Hello everybody!  I just wanted to express my gratitude for all of you attending last Tuesday.  We got off to a great start and I want to encourage each and every one of you to sign up to our blog updates if you haven’t already – this way you will be notified every time a new article is posted.  What a great way to stay connected to each other in between our meetings, providing you the support and moral muscle needed to help you achieve your health and fitness goals.  As we discussed, studies repeatedly show that it is the lack of social support that mainly causes people to become distracted from reaching their health goals — here we have a built-in buddy system to help keep you on track!

I wanted to head things off with an overall perspective on where our nutritional instruction is going.  As the months move along, we will be discussing the finer elements of nutritional science and how it impacts your health.  Now, you have probably heard many details of nutrition in the media and sometimes they are quite conflicting, especially in the field of weight loss.  Some say it’s all about calories.  Others will tell you that calories don’t count as long as you eat certain foods.  Eat fat, don’t eat fat, drink acai berry juice, don’t drink alcohol, eat whole grains, don’t eat pasta…..and the list goes on and on.   The reality is that it really depends on you as an individual and how you respond to certain foods.  There’s a certain amount of time that is needed for you to learn how your body works and how it behaves with the many different foods available.

What I see happening in my practice as a result of all of this, is that people become confused and start missing the forest through the trees.  Why get all concerned with the minutiae of nutrition when the basics are not even being considered?  Perhaps the basics aren’t sexy enough to sell books or magazines – who knows.  Far from being simplistic, the basic elements of nutrition are actually quite simple and I will do my level best to spell them out for you in the coming months.

Get to know yourself, what you like to do and how you like to live and then work to develop a healthy plan that is as easy as you can possibly make it – not one bit harder.  This goes for your eating habits as well as your fitness habits.  This may mean exploring a little bit, trying new ideas to see if they fit, much like you would try on a new pair of shoes.  If a plan you have set for yourself is too rigid – say you have told yourself you must eat every 2-3 hours to keep your metabolism burning or what not – then chances are that life will get in the way and you and the plan will part.  There are so many ways to peel this potato that anyone can find a lifestyle that works for them – it really isn’t all that difficult.  We have the tools to offer and we are here to help. 

Let’s deconstruct some of these myths of nutrition, shall we? Please join me for the first lecture on health this year – the Metabolic Makeover Seminar on Feb. 18th.  You will come away with a renewed perspective on your health.  See you there!