Style
Several years ago my diet consisted of almost entirely raw, vegan food. I adapted to this style of eating gradually, over a few years, and it was working for me. At my lowest weight, and with my energy sky high, I was productive and blissfully happy. I was certain I’d found a nutritional remedy I could follow for the rest of my life.
I delved into raw and vegan cookbooks, learned to prepare my food in creative and nutritious ways, got certified as a raw chef, and incorporated superfoods, nuts, seeds, smoothies, and juicing into my day. My health improved to the point where I couldn’t remember the last time I’d gotten sick. It was a wonderful, healthful time.
I continued on this path for almost two years. My skin glowed from the high levels of phytonutrients, and my hair and nails grew stronger than ever before from the plant-based protein sources that my body preferred.
Then I began to sense new changes in my body—not so welcome ones this time. I began to lose circulation in my fingers throughout the day; they would turn white on one hand, sometimes both. I felt cold and was unable to get warm as winter approached.
When I first experienced these symptoms, I denied they were the result of my diet. Convinced it was happening because of unusually cold weather, I dressed in layers and turned up the heat in the house. I wore sweaters, drank a lot of tea, and continued to believe that nutritionally speaking, this was the right path. I continued to create raw food masterpieces in my kitchen while what I really craved was a big bowl of warm stew or soup.
I was cold, all the time. Despite the season, I couldn’t recall ever experiencing such a chill. I didn’t know it yet, but my body had begun to rebel.
As my cravings became stronger, I began to steal bigger and bigger bites of my son’s dinner, and it was then that I realized that this behavior was crazy. To force myself to eat one way while my body was crying out for something else was unhealthy. It wasn’t what I wanted to bring into my business and my family.
Despite my awareness of changes in my body, I felt as if I’d failed, that somehow I should have been able to make it through the winter eating a strictly vegan, raw diet. But I had to acknowledge it was taxing my system, and my diet had become unsustainable. I needed to make changes.
I began eating more steamed and roasted vegetables, stir-fried entrees, thick soups, and quinoa stews. I still ate salads loaded with superfoods and drank cacao smoothies and green juices, but the more complicated raw food preparations fell away for the time being. A new, warming, seasonal menu was nurturing and gratifying. It enabled my body to handle the cold climate.
That spring and summer, my body naturally wanted to return to eating raw foods. As the warm spring air blew across our farm in northern Virginia, I added more and more fresh, local raw foods. As the summer heat soared, I craved the cooling crunch of raw vegetables and fruits, but I wasn’t trying to consume only raw foods anymore—I was listening to what my body was asking for. And as the heat of the summer that year gave way to cooler nights of early fall, I was drawn again toward warm soups, roasted root vegetables, and the occasional serving of animal protein.
I’m sharing my story because, whatever your Nutritional Style, it’s more important to listen to your body than it is to stick to a set of rules. Many people, especially women, seek to adopt a new strict diet or way of eating that someone else dictates. I’ve given up on that. I no longer follow anyone else’s rules. I’ve learned to accept what my body wants and needs and change my eating habits accordingly around the year.
Is Your Nutritional Style Right for You?
The Nutritional Style quiz gave you a good idea of your basic approach to food, what you like, and what works best for you. But it’s possible you’re forcing yourself into a style that actually isn’t best for you. Let’s take a good, honest look at your health right now, and notice any undesirable symptoms you might be experiencing.
Are you holding onto weight, even though you’re not overeating? Are you suffering from chronic headaches, sinus congestion, or frequent colds? Do you have unexplained pain, bloating, or discomfort in your stomach or gastrointestinal tract after eating? Are you frequently constipated, or do you get diarrhea, or do you alternate between the two? Are you tired, achy, maybe depressed? Do you feel exhausted or get sick often?
To force myself to eat one way while my body was crying out for something else was unhealthy.
What about your appearance? Is your hair thinning? Is your skin itchy, or scaly, or red? Are you still getting pimples or acne? Is your skin dry and prematurely wrinkled? Are you too thin, or are you carrying a pooch of fat around the middle?
These are all signs of an imbalance in your diet caused by your day-to-day eating patterns. Something in your nutritional habits isn’t working, and it’s time to make a change. Based on my experience, five key factors are universal when assessing your Nutritional Style.
Begin with where you are
The first step in figuring out your Nutritional Style is to get clear on where you are now. What do you eat most of the time? How much animal protein do you consume? Do you eat beans and grains, or is your diet based on seeds, nuts, and raw plants? Are you eating so much salad that you’re not getting enough calories? Are you a heavy consumer of sugar or dairy products? (I’ll talk more about these in chapter three.)
Begin by first establishing what and how you eat on a normal day. Write it down, including all the snacks, and be honest with yourself. Are you getting a good range of varied foods? Is there room for improvement?
Choose what you want
Once you’ve acknowledged where you are, decide if you want to move toward a new style of eating. Finding your Nutritional Style is about making your own choices. It’s not necessarily about eating what’s in front of you, served to you at a business dinner or by a well-meaning family member. No matter what others around you say or do, what you eat is up to you and what you want.
Your Nutritional Style doesn’t have to be restrictive or confining. It should give you freedom to investigate how various foods affect your body, your energy, and your moods, and make necessary changes based on your findings. Be open to some experimentation. Maybe you love beans, lentil soups, and brown rice, and you want to try a Flexible Vegetarian diet, but you’re scared you’ll faint or get headaches from hunger if you don’t eat meat once a day. Well, if you want to eat mostly vegetables and grains and some meat, why not? It’s your choice. You get to make the rules. Finding your Nutritional Style means creating the diet that suits you, and only you.
You need to learn to trust yourself, and to make the connection between the foods you eat and how you feel.
Be ready to change and adapt
You learned from my personal story that my Nutritional Style not only evolved, but that it continues to evolve over time. I had to adapt my Nutritional Style to account for colder weather, or else. You may well want and need different foods at different times too. The most common adaptation is with the seasons, but sometimes other situations also demand adapting—recovering from a serious illness, for example, or trying to get pregnant. Listen to your body and, if you have a health issue, talk to a knowledgeable nutrition expert.
We’re naturally inclined to eat in a way that corresponds to the time of year—our instinct is rooted in millennia of seasonal cellular programming. We crave warming foods in the fall and winter and cleansing, cooler foods in spring and summer. This book contains a chapter about each season, and how adapting to the seasons
