Follow these nutritional principals.

9 min read

“Eat what flies in the sky, roams on the land, swims in the sea, falls from a tree and grows from under the ground.”

Nutrition, just like Movement, Training, Self-Therapy, Meditation, and Goal Setting, has a process and an end goal. In this article, you will learn about assimilation, elimination, detoxification, regeneration, fat loss, short and long term fasting, nutrient density, calorie counting vs macronutrient counting and more.

There are two perspectives most people view nutrition with. One way is to examine different physical mechanisms and decide how best to manipulate them for your goal. A second way is to have a philosophical framework that dictates the way you eat.

The best way to understand nutrition is to isolate it.

This means, to look at nutrition without it in relation to exercise, disease, recovery, etc. It is most important to first understand the nature of the mechanisms that nutrition operates within. For example, hydration is a mechanism and depending on how much you sweat your hydration levels will be different. But when you understand how hydration works in your body you can then make choices depending on the circumstance.

The problem with having a nutritional philosophy is that people make emotional choices when mechanical choices are most appropriate. Such as drinking a gallon of water every day because the ‘trainer’ at the gym said so, and not because your body actually needs it.

Quick Takeaway

Before we start and to keep things super simple. We all should eat; meats, fish, birds, eggs, vegetables, fruits, nuts, oils and root vegetables. We should not eat; grains, oats, wheat, barley, dairy, soy, chemically and hormonally enhanced food, preservatives, or alcohol.

For a detailed list of foods to consume and foods to avoid you can view these guides and for scientific lectures explaining the mechanisms these foods affect, view this link.

*In later articles, we will discuss more details on each of the following topics.

Assimilation

The first thing that matters when understanding nutrition is how our bodies break down and absorb the foods we eat. This process starts when we see, smell and think about food. Our bodies assimilate the food in our mouths, stomach, and GI tract. Simply, when we eat we have to get the stuff out of the food that our bodies will use. This means when we eat our bodies will assimilate the ‘healthy’ and ‘harmful’ components of the food we consume.

Elimination

After we consume food our body’s must digest and excrete what our bodies do not assimilate and absorb. This is done by urination and defecation. It is important that when you urinate the color of your urine is clear to light yellow at least once within a 48 hour time period. It is also equally important that you have a well-formed bowel movement (stool) every 12 to 36 hours. There is some person to person differences in these time periods, but generally, these are good targets to adhere too.

Detoxification

Our bodies are partially run by a collection of organs. These organs naturally self-regulate even when we abuse them. It is possible that over time and with enough abuse we can overload and overwork them. This chronically overworked state can change the makeup of organs, and cause less than optimal levels of toxicity and ‘suffocate’ their natural constitution. The most efficient way to reverse an organ’s state is to modify the environment it exists in. The most natural and effective way to do so is by fasting, usually with water, minerals, and select fatty acids and amino acids, and with select medicines to stimulate specific organs to purge whatever harmful substances have been absorbed. The detoxification process is both personal and should be done with blood, urine, stool and saliva tracking and with medical supervision. As an aside, detoxifying organs takes weeks, months or years. It can not be done by drinking a powder or shake once or twice a week in between normal eating patterns.

Regeneration

In order to regenerate our bodies, we need to consume necessary and specific vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, amino acids, and antioxidants. Depending on what is depleted in the body, the regeneration process has the potential to re-establish an optimal constitution of tissues. Regeneration, like detoxification, should be done with blood, urine, stool and saliva tracking, in order to intake the necessary levels of food and medicine to make the correct change. Without assessing the physical body from the inside there is no way of knowing the correct protocols and dosages to regenerate the specific tissues being targeted. For the general population and those at the beginning of their nutritional journey, consuming foods from typical grocers will be sufficient for making positive regeneration changes. People with specific goals should connect with a medical provider who is able to assist in the tracking process.

Fat Loss

Fat loss occurs when our metabolic energy requirements are fueled by stored body fat and not from the calories we consume or the stored carbohydrates/glucose or proteins/amino acids. By isolating nutrition and not discussing fat loss in conjunction with exercise, it is easier to comprehend which physical mechanisms control fat loss and fat storage. Naturally, our bodies store fat as a future fuel source during periods of famine. Meaning biologically we are designed to store all calories possible from the food sources we consume. In order to induce fat loss, we must manipulate or biology by only consuming the correct amount of calories i.e. energy that our bodies need to function. Any excess calories/energy we consume will be stored in our bodies until our storage sites are full, forced to grow, and or the excess calories/energy ‘leaks’ into areas in our bodies causing harm.

Short and Long Term Fasting

Fasting is an essential tool for discovering more about the body. By fasting, you force the body to use fuel from stored sources. Fasting also cleans the GI tract, normalizes blood sugars and increases insulin sensitivity. Fasting induces the cellular recycling and cleaning process, and fasting tests how far you are from ketosis and your ability to use fat as a fuel. BARUCHealth recommends you first follow the Phase 1 and Phase 2 nutrition guides before beginning your fasting research. Fasting should always be done with medical supervision. And fasting is natural because if there were no grocers we would all fast regularly between periods of famine.

Nutrient Density

Eating foods that have the most amount of nutrients and calories/energy packed into the smallest area of volume is essential. The most nutrient dense food sources come from animals, fruits, vegetables, and nuts. By eating these foods you can consume the least amount of food necessary to fuel your body, and simultaneously induce the least amount of stress on your body from assimilation and elimination. This is key because excess stress to the body and organs is the enemy to health, vitality, and longevity.

Calorie Counting vs Macronutrient Counting

There are multiple sources of energy/calories that fuel our bodies. Each source of energy/calories has a different effect on our bodies. Sources include fat, carbohydrate, protein, alcohol/ethanol and others. Because each type of calorie source has a different effect on our bodies, only counting calories for nutritional purposes is not enough. In order to manipulate our diet for specific goals, the source of energy must be tracked. Depending on your goal you will need to consume different amounts of each energy/calorie source. In order to know which types of sources you should consume, view these guides.

Eating For Health vs Eating For Performance

In order to fuel performance, you must eat in excess of your basic energy requirements. The problem with eating for performance is that the more you consume the more work your body and organs must do to assimilate and eliminate the food. The long-term effect of this is harmful to your physical health and is why choosing the way you train is vital to your overall health and longevity. It is impossible to simultaneously train for performance and eat for health. This is why it is most important to first isolate your nutrition and understand how much you need to consume, and also achieve the physical state necessary for short and long-term fasting. Then once you establish a baseline, you will be able to react to specific training stressors and understand when your training is causing a harmful physical response.

Never Plan To ‘Cheat’

BARUCHealth does not promote ‘moderation’ or the 80/20 rule or 90/10 or whichever ratio is currently trending. If it is unhealthy it is always unhealthy. Yes, sometimes people eat unhealthy things. It will happen, but if you break the rules frequently enough it will change the outcome of your plan. Planning to eat ‘crap’ every day as discretionary calories, or once a week as a cheat day/meal is philosophically short sighted. Again, there will be times when you go to a new restaurant and you want to try a totally unique dish… But every weekend needing to ‘taste’ the cake or worse yet drink beers and eat pizza, means you are not subscribing to a health first philosophy.

Wrapping Up

Nutrition is all about the personal process and developing sensitivity to what is happening within your body.
BARUCHealth Nutrition is designed to take you from eating whatever you want to experiencing higher levels of sensitivity in your own body, and then learning how to react to your body’s needs.

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