The first days of warmth and sunshine are almost here, and with those come motivation and inspiration for many. It is a time of renewal and revival in more ways than one. It’s a great time to clean up one’s diet and shed excess body fat. There are a variety of dietary approaches today in which one can use for their spring cleanup. Whether one chooses a balanced approach of protein, carbs and fats, or chooses a higher protein, higher fat, no-carb KETO approach, the important factor in any plan is that one consumes clean, organic, non-processed, non-GMO food selections. Our society is poisoning itself with over-processed genetically modified items that contribute to inflammation, digestive disorders, and cellular damage. The consuming of genetically modified “food” items primarily inflames the digestive tract, severely limiting the proper absorption of vital minerals and vitamins. The deficiencies that the lack of vitamins and minerals creates leads to other problems beyond digestive disorders, such as thyroid disfunction and other endocrine disorders, as well as blood sugar problems, and an overall depletion of the nutrients that keep our cell walls healthy and strong. Nutrition, on a cellular level, is the preservation of the integrity of the individual cells that make up our bodies.
Our bodies function best when we consume naturally occurring foods in the correct portions, and at the correct times of day. When I say “naturally occurring,” I am referring to foods that occur naturally in nature. These foods are not processed. It is how they occur in nature. A string bean is a string bean. A yam is a yam. A fish is a fish. You may have heard the suggestion to shop only in the outer aisles at the grocery store because that is where we mainly find these naturally occurring food items: produce, fish, meats, and eggs. I recently heard this perfectly stated phrase: “If grocery stores have a ‘health food aisle,’ what’s in all the other aisles?” I encourage you to be selective with the foods that you put into your body. I use organic foods and grow much of our own vegetables and herbs from organic seeds each spring, summer, and autumn. I will provide you with some categorized clean food items for you to consider. If it’s not on my list, I personally would not eat it. Here are the top foods on my list:
PROTEIN
Fish: basa, cod, flounder, halibut, mako shark, orange roughy, red snapper, salmon, sea bass, striped bass, swordfish, tuna steak, and tuna fish.
Poultry: chicken, turkey, goose, pheasant, quail
Beef: flank steak, skirt steak, filet mignon, grass-fed ground beef, London broil, veal
Other Game: bison, lamb chop, pork chop, venison
Eggs
VEGETABLES
Artichoke hearts, arugula, asparagus, avocado, broccoli, broccoli rabe, butternut squash, cabbage, cauliflower, celery, cucumber, garlic, kale, mushrooms, onions, peppers, romaine lettuce, spaghetti squash, spinach, squash, string beans, Swiss chard, zucchini.
CARBOHYDRATES
Chickpeas, sweet potato, yam, red skin potato, brown rice, barley, quinoa, steel cut oatmeal.
NUTS/NUT BUTTER
Almonds, cashews, peanuts, walnuts, pecans, coconut, almond butter, peanut butter, cashew butter, sunflower seeds, sun butter (sunflower seed butter).
The post Clean Up Your Diet: Best Healthy Foods first appeared on FitnessRX for Women.
