You can't fix your health, until you fix your diet.

When I am in front of a corporate group or an individual, one of the high mileage questions I always ask is:

" What is the one thing that you think you should do to have a positive impact on your health?"

 

Ninety-five percent of the time the answer is "exercise more." I sigh and say that is a good idea, but what about what is on your plate? What does your breakfast, lunch and dinner plate look like as you sit here today? Ask yourself:

1. How much green is on your plate? (collard greens, swiss chard, arugula, kale, romaine)
2. How much animal is on your plate? ( do you eat meat at every meal?)
3. How much dairy are you consuming and is it high quality dairy? (organic whole or factory skim)
4. Are there any raw foods in your diet? (sprouts, raw juice, veggies)
5. Can you name any Super Foods? (cacao, kelp, hemp seeds, chia seeds etc.)
6. How about carbohydrate? Are they good or bad, and do you know the difference?
7. What do you consider a good fat? What good fats do you eat for optimal neurological function?
8. How much cheese do you eat? (have you ever tried raw milk cheese?)
9. Do you prepare for meals or do you just let them come at you without any thought until you  look at the restaurant menu? (Have you considered taking your lunch to work instead of buying everyday?)
10. Are you in restaurants a larger percentage of the time than you are in your own kitchen?

The truth is, you will lose weight in your kitchen not at the gym, by managing your plate not the weights.

I site this US New & World Report column by Yoni Freedhoff, MD.

"Looking at real-world studies of exercise and its impact on weight, the results are underwhelming to say the least. Take this 2007 study published in the journal Obesity. Researchers instructed 196 men and women to exercise an hour a day, six days a week, for a year! And researchers weren't just telling people to exercise, they were supervising them and instructing them as well.

Compliance was incredible – only seven study dropouts – and over the course of the year, men averaged 6.16 hours of weekly exercise, and women, 4.9 hours. So did the 320 hours of exercise for the men and the 254 hours for the women lead to weight loss? Yes, but probably less than you might have guessed. Men lost, on average, 3.5 pounds, and women, 2.6. That translates to 91.5 hours of exercise per pound lost.

Now, to be very clear, there is likely nothing better for your health than exercise – truly nothing. There's no pill you can take and no food you can include or avoid that will give you the health benefits of regular exercise. I exercise regularly, and I strongly encourage all of my patients to do so as well. But I also tell them that they can't outrun their forks"

Nothing more to say.

Yoni Freedhoff, MD, is an assistant professor of family medicine at the University of Ottawa, where he's the founder and medical director of the Bariatric Medical Institute—dedicated to non-surgical weight management since 2004. Dr. Freedhoff sounds off daily on his award-winning blog, Weighty Matters, and you can follow him on Twitter. Dr. Freedhoff's latest book, The Diet Fix: Why Everything You've Been Taught About Dieting is Wrong and the 10-Day Plan to Fix It, will be published by Random House's Crown/Harmony in 2014.

To Your Best Health,

Denise R. Lovat

Certified Health Coach, AADP

"Change Your Life with Food"

If you would like to learn how to eat simply and healthy and make major changes, not only in your diet and nutrition, but other areas of your life, email me at deniselovathealthcoach@gmail.com.