Denial
Most of us hate to be told what is good for us. So at this stage, I would like to reframe nutritional advice. Finding the nutrition that makes you feel and act your best is a unique and personal journey. Depending on your own bent, see this journey as a science experiment, an ancestry study, a spiritual quest or a practical personal care experience.
Overwhelm
When people start changing the SAD (standard American diet), they are often overwhelmed with what, when, how and why to change the daily diet. Too much change and too many new rules for eating can cause overwhelm and discouragement. It is really best at first to go with just one main principle, realizing that you will not always be able to follow it, but you will feel better if you do. One such principle is: Always choose the less processed of what is offered: Fruit salad, diet bar, candy. The choice is simple; the less processed is the fruit salad. If the principle is "no wheat" and you are offered either an oatmeal cookie, chocolate chip cookie, cake, pick the oatmeal cookie because there is less wheat.
Anger
Everyone, from time to time, after starting to shift the diet has an angry moment: Why can’t I eat like everyone else? Well, the secret is that “everybody else” can’t eat that way either. Their age, genes or systems may be able to hold off the devastation of an unbalanced diet but how would they feel with a more balanced diet? So ditch the anger and get on to….
Acceptance
So you accept that step by step you have changed small and large parts of the diet using principles that make the decisions easier and are finding joy in the simplicity of you and your family’s diet. It isn’t perfect but most of the time you follow the 3 to 4 principles that you have established. Great, but don’t get cocky, kid.
Proselytizing
Once you have established a clear diet path and are feeling the great results, it is very hard to resist becoming a evangelical nutritionist. This impulse can go from “friendly” unasked for advice at work to a full out nutrition nazi. This is a natural impulse that should be guarded against. Just remember that others will respond to even asked for advice with denial, so be joyful in your own self discovery.
Bon Appetit!
