What is Nutritional Counseling?
Your body requires fuel to run efficiently. Every single thing you ingest into your body can affect your health. This is especially true if you have another underlying condition such as diabetes or high blood pressure. The food that you eat is incredibly important to help maintain your health and achieve your weight loss goals. It can be difficult to ingest the proper food, especially if you're someone who's busy and is constantly on the run. However, with the help of nutritional counseling services, you can learn what foods are best for your body and lifestyle.
So Many Opinions!
The entire trajectory of your life-long dietary habits/choices can change dramatically depending on the type of podcast you listen to or the book you pick up at the local bookstore. In fact, almost all of them are written from well respected “gurus” in the field – MDs, DCs, NDs, RDs, etc. Who is right?
Your 1st Visit
- Consult and Nutritional Exam (hint: your hair, skin, nails, tongue can tell us a lot about the status of your nutritional needs)
- Diagnostics: blood, urine, saliva, AO scan, and body composition
- Food diary analysis
Subsequent Visits
- Individualized dietary approach
- Customized supplements
- Meal planning
- Food diary reviews
- Accountability
- Re-testing and re-examinations
Our Current State of Affairs – The Bad News!
For the first time in history, we are living in a time where we are witnessing a complete divergence between our genetics, lifestyle habits and technological advancements. This divergence is responsible for all the degenerative diseases, stressors, and unhappiness that now plague man and womankind. The agricultural revolution (10,000 years ago), the Industrial Revolution (200+ years ago) and finally the “processing of America” (within the past 50 years), represented by the massive intake of processed foods, animal products, materialism, competition, disconnectedness, separation and environmental devastation, are all mere “specks of time” on our evolutionary tree. For example, we have unleashed more toxicity and pollutants into the environment and our bodies over the last 100 years than we have in the millions of years preceding. If this wasn’t enough, our children and grandchildren are living in this same environment and are now suffering from emotional and ego-related disturbances along with physical manifestation of “dis”eases such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, autoimmune conditions, and various mental health disorders – to name only a few. Our children are unable to distinguish between real food and manufactured/processed food. Our relationship with our fellow sentient beings is unacceptable. Our path is destructive, and our legacy to future generations is questionable
The Good News!
For the first time in history, we have a new set of health and wellness tools that are able to combat 90-95 percent of all our current lifestyle-related “dis”eases. The tool? Your Diet!
Nutritional Counseling Benefits
- Prevention, treatment, and foundational support for all lifestyle-related “dis”eases such as heart disease, cancer, autoimmunity, osteoporosis, and diabetes.
- Increased energy
- Increased vitality
- Optimization and balancing of hormones
- Anti-inflammatory
- Anti-diabetogenic or the ability to take control over one’s blood sugar
- Weight loss
- Improved Sleep
- Glowing Skin
- Anti-aging
- Increased longevity
Nutrient Density
All organisms exist at various levels on the great food web of life. The first and lowest level contains the producers, green plants. The higher levels include the animals with the largest biomass or size. Toxin accumulation and magnification mirror the position an organism holds within the food chain. At the top, bioaccumulation and biomagnification of environmental toxins (pesticides, herbicides, GMOs) and bio-toxins (yeast, bacteria) are the greatest. Conversely, at the bottom, they are the lowest. For example, plankton have less mercury than salmon, salmon less mercury than tuna, and tuna less than swordfish.
Primary sourced nutrients (the bottom of the food chain) contain the most amount of nutrients (referred to as nutrient density), while secondary and tertiary sourced nutrients (the top of the food chain) are the most nutrient-poor.
A high toxic burden (found with meat and processed-centric diets) along with decreased nutrient density correlates with all-cause mortality. These diets (the cause) turn on chronic protective and survival mechanisms (effects) to deal with the rising inflammation, sugar levels, and infections. The body's terrain begins to move from a health-promoting alkaline and oxygen-rich environment to an acidic and oxygen-starved one. This, in turn, may lead to abnormal cell growth, immune compromise, and incoherent macro (e.g., glands and hormones) and micro (e.g., cellular) communication.
There is nothing more intimate than the adage, “You are what you eat.” Consumption of food is more intimate than sex. The food you eat literally becomes incorporated into the cells, tissues, and organs of your body. There are approximately fifty to one-hundred trillion cells in the body. We produce around three hundred billion new cells a day. In fact, about 98 percent of all the atoms in the human body are replaced every year. For example, you get a new stomach lining every four to seven days, skin every month, and so on.
- If you put junky food (dead decaying flesh, processed and fast foods) into your body, you will make a junky body.
- If you put healthy food (fresh fruits and vegetables) into your body, you will make a healthy, more vibrant, and energetic body.
In summary, processed foods and animal foods contribute to decreased longevity, advanced aging, and all-cause mortality. Here are some of the most important hallmarks:
- Inflammation
- Dysbiosis
- Elevated sugar levels
- Environmental and biotoxin accumulation
- Abnormal cell growth or the inability to clean up damaged senescent cells
- Acidic and oxygen-starved environments
- Loss of energy for healing and regeneration
Characteristics of a Health-Promoting Diet
An optimal diet for decreasing degenerative diseases and promoting health and life span includes the following characteristics:
- Whole food plant-based or primary sourced nutrients
- Eating foods found in nature, not laboratories, that have undergone minimal processing (Acceptable forms of processing include procedures that enhance nutrient bioavailability (fermenting, sprouting) and maintain the natural synergism of nutrients working together (holo-nutrients.)
- Eating an abundance of biogenic, sun-ripened, and enzymatic-rich foods such as green leafy vegetables, raw foods, and sprouts
- Foods with high nutrient density (elevated levels of vitamins, minerals, and other phytonutrients) rather than nutrient-poor and caloric dense foods (e.g., cookies and soda)
- Foods that are hermetically stressed and grown in natural environments that eliminate the use of anti-nutrients (xenobiotics, biotechnology GMOs, herbicides, pesticides) and idyllic monocropping
- Eating foods based on physiological and spiritual needs rather than wants and taste preferences
- Foods free of metaphysical toxins
- Foods individualized for your constitution
- Intermittent and long-term fasting strategies, along with a lifetime of optimal caloric intake that promotes movement on the healing continuum towards regeneration
A mostly Live-Food diet is proving to be the healthiest, most common-sense diet on the planet. Why? Because when we eat our foods in their natural state, we receive maximum nutrition and therefore maximum health. At Jacksonville Health & Wellness Center we feel that the mysteries of nature cannot be duplicated artificially. Nature exists in holistic forms. Their effects are also holistic.
Living foods contain maximum life force energy, and the highest amount of bioactive food nutrients, phytonutrients, bioelectrical energy, biologically active water and electrons. They are gifts of nature for us to stay healthy.
The essence of understanding living foods is … if it is not broken, don’t fix it.
Longest Lived
Populations that eat a whole foods plant-based diet (think fresh vegetables, sweet potatoes, and beans versus soy hamburgers, cookies, and pasta) are virtually free of degenerative diseases including diabetes, heart disease, chronic fatigue syndrome, obesity, cancer, hormonal disorders, liver disease, gastrointestinal diseases, and autoimmunity.
The longest-lived have superior life and health spans. In other words, they don’t only live longer (longevity) but experience a healthier quality of life (aging). They can be found living with more fulfillment, vitality, and grace. It’s not just about adding years to our life; it’s about adding life to our years.
We can look to some of the largest nutritional studies and longevity research to date, including the China-Cornell-Oxford Project (e.g., The China Study), The Seventh Day Adventist Health Studies from Loma Linda University, and the Blue Zone’s research (the name given by National Geographic researcher, Dan Buettner) in specific communities where people generally lived active lifestyles into their nineties. All the evidence points back to the most tried and true nutritional recommendation over the last century—eat your vegetables!
Schedule an Appointment
If you want to achieve peak physical health, don't ignore your nutrition. Call Jacksonville Health & Wellness Center today at (904) 268-6568 and get started on your health journey.