Food Foundations: Building Habits You Enjoy

What and when we eat matters.

What we eat and when we eat matters. But here's the good news. We all still have much room to personalize. You can tailor it to work for you. To build habits you enjoy.

No one diet works for everyone. Despite sharing fundamentals as a starting point, we all have a unique profile based on:

• Our genes - how they respond to what we eat,

• Our health status - weight, insulin resistance, chronic or acute conditions,

• Our life right now - what's actually doable at this point in time!

The diet wars distract us from the fundamentals. My goal is for all you readers to tap into your curiosity and experiment - discover the basics to what works for you. Discover which foods keep you more energized and satiated so you don't crash, don't overeat, and do feel more focused.

There is no need to go hungry. There is no need to count calories. Just find your best eating pattern.

The Quick Version

1. Eat mostly whole foods

Swap refined starches - most bread, pasta, crackers, or baked goods - for their whole food equivalents. Eat whole fruit, not juice. Once digested, refined starches and juices are like mainlining sugar.

2. Limit highly processed foods

If the ingredient list reads like a chemistry lab, put it back. Growing evidence links ultra-processed foods to harm in your gut microbiome - especially the good bacteria we want to keep.

3. Eat mostly plants

Feed the good guys in your gut. They need variety to produce the fatty acids our used to make use of our food. Think rainbow colors, fiber, and a wide mix of vegetables, fruits, herbs, spices, nuts, and seeds.

Animal protein? Your call. In modest amounts, it fits comfortably within these principles. Fish even better than land meats (excluding large, long lived fish like Tuna which store more toxins) .

4. Choose healthy fats

Extra virgin olive oil, avocado, nuts, and seeds are your go-to sources. Salmon and other oily fish are good for Omega 3 fats.

5. Food first, supplements second

Supplements support a good diet — they don't fix a poor one. Unless there's a specific medical reason, food comes first.

6. Timing matters (this one surprises people)

Aligning your meals with your circadian rhythm can have be leveraged and have serious positive benefits without even changing what you eat. Ideally, we want to...

• Avoid eating 2–3 hours before bed - digestion competes with (pre-empts) restorative deep sleep.

• Aim for at least 10–12 hours between your last meal of the day and your first of the next day - time for your body to rest, repair, and restore.

• Eat breakfast at a consistent time - helps reinforce sleep patterns.

  
  

Knowing Your Whole Foods

Here are a few quick tips for identifying whole foods:

• Whole fruits - not juiced; a fruit bowl over a smoothie when possible

• Whole grains - not grain-derived products like most crackers, bread or baked goods.

• Meat in its natural form - not restructured with additives (most sausages, deli meats, and bacon don't qualify)

• Not this → Restructured foods with unrecognizable ingredients. Pringles chips are a textbook example

The line between whole foods, acceptable processing and ultra-processed foods us a hot topic but nicely simplified with this Harvard Resource. I found the short summaries and additional detail helpful.

Additional Resources

The Nutrition Playbook has links to the experts for more detail if you want to go deeper now. Quick bytes to deep dives.

Coming soon: Translating Food Principles to Practice.

Bon Appétit,

Janice