What’s Your Why? (Now… What’s Your Why Not?)
What’s Your Why?
Mine is Alzheimer’s disease.
In my 20s, it was my stomach issues; in my 30s, maybe it was supporting fertility or reducing headaches. My why has changed over the years for sure. But now, no question, preventing Alzheimer’s disease is my number one why when it comes to how I eat. I saw my mother’s decline because of the disease, watched her spirit disappear over the course of 10 years, and experienced first hand how difficult it is to care for someone with Alzheimer’s.
So, yeah, if there’s anything I can do to prevent my own family from having to go through the same thing, I’ll do it. And science has shown that you can reduce your risk of Alzheimer’s and boost your brain health simply by changing the way you eat. So why wouldn't I?
Your turn. What’s your why? What’s the first thing that pops into your head? Is it Alzheimer’s prevention like me? Or maybe one of these:
Energy
Gut/stomach problems
Persistent indigestion
Heart health
Diabetes prevention
Weight loss or gain
Healthy aging
Playing with your kids or grandkids
Metabolic or hormonal issues
Improving exercise performance
Mood
Behavior in children and adolescents
I could go on, but you get the idea. As I’ve said before, every system in your body is affected by what you eat.
So, do you know what eating for brain health has to do with eating for heart health?
Everything.
And do you know what those have in common with eating for diabetes prevention, healthy weight loss, mood, gut health? Same answer. Just about everything. There’s no one magic way of eating to reduce heart disease risk and then another secret for energy, and another one for healthy aging. They all involve essentially the same foundational principles.
Before I go on, it's really important to note that this doesn’t mean the solution is exactly the same for everyone.
Holistic nutrition is all about focusing on each person’s unique needs to develop a personalized approach to eating. It’s about finding the root cause of a client’s issue and addressing it nutritionally. I’m not going to take the same approach with a teen who has trouble focusing or wants to improve athletic performance as I would with a 30-something woman who has digestive complaints. But, at the core of reaching any goal through nutrition is a whole foods diet.
Does that mean a highly restrictive solution? No way.
Does it mean trying new foods or a new approach? Yeah, probably. But, is what you’re doing now working?
Does it mean retraining your palate to actually crave healthy foods? Hell yes. Truthfully, that’s the best part. It's easier than you imagine, with the right guidance.
And, it becomes even easier when you know deep down why you’re doing it. It changes the dialogue from “I can’t eat this” to “I want to achieve THAT and this is how I’m going to do it.”
What’s Your Why Not?
Now that I’ve got you thinking about your why, let’s look at the flip side. The why not.
Most people have thought about changing their eating habits at some point – probably more than once. For some people, that’s as far as they get. That’s when they begin to think of all the reasons NOT to do it.
I’m too busy to think about it.
I'm overwhelmed and don't know what to believe.
It’ll take too much time.
My family won’t be on board.
I can’t afford it.
I’ll never be able to eat [fill in the blank] again.
I’ll have to live on salad.
I’ve tried before and it didn’t work.
Here, again, I could go on, but you get the idea. Did any of those jump out at you?
A lot of them probably seem hard to overcome. But, think about the times that you worked around obstacles because you really wanted what was on the other side. You carved out the time for date nights. You invested in the vacation. You put fear aside and went for it.
What would it look like to put those why not thoughts aside for the short term in order to get the lifelong benefit of a healthy diet? To really go after your why by putting it at the top of the priority list? To finally get the results you’ve wanted?
So, spend some time thinking about your why this week. You do that, and let me be your how.
