The Big Picture of Wellness Series – Step 4 – Nutrition

Nutrition is just one part of the multi-dimensional plan that we offer for holistic wellness. Did you know that every food choice is an opportunity to directly shape and remake your health? The foods you select to consume today can directly impact how you feel tomorrow. Eating healthy benefits the mind, body and spirit, allowing you to experience life to its fullest.

HEALTHY EATING
Let's get motivated with a few healthy eating quotes.

"Every time you eat is an opportunity to nourish your body." -Unknown

"A little nudge in a new direction leads to a vastly different food destination." -Sarah Pullen

"I can't control everything in my life, but I can control what I put in my body." -Unknown

Even if you've made poor choices on the types of nutrition you've put into your body in the past, it's not too late to choose healthy habits for your future self.

Why is nutrition important?
As just one aspect to improving your overall well-being, the nutrients you put into your body can help to reduce stress, let you sleep better, reduce the number of toxins in your body, improve your workouts and even help you to look better.

You've probably heard the phrase eat to live don't live to eat, but what does it mean? All food isn't created equal. No matter what we choose to put in our bodies, food is communication that tells our bodies how to perform. Food can make you feel good or bad or happy or sad. The healthiest foods will enhance your life performance while less nutrient-rich options can actually produce harm with consequences that can truly affect you for years.

The food we eat sends signals throughout our bodies to make hormones, which can be beneficial or harmful to our overall wellness. For example, processed foods or those high in sugar or trans fats can elevate cortisol levels in the body. Although this fight-or-flight stress hormone has some benefits, high levels over a long period of time can lead to chronic health issues such as cardiovascular disease, weakened immune function and metabolic disorders that could lead to an early demise.

On the other hand, healthy eating benefits your body by producing necessary hormones that help with many bodily functions, such as your ability to sleep well and metabolize fats while nourishing your organs to work the way that they should. Food also triggers immune system function, helping to reduce harmful inflammation and allowing your body to fight off microbial invasions and infections.

Benefits of Healthy Eating
Eating the right foods can benefit your body, especially when you use these foods in combination with our other holistic methods. Eating a healthy, balanced diet can help you to lose or maintain weight, fend off cardiovascular disease and diabetes, reduce your risk of developing certain types of cancer and prevent nutrient deficiencies. You'll look better, feel better and have more energy to complete your daily tasks.

Here's just a little bit on how nutrition fits in with the other aspects of our multi-dimensional program that will improve your overall health:

• Stress management: When you eat too much of the wrong foods, your stress levels increase along with cortisol levels. Alternately, excessive or long-term stress can lead to emotional eating, which may cause you to binge or choose unhealthy foods. When you manage your stress, you're more likely to select and prepare foods that a re more beneficial to your body.
• Good sleep: Eating foods high in fat, sugar or caffeine or those low in fiber can dramatically impact the quality of your sleep. You might find yourself waking up regularly during the night, which can cause you to feel tired and fatigued the next day. Likewise, when you don't get enough quality sleep, you're more likely to gain weight because hormone levels may cause you to overeat and even crave less nutritious, high-calorie foods.
• Water: Drinking enough water is crucial to a nutritious diet. Water carries the essential nutrients from the foods you eat to the cells where they're needed. There are times when you may think you're hungry, but it's actually your body's way of telling you that you're thirsty. Before grabbing for an unhealthy snack, try drinking a cup or two of water, and see if that does the trick.
• Nutrients and gut health: Science is proving that there's a connection between the gut and the brain as well as other systems within your body. When your gut is unhealthy, intestinal flora sends instructions that kick off a chemical chain reaction that causes you to crave unhealthy foods that these potentially harmful microbes need to survive. On the other hand, a balance of beneficial gut flora causes you to want to eat healthier foods that better sustain them. When you make better food choices, you can starve out harmful microbes and increase the levels of beneficial flora in your gut biome.
• Toxins: Your body stores toxins from unhealthy food and your environment. When you make healthier choices in the foods you eat, the nutrients can help rid your body of these toxins. A buildup of toxins in your body can make you crave the wrong types of foods as well.
• Fitness: The right workout regimen can help you to lose fat, get stronger and improve your health. However, you need to eat the right foods to get the most out of your exercise. Remember, it's easy to out eat your workout, which can be a waste of your hard-earned efforts. A fit body will allow you to do the things you enjoy with less effort and for sustained periods of time.
• Recover: Whether recovering from an illness or injury, the right nutrients from the foods you eat can promote healing so that you recover faster.
• Aesthetics: Even if you're undertaking multiple beauty treatments, it's true that beauty comes from within. A healthy diet helps your body composition, provides antioxidants to counter damage from the environment and even helps the body to to produce collagen to slow the signs of aging for a glowing complexion.
• Accountability: No one's going to make your choices for you, so you need to be accountable for your food choices along with the other measures we listed. When you stay accountable to what you put into your body, you can take pride in knowing that you're caring for yourself in the best way possible.

FOOD AND CHRONIC DISEASE
Although genetics, lifestyle choices and environment have an impact on whether or not you develop certain medical problems, science is now finding a definitive link between diet and health. Food can heal or kill.

Food as medicine
Because your body needs certain nutrients to thrive, it's no wonder that food can be useful in the management, treatment and even the prevention of certain diseases and conditions. Healing foods nourish your body with essential nutrients to reduce problem-causing inflammation and prevent you from becoming deficient. One of the benefits of healthy eating is the possibility to live a longer, more fruitful life.

Junk food and earlier death
Research shows that eating an unbalanced diet that's high in processed foods, sugar and fat can decrease your life span. If you choose unhealthy options over food that fuels your body, you're at a higher risk of developing health conditions such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, obesity, coronary artery disease, osteoporosis and certain types of cancer.

Meal planning
We firmly believe in the power of meal planning to help you reach your wellness and weight-loss goals. You'll enjoy the benefits of eating healthy without the hassle of wondering what to eat day by day. We prescribe professionally created meal plans to Studio Figura ATL clients.

Our individualized meal plans aren't just a single step in your overall wellness journey. These plans are designed to work in concert with the other aspects of our program. If necessary, we'll recommend supplements to enhance your diet for the long-term wellness benefits you expect to receive.

Snacks
We don't want you to suffer with hunger while you're losing weight. Where applicable, we can even include snacks in your meal plan. Eating in between meals can be especially beneficial if you suffer from metabolic issues, such as diabetes, to keep y our energy levels up and your blood sugar stable. However, you must choose your snacks wisely.

We know how difficult it can be to cut out sugar all at once, so you might want to try adding more fruits to your diet. The natural sugars found in fruits can trick your taste buds, giving you a sweet treat while providing essential nutrients and fiber.

Here are some of the best fruits for weight loss:

• Berries are low-calorie, nutrient-rich power bombs. They can help you to feel full while providing you with lots of vitamins and can reduce blood pressure, cholesterol and inflammation. Berries can even help your skin to stay younger looking.
• Almost three times as filling as typical bars of chocolate, apples are high in fiber to help you stay satisfied between meals. Natural compounds found in apples can also lower cholesterol and help your body to burn fat.
• Grapefruit and grapefruit juice can help you to feel fuller, eat less and lower cholesterol. If you're taking certain medications that prevent you from having this fruit, we won't include it in your meal plan.
• Another power bomb comes in the form of kiwi. This high-fiber fruit is stock full of vitamins and keeps your gut healthy, helping you to shed fat.
• Pineapple has lots of vitamins and minerals, making it a nutrient-dense choice for snacking or including in meals. Great for weight loss, pineapple also helps to lower blood pressure, helps with diabetes and improves the condition of your skin and hair.
• Watermelon is full of fiber to help you feel full while giving your body essential nutrients. With a high water content, this fruit can fill in the gap a little if you're not keeping up with your fluid intake.
• If you're looking for a fruit that can help with weight loss, with better sleep and against the damaging effects of stress, tart cherries fit the bill. With high levels of antioxidants, tart cherries also help balance your metabolism and reduce cholesterol.
• Twice as filling as processed granola bars, oranges are full of fiber to help you stay full for longer. Choose the whole fruit over the juice to enjoy the weight-loss benefits.

Are you ready to get started? Since health is wealth, now is the time to begin. Studio Figura ATL is your nutrition coach to help you become the healthiest fittest strongest version of you.

• SAY YES TO YOU!: Our Feed Life -  Eat To Live Program is a Lifestyle Diet and Nutrition Program that includes access to our nifty Evolution Nutrition App that provides 4,200+ Meal Plans covering 21 Diet Category Types. With commitment and determination, you will catapult into a new lifestyle of better nutrition, energy and ultimate body image. Learn more?
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  Stress management and good sleep are two of the most critical components of a healthy lifestyle and keys to wellness. Stay tuned for the next steps in our Big Picture of Wellness Series!