There is no one size fits all approach to nutrition.

What works for one person may not work for the next, and that’s okay. What’s important is that you find something that makes you feel great, is easy to maintain, and fits within your food budget.

Food is life, it’s foundational to our overall wellbeing. What you eat directly impacts the health of every single cell in your body and dictates how much energy you’re able to produce. Depending on their function, our cells use amino acids (proteins), vitamins, minerals, fats, sugars, antioxidants, and/or fiber to carry out their work. When our cells don’t receive these building blocks and/or are bombarded by things that aren’t really food (think processed food items) we start to see issues arise. Maybe your digestion starts to falter, you begin to notice more acne developing, you can’t get enough energy without the aid of caffeine, your monthly cycle gets shorter, your PMS symptoms get worse, and so on and so on. It doesn’t matter what you’re dealing with, the healing process always starts with food.

In my eyes there are 6 major components to overhauling your diet that apply to everyone. Of course there are bio-individual considerations, for example maybe you don’t thrive eating a ton of carbs or perhaps you prefer plant based protein over animal, but overall every nutrition program should touch on all 6. Women who work with me learn all 6, then customize based on their specific health concerns and lifestyle factors.

Listed in no particular order of importance, here are the 6 nutrition principles I include in every protocol:

• Eat Real Foods: Swap out chemicals and processed sugar for real whole foods. This means it either grew from the ground, walked on land, or swam in the sea with the fewest processing steps possible. Our bodies were designed to breakdown real foods which is why we feel our best when they make up the bulk of our diets. Another consideration that falls into this category is fat selection. An impactful way to reduce inflammation is by choosing healthy fat sources like olive oil, avocado oil, ghee, grass-fed organic butter, tallow, and coconut oil over highly processed fats like “vegetable” oil, canola, rapeseed, soybean, and peanut oils.

• Balance Your Blood Sugar: Carbohydrates breakdown into sugar in our bloodstreams in order to give our cells the energy they need to function. Normally this isn’t a problem until we either get too much or too little at a time, and the swinging back and forth between the two can cause some major damage. It’s important to find the right balance of protein, fats, and carbs that give you energy, keep you feeling full, are packed with nutrients, and keeps your blood sugar stable. It’s much more important to worry about blood sugar and nutrients than it is to count calories.

• Hydrate: Most people are walking around chronically dehydrated unaware that their sub-par energy is related to the lack of water in their lives. As a rule of thumb everyone should aim to drink at least 50% of their body weight in fluid ounces per day, more if you ingest a lot of caffeine. Ideally some of this water will also include electrolytes, minerals that help move fluids in/out of your cell membranes. The easiest way to do this is by adding a small pinch of high quality sea salt to your big glasses of water( sea salt is mother nature’s electrolyte powder).

• Support Digestion: “You are what you eat” is out of date, “You are what you digest and assimilate” is more appropriate. Lackluster digestion means that you can be eating the cleanest most amazing diet ever and yet still not see any improvement due to poor absorption. Not to mention digestive dysfunction can be a root cause of inflammation. Support digestion by reducing the amount of processed foods in your diet, staying hydrated, sitting down and eating in a relaxed state, eating probiotic foods, and chewing food really well.

• Mix Up Your Nutrients: Avoid eating the same foods day in/out. Of course some repetition is fine – and necessary to make healthy eating easy – but we also want to aim for a variety of nutrients. This applies across the board from protein sources to fruits and veggies. Try to create colorful plates with new-to-you items as often as you can. This is the best way to ensure you’re getting a good variety of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, fats, and so on.

• Practice the Good/Better/Best of Preparation and Sourcing: Buy the highest quality food you can afford and source (organic, grass-fed, pasture-raised, wild-caught) and prepare it properly (e.g. soaking and fermenting). That said eating real food is always the priority, so for example, if you can’t afford organic pasture-raised chicken go ahead and get some conventional. It’s always preferred to eat actual unprocessed foods over eating something processed like white bread or chips. Do the best you can with the options available to you and know that good is always good enough.

I know this list can feel overwhelming at first glance but it’s not about doing everything at once. I like to focus on the “low-hanging fruit” – what are the things that don’t feel overwhelming and you can sustain over the long haul? This is where you start. Remember that small changes can have huge impacts and consistency is more important than compliance (e.g. being perfect all the time).

If you’re in need of some extra encouragement and instruction, download my free guide “5 ways to feel less exhausted in motherhood, and start feeling better now”.

Happy eating y’all!