Check Whether Your Hunger Is Physical or Emotional
After years of research and my own experience, I have reached one conclusion: there is no single correct diet for everyone. Depending on physical conditions, everyone is different and has very different needs.
Above all, there is the JERF (Just Eat Real Food) principle: eat only natural, real food. Avoid anything your grandmother wouldn't have recognized as food in her youth. That means any product that is highly processed and made up of an excessive number of ingredients. Look at how much you eat, how many canned/packaged products you buy, and how you can cut back on them. The more you cook for yourself at home from basic ingredients (potatoes, meat, vegetables, olive oil...), the better you will feel.
WHAT OVERCONSUMED FOODS DO
Overconsumed foods cause an imbalance in the gut flora, leading to blood sugar fluctuations and insulin resistance, or they simply weigh down the stomach because you cannot digest them. When you eat too little food, on the other hand, the body's proper function and energy supply are disrupted. We can determine your metabolic type by asking about your behaviors, symptoms, character traits and reactions to food. For example, if you have chronic health problems, appetite attacks and hypoglycemia, and if you cannot skip meals, you should eat more protein and fat and reduce carbohydrates.
Fundamentally, every individual's nutrition should be different. One reason for these differences is each person's individual gut flora. In addition, how many enzymes are produced and the rate at which vitamins are converted into their active form also vary from person to person. For this reason, nutrition programs or advice that fail to take these individual differences into account should not be applied.
We also differ in terms of the amount of minerals we need. For example, people who eat a lot of protein should consume more sodium (in the form of salt) but less potassium. Those who consume a lot of carbohydrates should consume less salt.
Every individual's nutritional needs also do not stay the same throughout life! An infant has different needs than an elderly person, an office worker than a professional athlete, a pregnant woman than her husband, and a sick person than a healthy one.
Since the satiety signals in your brain can only be triggered by the presence of certain amino acids found in nature, take care to consume only natural, real food. Nowadays, ready-made foods are developed to make us dependent on them without providing the nutrients we actually need. After a while, you become unable to give up packaged products.
BEFORE YOU START EATING, CHECK WHETHER YOUR HUNGER IS PHYSICAL OR EMOTIONAL
Before you start eating, pay attention to whether your hunger is physical or emotional. Physical hunger emerges gradually, while emotional hunger arises suddenly and triggers an aggressive urge to eat. So, without restricting yourself too much, listen to your body and eat wisely and in a balanced way.
The quality of our food and how we prepare it are also very important. Fundamentally, the quality of the soil in which the food was grown, its freshness, a short preparation time, and a low preparation temperature all make that food healthy, nourishing and anti-inflammatory.
Don't buy pre-cut vegetables and don't store them for too long (light, oxygen and heat cause them to spoil and lose nutrients more quickly). Also, many foods such as pineapple, banana, papaya or avocado are harvested unripe on the other side of the world. These foods ripen in storage rather than on the tree, which reduces the amines they produce and their beneficial health effects.
Long-term storage, drying and fermentation (for example, cocoa and coffee) generally lead to mold spores and thus contamination with mycotoxins (aflatoxin, ochratoxin A). If animals are not fed with moldy grain and waste, animal products will certainly be far more tolerable for many people. Of course, the best option is to obtain meat from pasture-raised animals (which is also better for the environment).
Animals are often loaded with parasites, so I recommend consuming meat as cooked as possible. It is also true that some nutrients are only beneficial when heated! The important thing here is to focus on steaming or low-temperature cooking methods. Preparing food in a pressure cooker is also healthy, since the short preparation time preserves certain nutrients. High-temperature frying methods should be avoided. Adding enough oil after cooking the food, rather than before, is the healthiest way to prevent oxidation of the fats.
What matters more than how much you eat is how much you enjoy what you eat. Your parasympathetic nervous system needs to be activated, which means being relaxed with a steady heartbeat, not doing any other task at the same time, not watching the news, and not having an unpleasant family conversation. You should not do any exercise right before or after a meal (even if that activity is a calm, meditative walk). Try to approach your meal like a small meditation. Take in the delicious aroma and savor the vibrant colors of the vegetables!
IT STARTS IN THE BRAIN
Digestion begins in the brain! Signals are sent to your salivary glands, stomach and intestines, and your body starts preparing for your meal, beginning to produce digestive juices and enzymes. It may sound like a cliché, but it's important to say: chew well! Food that isn't properly broken down in the mouth – which is already part of your gut – cannot be digested properly afterward. This prevents the digestive enzymes from working properly. Later, opportunistic pathogens such as SIBO and candida form in your gut flora, and dysbiosis develops.
Getting enough fluids is equally important! These fluids should be water or mineral water. Herbal tea and vegetable juice are of course also fine, but I do not recommend fruit juice, even if freshly pressed, since it is essentially concentrated sugar. Fluid needs may vary from person to person depending on physical activity. Even if you feel hungry, you should first take a sip of water – you might simply be thirsty. Avoid drinking water together with your meal. You don't want to dilute your stomach fluids right before a meal, or slow your digestion right after a heavy one.
You can find more information on this and related topics in my book “Anti-Inflammatory Nutrition Guide.”