into the repair state (body maintenance, detox and fat burning) after eating. An early dinner will allow us the most amount of time spent overnight in the repair state.
• If choosing to eat two meals only, it’s best to have these at breakfast and lunch or lunch and dinner rather than breakfast and dinner. This way we get the maximum period of time in the repair state between meals and don’t risk blood sugar fluctuations and cortisol imbalance from eating two meals ten hours apart.
• Many get great benefit from an 18:6 eating plan – being 18 hours of fasting with 2 meals eaten over a 6 hour window of time.
• If wishing to eat One meal a day then discuss this with your practitioner on how to do this effectively and safely.
• If choosing to eat dessert, it is best to have it very soon after eating the main meal to not encroach on your overnight fasting period more than necessary.
• Snacking – We often experience cravings and assume this means we are hungry. In fact these cravings are often a sign that we’re feeling stressed and are wanting a dopamine or serotonin hit to feel better in your nervous system. Food can provide this temporarily but it can also imbalance your blood sugars and energy if we’re snacking. Snacking will also put us back into the fed state, thus reducing the amount of time we spend in the repair state healing and balancing your system.
• Getting sufficient sleep is crucial to minimise cravings. Unless you’re feeling weak or unable to think or function then instead of snacking, try some breathing, movement or social interaction as a pattern interrupt when cravings come on.
• Feeling the need to snack can also mean your meal composition was imbalanced and that the fuel was burned through quickly. Try adding more protein, fat and veges fibre to your main meal and avoid processed carbohydrates.

Meal Composition

Each meal should consist of

• Protein (2 flat palm-size servings)
  • Animal protein – eggs, meat, fish, poultry, cheese, high protein yoghurt.
  • Plant proteins – lentils, beans, quinoa, buckwheat, nuts, seeds, fermented soy in small amounts unless post menopausal
• Healthy fat
  • Butter or ghee, Animal fat – chicken skin, beef, pork or lamb fat, egg yolks. Fish, omega 3s and 6s from avocados, seeds and fresh nuts, olives.
• Vegetables (ideally 3-4 handfuls) or fruit (max 1-2 handfuls/serves at one time to minimise fruit sugar load)
  • A good mix of raw and cooked veges throughout a week is recommended
  • Minimise sweet fruits if wanting to maintain insulin levels well and burn fat effectively
• Whole forms of carbohydrates (1 handful will suffice unless doing endurance training or high output workouts) if not eating according to a ketogenic or low carb plan.
  • Quinoa, buckwheat, lentils, beans, chickpea, kumara, pumpkin, brown rice, potato (red skin potato or low carb potatoes contain less starch), taro, amaranth, whole corn, barley oats, cous cous, bulgar wheat, whole wheat.
• Avoid processed sugar and high fructose foods such as honey, coconut sugar, maple syrup and any other forms of syrup. These will spike insulin and cause imbalances in sugar, thus driving cortisol and energy imbalances. These foods will make fat loss less effective.
• Avoid processed foods. This includes flours and some people will even need to avoid protein powder due to its insulin spiking impact. If you must use some form of flour Buckwheat flour is a good choice of flour for a low insulin impact.

Mindful Eating

• Prior to eating take a moment to breathe and relax your state. This helps switch your mind and body out of fight or flight and into a settled rest and digest state of function.
• Avoid working and eating, reading while eating or discussing stressful topics during your meal. Social connection is excellent for supporting good digestion due to its impact on our nervous system.
• Take time to chew thoroughly (preferably 15-20 chews each bite) to break down the food well prior to it reaching the digestive system. This also enables more enzyme production both through saliva and the chewing feedback sent to the brain, which in turn stimulates the digestive system to get ready for the food that’s on its way.
• At the completion of your meal, take a moment to notice how you feel in yourself, particularly in your abdomen. The aim is for you to feel light and energised vs heavy, bloated and/or tired. If you feel bloated, heavy or tired it indicates you’ve eaten too quickly, too much at once or that you need to eat more mindfully.

Cooking Tips

• Avoid the use of vegetable oil, canola oil, rice bran oil, rapeseed oil, grapeseed oil and sunflower oil. Instead cook with beef dripping/tallow, pork fat, duck fat if cooking at higher temperatures. If cooking at lower temperatures use butter or ghee, coconut oil, avocado oil or olive oil.
• Avoid char grilling or burning food, as well as making it particularly crispy. These changes to food will make them inflammatory in your body.
• Avoid smoking your oils as this makes them rancid and inflammatory
• See our nutrition guides for ideas on gluten and dairy free alternatives

Nutrition Fundamentals | 07 533 3811