Hello!
Welcome to Monday.
Today we’re talking about an important nutritional concept that will help you lose weight - eating single-ingredient foods. This is a simple way to make eating well easier.
Before we get started, I want to say thank you to everyone who picked up a copy of The Optimal Health Blueprint! The launch was very successful, and I’m so excited for everyone to dive into the content and start changing their lives.
If you haven’t got access yet, you can get it here:
https://www.ashleyrichmond.net/blueprint
Now let's dive into why eating single-ingredient foods is so important and how you can implement this strategy in your life.
Importance
Nutrition is confusing.
And diets are hard work. They’re unpleasant, they’re hard to stick to, and we spend way too much time thinking and stressing about the foods we’re eating.
Nutrition becomes even more challenging when we're away from our normal routines, are traveling, and/or are just bored with our current way of eating.
Unfortunately, if you want to see results from your nutrition, you need to stay consistent with it.
But you don’t even need to be on a diet to achieve good health. In fact, you can eat a wide range of food and still be healthy.
This is where the concept of single-ingredient foods comes in - you can apply this concept to completely take any confusion and hard work out of your nutrition.
If you’re eating high-quality foods, weight loss becomes easy. Your body is more than capable of balancing calories naturally if you’re nourishing it with high quality food.
"Why not simplify your life and let your body balance [calories] for you by eating as much as you want, whenever you are hungry, as long as it’s high-quality food the body is designed to digest?... The single most important part of living a sane lifestyle is eating no less than ten servings of nonstarchy vegetables per day.... Eating at least three 30 to 55 g servings of high-quality and nutrient-dense protein per day is the second most important aspect of our lifestyle.” - Jonathan Bailor, The Calorie Myth
The most powerful aspect of this protocol is that it makes food choices an easy yes/no. Is this food made up of multiple ingredients? If yes, don't eat it. If no, eat it. You can’t get nutrition wrong if you follow this one idea.
Similarly, you can apply this to any dietary restrictions. This works for vegetarians, with allergies and intolerances, as well as religious dietary restrictions.
It's extremely flexible while still ensuring you're eating good food that will nourish your body.
The reason why this strategy is so powerful is that it ensures we’re eating in alignment with how humans have evolved to eat. Think about what humans would have eaten 4000 years ago. It would have been what they could find around them - animals, eggs, seeds, nuts, fruit, and vegetables.
Eating in alignment with how we were built to eat is the easiest key to success. This is how you lose weight without going on a diet or spending hours in the gym.
“The combination of the two - decreasing calorie intake or purposefully increasing physical activity - is an especially unpleasant experience and an effort that requires monumental willpower to follow, as it generates ravenous, intense hunger. This last painful strategy, by the way, typically results in dramatic reductions in metabolic rate and loss of muscle mass, both of which further booby trap any genuine effort at fat loss.” - William Davis
Implementation
There are 3 key points you need to understand:
1. Eat single-ingredient foods as much as possible.Single-ingredient foods are foods as they come in nature. Meat, fruit, vegetables, nuts, dairy (for the most part), rice, and eggs. If you can form the base of your diet with these, you’ll be doing pretty well.
2. Caveat: You can combine single-ingredient foods. Don't think you need to eat chicken, potatoes, and carrots separately. You can combine these to make a soup. The idea is that the foundation of your diet is made of foods that have not been modified. If it has an ingredient list, avoid it. If you put a bunch of single-ingredient foods together, eat it.
3. Don’t stress about what you eat — stress can be just as unhealthy as junk food. Remember, biology works in averages. It’s what you do most of the time that matters the most. As long as most of your meals are healthy, you’re okay. It’s okay to eat cake and pizza sometimes.
Before You Go
Whenever you’re ready, here are 4 ways I can help you:
1. Are you a business owner or executive with a hectic schedule?Do you want to put your health on autopilot so you can perform better at work and have more energy for your family? Fill out this application form to apply for my 1:1 health and fitness consulting program.
2. Join the FREE Facebook community.Connect with like-minded individuals, get support, and learn more about how you can optimize your health and fitness.
3. Read my articles.I post articles on a regular basis on Medium. Learn more about how you can improve your health and create a fulfilling and meaningful life.
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4. Get access to The Optimal Health Blueprint online course.Discover the proven system to optimize your health and reach your full potential. Get the step-by-step framework for transforming your health with research-backed systems.