The second tool in our Anti-Ageing Toolbox – Nutrition
This is a huge subject and a challenging one, as dietary advice is a bit of a moving target. It needs regular updating based on new research.
This will take quite a few instalments!
One thing is for sure though, you can exercise like a demon, but if your diet is poor, you will prematurely age and you will undermine your health.
Although keeping to a healthy weight is very important, I’m not going to offer any particular diets for weight loss here, but rather give an overview of what are the most important factors to apply to how you eat. The consequence of this will most likely have a positive affect on your weight anyway and will most certainly improve your health, which will in turn result in glowing looks (you know you want them!).
The most important change you can make is to cut out processed food. Foods that are chemically concocted, artificially flavoured, loaded with hormones and antibiotics and are often very different from “real” food.
The other thing to avoid like the plague is hydrogenated fats or trans fats. They are usually found in processed foods, low fat foods and used to be in all margarines although that is no longer the case but do remember to check. It is most likely to be found in all foods with a long shelf life. Hydrogenated fat is vegetable oil that’s been blasted with hydrogen (giving it a similar structure to plastic) making it harder and therefore easier to stick to arteries. Recent research has shown that plaque deposits are being found in very young children.
You want food as close to it’s natural state as possible. The longer the ingredient list on the back of the package or tin, the further away from natural it will be. Nothing beats a home cooked meal. Unless it’s an “uncooked” one! It’s important to include a good proportion of raw food into your diet, like a salad or veggies very slightly steamed and slightly crunchy.
This is not a new concept.
As long ago as the 1930’s, Dr. Weston A. Price wrote a book called Nutrition and Physical Degeneration and what he writes still stands up today. He basically travelled the globe to try and determine why native populations who ate natural, traditional foods remained healthy well into old age while at the same time, industrialised nations were seeing a decline in health.
His findings of the native people he researched form the basis of how I have tried to eat for many years and how I believe we should all eat.
They included:
The foods were natural and unprocessed and organic (with no sugar, except a little honey or maple syrup)
The people only ate foods that grew in their local environment and were also therefore seasonal
They ate a large portion of their food raw
They all ate animal products (protein), including fat.
This really is basic common sense when you think about it. Plain and simple. It also coincides with absolutely up to date research on how we should eat.
