You Are What You Eat - And A Whole Lot More

When I started out on my quest to learn as much as I could about nutrition, my focus was pretty much entirely on food.  And although food remains a major interest and passion, I came to learn that, when it comes to being as healthy as possible, there is a lot more to consider than just what you put on your plate.  When I began studying integrative nutrition, this was an entirely new concept to me, and to be honest, I resisted it a bit initially.  I was convinced that what a person eats and does not eat was the single most important factor in their health, and that everything else would fall into place after that was fixed.  As it turns out, this is not the case.

There are a couple of core concepts of integrative nutrition that are important to understand.  They are the concepts of bio-individuality and multi-dimensional health.  Now I know that terms like these have a tendency to make one's eyes glaze over but bear with me for a second because they are essential to consider if your mission is to truly be as healthy and well as possible.  Let's start with bio-individuality.

Basically, this just means that no two people are the same, and that what works for one person will not necessarily work for someone else.  This applies to food, lifestyle habits, physical activity, ways of dressing, preferred pets and dancing styles.  What makes me happy, healthy and well is different from what makes you happy, healthy and well, and that's bio-individuality. For example:  I personally think that running is life and can't imagine my life without it.  Others would rather do almost anything than run.  There are t-shirts out there that say "I Hate Running" for a reason.  Neither opinion is wrong and the running-haters have plenty of other options for their physical activity.

Similarly, when it comes to dietary habits, the way that people respond to food is as unique and individual as their fingerprints.  This means that prescribing a particular diet to someone will just not work.  Some people thrive on vegan diets.  For me, trying to eat vegan makes me crave carbs and gain weight. (I know that there are plenty of reasons outside of nutrition that people choose to follow a vegan diet and that's totally fine - we are not going down that road today)  Luckily for me, there are lots of options for healthy food that do not require avoiding animal protein.  Lucky for those who do not want to eat animal protein, the opposite is also true.  And that's bio-individuality!

The second core concept is multi-dimensional health which basically refers to the fact that your health and wellness are governed by a whole lot more than just the food on your plate.  For decades, we have studied parts of the world where people routinely live healthy, active lives well into their 90's and 100's.  (these parts of the world are known as "Blue Zones" - fascinating stuff)  The reason we study these places and people is to try to figure out what the magic bullet is that makes them so healthy.  Spoiler alert - there isn't one.  For a long time there, I was really hoping that it was wine - and I don't think I'm alone in that - but turns out, even though there are a lot of blue zones where drinking wine nightly is a regular practice, the wine is not the answer.  There are also blue zones where nobody drinks any alcohol at all.  

There is not some special common plant or root.  It's not green tea, it's not seaweed or something in the water or some kind of herb.  Its the way they live.  Granted, the general diet - although the actual foods vary by region - is fairly healthy, and involves eating locally available, seasonal whole foods.  Processed foods are not a thing.  Everything is cooked at home.  That is the basic food common denominator.  But sometimes, the diet contains a lot of bread, sometimes up to 4-5 glasses of wine a day, sometimes lots of butter and other sources of saturated fat.  And yet heart disease is almost non-existent.  Why?  Its the way they live.

If I drink 4 glasses of wine per night while sitting alone at home in front of my TV after an extremely stressful day at work where I sat at a desk under fluorescent lights with no window with no outlet for my stress and nothing to look forward to but more of the same the next day, it doesn't really matter if what I eat with that wine is raw kale. (it's more likely going to be an entire pizza but that's not the point here)  If this is my life, kale or no kale, I am not going to be healthy - and am probably on the road to a major alcohol problem if we're being honest.

(disclaimer:  this is not me, and this is not my life - I'm just using this as an example) 

On the flip side, if a person is drinking four glasses of wine per night after a day spent mostly outdoors and physically active, surrounded by people they love with more of the same to look forward to day after day, they can be eating almost anything - as long as its real food, cooked at home, and they are going to be healthy, vibrant and joyful.  Get the picture?  Considering the way that things other than food factor so significantly into overall health is what multi-dimensional health is all about.

By the way - I could go on and on forever about blue zones but if you want to get all of the fascinating details, check out Dan Buettner's incredible work here: 

 https://danbuettner.com/blue-zones/ 

He is the researcher and visionary who has dedicated his life to studying these regions and sharing what he's learned with the world.  It is well worth looking into his work.

So the point is, on your journey (and mine) to health and wellness, you have to consider all of the dimensions of health - physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.  The Institute for Integrative Nutrition has developed a tool that is helpful for evaluating where you're at with your multi-dimensional health.  It's called the Circle of Life Tool and it looks like this:

 The way to use this tool is to consider where you are at in each of the areas of the circle of life.  Place a dot on the corresponding line of each area of the circle of life depending on how you feel you are doing in that area.  The better you feel you are doing, the farther out on the line you would place your dot.  Although its pretty much impossible, if you were perfect in all areas, your dots would be on the outer edge of the circle and a perfect circle is what you would have.  Most people will end up with kind of a spiky star shape with some dots close to the outside in the areas where things are going well, and some dots are near the center in the areas that might need some attention.

Each of these areas are included in the Circle of Life because they are known to have a significant impact on your overall health and well-being.  So take a moment to consider where you are at in each of these areas.  Definitely celebrate the areas where you are doing great, but also consider that focusing on the areas where things are not so great might be worthwhile as well.  Even small steps taken to improve those areas can have a big impact on your health and well-being overall!