Diet. The 4 letter dirty word associated with the words like deprivation and restriction-however the word is so much BIGGER and often times, even messier than that.

The word diet has become so manipulated and skewed that it's so hard for anyone to wrap their brain around what is considered the IDEAL diet for all.

Truth is, there is NO one size fits all diet for everyone.

Age, gender, activity level, lifestyle , hormonal profile and current state of health are all going to dictate the perfect diet protocol for you.

So it's not so cut and dry for the the masses.

Let's start with facts and science. I don't know about you, but my conclusions about diet are twofold :1. archeological data and science and 2. what makes my body feel alive.

How about you? How do you decide what to eat? Do you follow diet trends or a dogmatic approach or do you listen to your body?

What's all this "listening to your body" stuff anyway?

Well, it's about removing all the FOOD NOISE and dogmatic advice and starting to use your body's messages as clues on what's working and what isn't.

REAL FOOD FIRST

The first step is start eating clean, pure food. Learn how to cook. Stop eating out or hitting the drive thru. Ditch the chemicals, sugars and other junk lurking in processed foods.

Next, stop following diet trends or buy into a "shake" or meal replacement program. These temporary, quick fixes are just that-plus, did you ever look at the ingredients list or the COST? They are filled with pro-inflammatory fats, hidden sugars, hormone dis-regulating toxins and other junk that bogs down the liver.

Next, familiarize yourself with the science. My approach is science based first and foremost. We did in fact evolve to eat both plant and animal foods. Most people do eat WAY too many animal products (dairy, meat etc.), but a healthy diet does include small amounts of clean sources of animal protein. That being said, I consider myself a flexitarian-I eat as close to our ancestors as possible. It may look something like this:

• Consume a plant centered diet with 0-1 servings of animal protein per day.
• Consume 9 servings of plant/rainbow food daily
• Consume abundant amounts of healthy fats daily and only cook with Thrive 9 approved fats.
• Consume a wide variety of humanely sourced animal proteins. I rotate through different types each week.
• Seasonal eater-I eat fruits/vegetables that are in season in my part of the state.
• I enjoy my indulgences 1-2 times a week (10%)-artisan pizza, organic tortilla chips and salsa, fresh margarita's etc.

If you are interested in learning more about ancestral nutrition, I encourage you to check out this National Geographic article. There is a tremendous amount of info that I think you'll find interesting. I love that there are also a few indigenous tribes left today, still living and eating off the grid. These tribes hunt and gather and have virtually no incidences of modern lifestyle diseases or cancer.

Food for thought....it's wonderful, isn't it?

Enjoy!