Often I see clients who have been told they are at risk of serious health consequences if they don’t change their diet and lifestyle. Do they need to eat a special diet? Not really. I would recommend following similar nutrition guidelines for most people, whether it be for weight loss, depression, lowering cholesterol or blood glucose, lowering inflammation in the body, increasing energy, or just feeling better about themselves.
 
The same principles apply and I’ll set them out below:

• Eat real food. Avoid / limit packaged, processed food of low nutrient quality. Real food should go off if not stored properly or kept too long. The exceptions would be tinned foods like legumes, tomatoes, etc and some dried foods.
• Drink water, not fizzy drinks, juice, or drinks with an ingredient list on the container. 
• Limit / avoid added sugars. Sugar is very inflammatory in the body and refined sugar provides nothing that your body needs.
• Eat a large amount of vegetables every day. Lunch and dinner. Eat a small amount of fruit daily.
• Limit alcohol.
• Eat good fats, like nuts, natural nut butters, seeds, avocado and cold pressed oils in small amounts each day.
• Eat protein with each meal and snack.
• Watch portion size. Eating too much of the right food will still lead to weight gain if you exceed what your body can use
• Diet is arguably the single-most important factor that determines our health. The quality of the food we eat and most importantly, the nutrients it contains, is what determines whether we simply survive, or thrive.

If you stop and think for a minute, you will realise that our body can only be made from what goes in our mouths.  Our cells are constantly turning over, dying off and being replaced. These new cells have to be made from the building materials that we provide.  Eat a poor quality diet and eventually you may get a poor quality health outcome.