When it comes to nutrition, world agencies like W.H.O have their manifestos, governments give us food pyramids, different doctors have their own approaches and there are thousands of nutrition researchers. This often creates a lot of arguments and debates as there is so much information and opinion to fall back upon. This is further powered by the difference between an individual personal experience vs general advice. Any nutrition course I have been on has a fair few people who resolved their own health issues through changing their food. This is what happened to me when I got rid of my asthma after 20 years through eating higher protein while removing wheat and dairy.
One early pioneer into nutrition research was Weston A Price, who went around the world charting what foods and nutrients were consumed by different indigenous groups. He found that despite a very varied intake (high protein in the Artic to vegan elsewhere) they all obtained the same needed vitamins and minerals. Other researchers, such as Roger Williams outlined that nutrient needs varied greatly between people and an inadequate intake would cause health issues. His work went on to form Metabolic Typing and individualised nutrition which I used to coach people with for many years.
This group vs individual issue will always be present it seems within nutrition which makes the optimal diet answer harder to get to, but here is my best attempt. Just like with the optimal exercise plan last week the goal is to be thriving at 100 years old. The optimal diet will cover the following.
-Eat As Many calories As Possible Without Gaining Weight – Your overall energy balance will determine your weight / body fat which is linked to longevity and health. However, your aim should not be to just eat less food, but rather to develop a thriving and powerful metabolic rate. This is done by eating as much food as possible without gaining weight which should raise your metabolic rate over time. Other factors will also affect improving your metabolism.
If you are not at your goal weight then you will need to plan in periods of losing fat or gaining fat depending which direction takes you into the normal range. A not so discussed issue which I face personally is how to eat a completely ‘healthy diet’ without losing weight. Most healthy approaches are low in calories and often cause fat loss if you are active. While this is not a problem for most people it is an issue if you do not want to lose anymore body fat.
-Cut out Irritating foods – Nothing can undermine your results, health and agitate your body than regularly consuming foods that can irritate your system. I use the word irritate over allergy as there are various mechanisms by which foods can annoy the system, some of which directly involve the immune system (allergy) while others do not. The optimal food plan would see you avoiding all foods that affect the body negatively.
The main issue with this is knowing which foods these are, it is very much specific to your body and can be any food out there, including really ‘healthy’ and common foods, e.g. fruit, vegetables, tomatoes, milk, bread etc. Through removing the foods from your day to day intake your body will feel much better. Most people find that the foods that annoy the body change over time, both developing and disappearing. The best way to stay on top of this is to use a food rotation system where you eliminate every type of food at some point during a year to see how the body reacts.
-Ensure You Use The Right Macro’s To Feel Good – The optimal plan will ensure the ratio and amount of Protein/Carbs and Fat matches what your body wants. There is no right answer for what you need but once again it must be discovered. It varies between people and is affected by your movements levels, hormone cycles and much more. Almost everyone will want to have all three macros consumed with very few doing good on eliminating one totally. You can consume too much or too little of any of the macro groups. Your body will guide you on this, e.g. too little protein and you may find yourself hungry every few hours, no carbs and you may suffer massive sugar cravings. One problem with macro calculations is people have forgotten what food density is and thus what they think they eat vs what the body digests often does not match up.
-Whole foods For The Win – It is fairly clear that the less chemicals in a food the better, the less added salt, sugar the happier your body will be. Bacon has 7-10 ingredients while a pork joint before cooking has just one. This food processing has been shown to make you eat more and affect your gut biome. In general, the more natural the food the greater the nutrient bio-availability (how well you can digest or get the nutrients into your body). The optimal food plan would be mostly all natural whole foods.
-Use Nutrient Dense Foods To Cover Your Vit & Min RDA needs – The more nutrient dense and varied the foods you consume the more likely you are to hit your daily vitamin and minerals needs. As discussed a few weeks ago with example meals plans to achieve this, it often does not involve just heaping some green salad on the plate, which has very low nutrient density. While some arguments may be made that you need more of certain micronutrients than others most people would agree covering your basic needs is the first step to take to which you can supplement additional needs.
What Does This Mean For You
On the optimal nutrition plan you would eat as much food as possible without gaining weight while not eating any foods that annoy your body. These would be eaten using an ideal daily macro ratio for your body. All of the foods would come from whole, natural and nutrient dense foods so that you hit your daily vitamin and mineral needs.
I feel this is a difficult topic because what you eat is so ingrained into your mood, habits and social structure that changing what you eat is not a simple one step move like adjusting your exercise plan. Asking what to eat without knowing anything about you is like asking me to set a running plan with prescribed speeds yet I do not know if you are a novice or an elite athlete. It would be a pointless plan if you were not going to adapt it to you.
For the average person, they would do well by reducing dairy and gluten content of their foods, getting protein intake to the 20-25% mark and having no macro group below 20%. However, you need to tailor this to the feedback that comes from the actual body.
Photo – The optimal nutrition plan as judged by dogs, Christmas dinner vs chips vs some cooked chicken back in the day for my big beast’s birthday.
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