Time to learn to eat?

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Is this for you?

We must eat, we want to eat, but do we eat what we want? We plan so many things in our lives, but do we give our diets the right attention?
Are you perhaps, like I was, better at other things in your life than with your eating? Would you prioritize to learn not to be hungry, to have energy, to lose weight, and feel great? Contrary to what many people say – it is learnable.
Food, today, is complicated. Much of the time, we don’t know what we are eating. It is clear that far from all food (combinations) are good for us. How can you learn about the links between what you eat, how you feel and what you can do, without immense effort?
I’m Anna. I had gained weight and lived with back pain. The loss of my job triggered me to shape up, literally. I studied healthcare management and had a course in medicine for non-clinicians, which inspired me to learn more. I also took advice from friends who lived healthier than me, one of whom is a trained naturopath. And I found functional medicine.
I got fascinated by metabolism and endocrinology, the effects of food in our bodies, glucose and insulin, and decided to change my shape. I lost 10 kilos, and then set a new target. I had had diabetes when pregnant and was about to get it again (scoring pre-diabetic on my Hb1Ac). I reversed that. My interest now extends to psychology and neurology and I work on how my activities and mental habits interact with my wellbeing and health.
I want to help people with or without health issues, who are willing to learn about food and ready to invest effort to change, in order to not be hungry (and eat less), have more energy, lose weight and feel great. I help by publishing information and by web-based food coaching (details at bottom). I believe any otherwise-healthy individual can come back to any weight they have had and kept in past period of their adult lives, even before having children. Setting a diet that brings you back to your prior weight and health is not difficult, nor does it make you hungry. It is worth attention and care. If you don’t try, you won’t know if it’s possible for you.  
Soon I will publish a quiz, with which you can test if and how well you fit in my target group.

Setting and keeping a purposeful diet is a skill, worth to learn

It involves finding the right sources, taking in and processing information, analysing habits, testing results, drawing conclusions, and refining what you know and what you do. Take my example. I am a consultant and problem-solver who decided to solve the problem of my weight. I lost 10 kilos, 14% of my weight. I keep my shape. It’s with effort, a very reasonable effort that I choose to make. I never think that I am on a diet. But I am. I decided in 2017 what my diet is. Through trial and error, I refine it. I continue, slowly, to lose weight. Eating with purpose is part of who I am.

Diet is a long-term game

Even though it may be trivial at each moment, it matters what your diet is. By learning about food and eating with purpose you improve your life and influence people around you. You gain control, and change becomes much easier. Once a body adapts to better eating so does taste, encouraging healthy eating! Hunger reduces. Energy levels go up. Isn’t it a nicer problem to look for nutrient-rich foods at mealtime than it is to be disturbed by bursts of hunger during the day?
Does learning about food automatically mean to change diets? It depends. We have different lives, preferences, health states, motivation and ability to control and change how we eat and live. For some people food is very central in life. Others have given up caring. Some of that depends on how we think about it. If we choose to make eating a topic, we dedicate and release resources to change it. For those of us that have, will have, or would have diabetes type 2, it makes every sense to set and keep a purposeful diet. If you don’t know whether you are on the – wide – path of getting diabetes, get one of those cheap glucose meters and find out.s

Learning about food includes Functional Medicine

Functional medicine is the study of the human system and of root causes, for both disease and wellness. I studied basic physiology, anatomy and pathology and combined that with following leading functional medicine physicians.
Concepts from functional medicine include:
  • that toxic influences exist, and impact us,
  • inflammation as a driver of disease,
  • the benefits of fat metabolism (ketosis),
  • the physiological functions of the gut,
  • the brain-gut connection,
  • the effects of vegetables,
  • the set point for satiety, as well as
  • the effects of stress, hormones and sleep.
My food knowledge is based on what I like to eat and what I have found worthwhile to find out. I’m the kind of person who prefers simple foods and to spend little time cooking, who is fine to pay a premium for extra good food. I like the health hack to be in ketosis. It has worked great for me since I was pre-diabetic and am still sensitive to carbohydrates (like most people are). If you are the kind of person who loves cooking or wants space for carbs, you may want to look in more places. But start here, and now.
Learning about food and nutrition has multiple parts. There’s biochemistry and metabolism: macro-nutrients, enzymes, cell mitochondria, and more. There’s physiology (how the body works), and in particular endocrinology (hormones and messaging). There’s diabetes and obesity. There’s exercise.  There are toxins, and immune responses. You don’t need to study all these topics, but you should, I think, learn more about how food carries information to our bodies and our bodies react and adapt. The food we eat affects us from within and we react and change based on that. Therefore, once you make it a topic for yourself to learn about food, you will get the cause and effect of how your body works much better. We are not doomed to slowly gain weight and loose health year by year.  Our bodies love us, and do their best, whatever we do. Learn, so you can help yourself to feel and live better.
Forget diets. Learn about food. It is definitely possible to learn more about food and nutrition and to steer yourself towards health and wellbeing, away from diabetes type 2 and many other diseases. Once you get going it is actually quite logic. The more you learn (provided that you search in the right places), the more you will be satisfied with answers. You will find explanations to contradictory information and see reasons behind why experts sometimes take extreme positions. The more I learn, the more I conclude that experts are actually saying the same things, albeit with different leading convictions. If you look carefully, you see that popular diets actually merge: Dr. Mark Hyman talks about “Peganism” (Paleo + Vegan) and Dr. Will Cole has written a book about “Keto-tarian” (Ketogenic + Vegetarian).
We are. Not only do different foods within one and the same food group (like white and sourdough bread) have different effects on us – the way that specific foods work for us is different between individuals. You are not like me. There are spectrums of wellness and disease for many things: diabetes (type 2), inflammation, and auto-immunity. We are a product of our past, but we are also able to strongly influence becoming and staying well. Diabetes type 2, for example, builds over years of food exposure and lifestyle habits. The ketogenic diet, done right, alleviates or reverses diabetes type 2 (read more from Virta Institute, or DietDoctor).  Avoiding gluten and dairy does help for auto-immune disease (see thedr.com).
I share the food hacks I believe in, the ones I have tested for weight-loss and wellbeing and the ones that I understand how they work.
Twin eggs
Lunch composition

To the food hacks!

The basics:

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For the most serious:

Want to learn? Like to try? I can help.

Passionate about cause-and-effect relationships, and self-taught about nutrition and functional medicine, I have permanently changed my diet, lost 10 kilos, and gained the strength and energy I had 20 years ago. 
It was easier than I thought, so I share what I have learned.
The best investment is in health!
My day-job is something else (more here). I set up this site after I found myself sharing food learnings to family, friends and colleagues, and I am energized by their feedback.
It annoys me that people are made to feel intimidated or insecure around diets, when so many things really are very simple. Admittedly some things are complex, but you can learn about them later. You can come very far with the simple things.
I want to help share things that work, and encourage and help people, like you, to eat well.
I am not a doctor. Any help you may get from this site is non-clinical. If you are ill and require medical support you need to consult a doctor. Doctors who practice functional medicine are found here.
If you want help, email me.  My service is founded in nutritional research and functional medicine. I combine that with two decades of helping clients and teams effecting change in organizations, changing mindsets and bringing about the right action. 
If you’re not great at eating yet, why not learn now