April 2005 Issue
HELP! I am so confused about what to eat. Every year as I teach the various diets in our curriculum, I can't help but tinker with each one. In the fall it's macrobiotics and raw foods, which is perfect for me at that time. In winter, I get more into animal foods, then right about this time of year, I usually go: what am I doing?
I believe eating is really just a food experiment. If you find yourself being confused about what to eat, keep experimenting. Your body will tell you. Diet is not about finding the right food, but more about discovering what works and what doesn't work for you. The diet that worked for you when you were twenty will be much different than the diet that works for you when you are forty. The perfect breakfast before a busy workday will be different than the perfect breakfast on a relaxing Sunday morning.
Americans are currently abandoning their own innate intelligence about food and diet for the current trends and the latest best-selling books. There is no book that will tell you what you should be doing with your diet and your life. You don't rely on somebody to tell you what music to like or what sex is best. But for some reason many of us buy into the idea that Dr. so and so will know what we should eat.
At Integrative Nutrition we ask our students what food works for them and teach them to do the same with their clients. It's a refreshing alternative to dogmatic diets, with strict lists of "good" and "bad" foods. Our philosophy is founded on a great respect for the individual, with his or her ancestry, conditions at birth, current lifestyle as well as hopes and dreams taken into consideration. Healthy eating is based on biochemical individuality, and while theories may be helpful, there is no one right way of eating that works for everyone.
Developing a relationship with your body, and learning how to listen to the messages it gives you about what foods work and what foods don't work is key to your health. And when you find it, you must know that it may eventually change and must learn to enjoy the process of discovering what works for you. The only constant in life is change and this constant change is what makes living so fun and exciting.
Joshua Rosenthal,
MScEd
Founder and Director
