What is the Nutritarian Diet from Dr. Joel Fuhrman
There’s a pretty popular diet going around, and even better, completely vegan-friendly. If you’re not a complete vegan, or you’re a flexitarian (one that eats meats), this diet can still be greatly beneficial as it eliminates many things that are processed, like grains, sugars, meats, dairy, whole grains, legumes, fruits, vegetables, and what’s even better, is that you can literally still get all of your nutrients from macro and micronutrients that can keep your body active, thrive well, and even more. The doctor is known as Joel Fuhrman, and he’s a New York Times best-selling author who created “Dr. Fuhrman’s Health Oasis”, which is a new clinic that helps people overcome behavioral food addictions and chronic diseases. In this guide, we’re going to tell you about the Nutritarian diet, and hopefully give you some good insight in how to stay healthier than ever before.
- Health Equations and You
When it comes to the principle behind the diet, you have to consider the nutrient density of your food compared to how many calories your food contains. If you want to get a better health quota, you need to consume more food that’s high in nutrients, but still lower in calories. Kale is often preferred in this diet over anything else vegan that has little to no nutrients.
- Taste The Rainbow
You though this only belonged to Skittles? Doctors said it first, so don’t worry. This is the next step in the diet to get nutrient content you need. Whatever you do, you need to eat foods with many colors and optimal health qualities. Make sure that it’s not artificially colored food though. You want to get plenty of the vitamins and nutrients you need (like vitamin B-12 and other folates, EPA derived from veggies and algae, omega-3 fatty acids from things like walnuts, zinc, and even iodine).
- Keep Your Body in Check
Hormones can play a big role on our diet and health as well. For this diet, you want to keep your IGF-1 (Insulin-like Growth Factor) hormone as low as possible. This can help you not only feel better, but also decrease the risk of certain cancers. This can be attained by eating various foods that are good for you, but have an extremely low glycemic-index (like processed foods).
- Keep Yourself Detoxified
You may detoxify yourself before or while on this diet. But most importantly, you also don’t want to consume any toxins like mercury, dioxins, polychlorinated biphenyls (most dominant in animal fats from contaminated food sources), as these are harmful not only to the products you eat, but also harmful to your body (they can make you very sick). At the same time, you want to avoid other toxins that are specifically in processed foods. Don’t just fall for “all natural” and “organic”. Always read the labels to see what artificial or “natural” items they have in it. Even natural flavors, colors, and spice on your ingredient label have things in it that can be considered as a toxin to your body. - The Biggest Modification of All
While you’re trying to do this Nutritarian diet, you also need to consider behavioral modification in order to be successful in losing weight, and more. Many people who have issues need help out there, and just because you love comfort food, stress eat, yo-yo diet, or other things that affect your diet, this doesn’t mean you don’t need to ask for help. It also means that you won’t be judged for it if you do though. By choosing to do this, you can learn to incorporate healthy eating habits, cut cravings, and so much more, including reap the numerous health benefits that can result from it.
Other Health Benefits of the Nutritarian Diet
By doing this, there have been numerous results that have been obtained by those who followed the diet in order to succeed. From extreme amounts of weight loss in a short amount of time, as well as even cutting cholesterol levels, eliminating high blood pressure, and more, the Nutritarian diet can be just what you need.
So How Do I Do the Diet?
In this next half of the Nutritarian Diet Explained, we’re going to give you some helpful tips on how to actually maintain your diet and then earn the title of nutritarian yourself.
- Make Salad Your Prime Dish
When it comes to eating a healthy salad, as the diet says, eat foods of every color of the rainbow. Include things like chopped kale, red cabbage, nappa cabbage, spinach, at least one shredded raw cruciferous vegetable (broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, watercress, or radishes are a great addition), and use a variety of greens to give it some flavor (some people don’t favor kale all that well). You can add vegetables like snow peas, bean sprouts, black beans, frozen pea pods, mushrooms (raw and rinsed or sautéed lightly), red onions, diced zucchini, and a little bit of minced garlic. Go ahead and add the tomatoes and black olives as well, and then you can use a vinaigrette, or even better, just some salt and pepper, and a little bit of olive oil to taste.
- Eat Beans Every Day
By eating at least 1 cup of beans per day, you’re providing your body the protein, nutrients, and fiber that your body needs to sustain itself at maximum levels. You can easily get the same nutrients if you eat a bean burger, veggie bean soup, or put a cup of beans in your salad. You can also just make a bean soup that you can use later on. If you are vegan, you can make a great pot of beans with a variety in order to get even more flavor that you can save for later.
- Eat a Bowl of Greens
From steamed (or lightly sautéed) asparagus, chopped kale, green beans, steamed zucchini, bok choy, artichokes, collard greens or mixed greens steamed can give you a lot of phytonutrients that you can get. You need to make sure you don’t overcook the greens (many people make this mistake, or boil them down), as this wastes previous phytochemicals in the steam that is created by them. If you accidentally do however, (don’t use too much salt and spices when you make them), make sure you simmer them with a lid on the pot so as much steam is trapped and drips back into the pot. This can make a very healthy juice you can drink warm or when it cools down later too (still eat the greens of course).
- Eat Nuts and Seeds
You need to eat about 1 ounce of nuts and seeds per day as a female, and a half ounce more if you’re a male. This helps you absorb those healthy phytochemicals from your vegetables. Try adding an ounce of walnuts to a bowl of Grape Nuts with raisins or a dried fruit that doesn’t contain too much sugar. If you’re very active, you may want to increase this to about 3 or four ounces. Try adding flaxseeds, chia seeds, and even sesame seeds into your diet as well. (You can make an awesome Kashi if you mix these in some wild oats with some sliced almonds and use something like almond milk for a great organic bowl of cereal).You can also eat nuts and seeds raw or roasting, because they add some healthy fats for you. You can benefit the most from naturally toast them yourself for the best benefits so they’re not roasted in heavy oils and loaded with salt.
- Mushrooms and Onions
Mushrooms and onions have numerous health benefits, from immune-boosting nutrients as well as having anticancer properties. You can sauté them and toss them into salads with added flavor, as well as eat some types fresh. Make sure they’re not a part of the agaricus genus of mushrooms, which contain agaritine. These must be cooked because agaritine is considered a mild toxin that escapes when you cook them. - Eat A Fruit at Every Meal
The U.S. Army and other military personnel have it right when they make you eat at least one fresh fruit at every meal. Grapes are considered the nectar of the gods for numerous reasons, but you need to eat it as a part of your vegan meal so you don’t absorb all of the glucose and fructose. You can eat more than three fruits per day if you’re highly active, and as mentioned above, keep dried fruit to a minimum because they can cause problems if you eat them (and spike your blood sugar) in higher amounts.
Try eating at least eating an apple or an orange for breakfast, an apple or banana with lunch (make sure that it’s not an overly ripe banana – make sure it’s in between green and yellow for higher potassium and less sugar), and something like a pear or apple in the evening. Of course with your breakfast you can also add some fresh blueberries into the mix for added antioxidants.
Final Thoughts on the Nutritarian Diet
When it comes to eating a nutritarian diet, as mentioned above, you need to maximize your food intake while minimizing your calories. All of the suggestions above are extremely low in calories, will give you less than the normal 2000 calories per day, and will be loaded with an extreme amount of nutrients that can make you refresh your body and mind, detoxify your body, and give it the boost that it needs to get the best health benefits possible.
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