Nutrition is such an important part of our health, and following a healthy diet affects so many parts of your body. 100 years ago, John Lubbock basically said health is much more dependent on our habits and nutrition than on medicine, and that’s very true. There is no medicine that’s going to fix you if you continue to eat horribly and not want to follow any advice in terms of changing it. Fortunately, there are many things you can do to improve your health with diet and nutrition. Today’s soil is depleted of many of the nutrients that it used to have, so it’s important to replace them. When nutrients are balanced, you’re more likely to restore a normal circadian rhythm.
Following Natural Feeding Cycles
With all the information on nutrition available today, many people struggle with knowing what is the best diet, etc. The first thing to think of is how you feel when you’re eating certain foods.
The next thing we want to think about is eating a little bit differently than what we are used to. If you think about how we were designed, food wasn’t always readily available.
Our bodies adapted to periods of time when we had to eat less, and it may have been a really good thing as we think about fasting. What happens when we fast is that we go through periods of restriction and then periods of eating, basically what our caveman ancestors did.
Eating Like Our Ancestors
If you think a little bit more about eating seasonally with your diet, you will naturally be following normal circadian balances, and that will really help to positively influence your health. Also being aware of the timing of what you’re eating during the day can help.
We’re really not designed to eat after it gets very dark, so eating late meals before bed is probably not beneficial to us. Following more of the same type of diet and eating patterns of our ancestors can have a dramatically positive effect on our health.
Periods of Fasting
Fasting puts our body into a state of autophagy where the body gets a little bit stressed and starts to get rid of unnecessary elements. We have cells in our body that have been damaged, and if those cells stay around, they actually create what we call zombie cells that damage cells around them.
When we fast and put the body into a temporary period of stress, the body gets rid of those damaged cells. When we start eating again, called the refeeding period, we fuel the body with good foods to provide it with a flood of nutrients.
Different Types of Fasting
When it comes to fasting, the length of the fast can vary, and it’s better to do some type of fasting than not. There are a lot of different ways to fast, and the easiest to start with is time restricted eating, also called intermittent fasting. For instance, fasting for 16 hours and eating within an eight-hour window. Intermittent fasting can last 10, 12, or 16 hours of fasting. After you do some intermittent fasting, you may want to move on to a longer fast, such as a 24 hour fast. Working up to a three to five-day fast can be a great goal to reset your body.
Replenishing Nutrients
The next piece of restoring what’s lost in terms of diet is looking at micronutrients. Micronutrients are all the different vitamins and minerals that are essential for your health, as all of these vitamins and nutrients have extremely important functions in our body. Just to name a few, they normalize blood pressure, help us metabolize carbohydrates, and help with muscle production. Even if you eat a perfectly balanced diet, it’s still not enough because our food doesn’t have the mineral content that it used to.
Almost 99 percent of the daily calories consumed around the world can be linked to soil in one way or another. Both plants and animals rely on soil to grow. Soil nutrients have decreased over the years: nitrogen stores are down 42%, sulphur by 33%, and phosphorus by 27%. As a result of the decline of nutrients in soil, the nutritional content of food has also been compromised.
Supplementing with Specific Nutrients to Replace What’s Lost
Most people today could benefit from supplements to restore and replace what’s lost in our food supply. Eating high-quality proteins, vegetables, and fats; replacing nutrients with supplements, and regularly utilizing fasting, you can do your best to live a happy and healthy life while increasing your longevity.
Where Do You Start?
We know the information on what to do first is overwhelming, but once you understand that aging is a disease process and it is something that we can take control of, then you can actually make a difference in your lifespan and your health span. That’s why Dr. Yurth developed a QuickCourse called What to Fix First to help you with the steps to improve your health for optimal performance in your sports, life, job and overall healthspan. The first step is Hormones as they are an instrumental piece of this health puzzle and so important for a good quality of life. The next step is Nutrition. Learn More.
