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| Nutritionist and Author |
BREAKING NEWS: Eating a hunter-gatherer-type diet improves a wide range of cardiovascular risk factors – blood pressure, glucose tolerance, insulin secretion, insulin sensitivity, total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol and triglyceride levels – in people who do not exercise in less than two weeks, according to a just-published study in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
The beginning of a new year is a fitting time to reinforce the idea that you can create a new you at any time. The quickest, healthiest way to do that is to change what you eat.
We don’t really think of it, but the body is constantly at work running every system in the body: the digestive system, immune system, cardiovascular system, respiratory system and many others to keep us healthy. We tend to think of our bodies as static without any change, but that’s not true: the body is constantly breaking down the old and rebuilding new. For example, it replaces the entire skin every six to seven years, gives us all new red blood cells every 120 days, and it actually renews the lining of the entire digestive tract every three to four days.
Americans are speaking up about the importance of nutrition and of going against the grain in healthcare.
President-Elect Barack Obama has launched an interactive healthcare site
welcoming comments and ideas from people on what should be done to reform the U.S. healthcare system. There are already fifteen pages of comments, but on the first page alone, the importance of nutrition and some of the issues I raised about corn in previous posts — Corn Fed and Fat: The American Problem that is Spreading to Other Countries and “King Corn” A Must-See Film — have been raised.
Yesterday I wrote about scientific research that backs up the effectiveness of the components of my nutrition coaching programs. Today I include testimonials from a few clients who recently completed nutrition coaching programs with me. These clients agree with the science showing that nutrition coaching over the phone is effective for changing longstanding unhealthy eating habits to health-promoting ones!
National and international health organizations advise increasing fruit and vegetable intake to prevent and reduce chronic diseases, such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer. But getting people to change longstanding eating habits that are low in fruits and vegetables is challenging and often ineffective.
Numerous studies show that telephone counseling, especially regular telephone counseling over a concentrated period of several months, is effective at significantly increasing people’s fruit and vegetable intake and improving several health indicators. Ongoing written material and group support also offer positive effects in promoting and sustaining health-promoting eating habits. This research gives scientific justification to the components of my nutrition coaching programs, which have become the fastest-growing and most well-received nutrition services that I offer.
News Flash: I am now writing the monthly “Go Gluten Free” column for Better Nutrition, a complementary magazine distributed in natural food stores across the United States. You can look for it at a natural food store near you. The magazine ran my first column in its March issue – and I’ve already written the next several columns.
