The Simple and Easy Path to Nutritional Excellence

My Top Ten Tips for Easing the Transition

Basically it all boils down to one brief sentence:

Try to get the vast majority of your daily calories from

whole, unrefined plant-based foods.

That's really all you need to know to eat a powerful, health-promoting diet that will deliver vibrant health now, prevent & reverse many chronic diseases, and will likely keep you out of the old nursing home. There are many challenges associated with adopting this simple, health-promoting diet, but the benefits far outweigh the temporary negatives and with a little coaching, it's not that hard to get there. Here are my top ten tips for easing the transition to this wonderful way of life:

1. Eat as much as you want of whole, plant-based foods...preferably in nature's package (vegetables, fruits, grains, legumes, nuts and seeds).

2. Since green vegetables are the most nutrient-dense foods, try to maximize your consumption of them every day...and try to eat lots of them raw.

3. Depending on your activity and metabolism, make sure you get enough calories to keep you going between meals...the easiest way to do this is to add more whole starch foods to your diet (foods like brown rice, potatoes, oatmeal, beans, corn, wild rice, or sweet potatoes)

4. Vegetables and fruits have the most nutrients, but will digest very quickly and leave you hungry within just a very few hours if you don't get enough of the items in #3.

5. You will never have to count calories as your body will tell you when you are not getting enough. Just experiment and add more of the starches until you find that you are comfortable throughout the day.

6. Try to get at least 50% of your calories from these whole, plant-based foods. An optimal, health-promoting diet will contain over 80% from these nutritious foods and will automatically deliver over 60 grams of fiber per day...from whole foods. The S.A.D. delivers less than 10 grams of fiber per day from these kinds of foods.

7. Minimize or avoid completely all animal products (including fish, eggs, milk, yogurt & cheese), chips, fried foods, cakes, added sugar, & sodium. I like to remind myself that every calorie that's wasted on these foods is just one more plant calorie that my body will not be able to use to optimize my health and protect me from chronic disease.

8. Plan your meals to feature lots of variety: colors, textures, flavors, etc. We're still discovering thousands of new nutrients all the time and the simple way to ensure that you get some of all of them is to focus on variety.

9. The most important aspect of meal planning and adherence to this powerful way of eating is the choosing of what goes in your shopping cart...for if it goes in your cart, it will almost certainly wind up in your stomach. Spend most of your time in the produce aisle choosing healthy foods with no labels. When you must purchase something with labels, look for the word "whole" and stay away from products with added sugar, lots of fat, excessive sodium and a host of ingredients that you can't pronounce.

10. Give yourself a chance to enjoy the full benefits of this health promoting diet by eating almost NOTHING but whole plant foods for two months. Not only will weight-loss be effortless and permanent, but you will notice a host of other wonderful changes in your body. As your taste-buds adapt, you will find that you no longer feel deprived of your former favorite foods and will thoroughly enjoy every meal for the rest of your life.

As you embark on your journey to healthful eating, you will soon find that it is much easier to eat healthy foods at home than it is away from home. But we all enjoy eating out, so I have prepared some guidelines to follow for those many occasions when you are eating away from the home. See the 5th article in the left column.

During my 5-year study of nutrition, my top four sources of information have been T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D., John McDougall, M.D., Caldwell Esselstyn, M.D. and Joel Fuhrman, M.D. While some of them differ slightly in their recommendations, they have all been very successful in helping their patients make dramatic improvements in their health through diet alone. They all agree on the following very important point: A health-promoting diet is one that derives most of it's calories from whole, un-refined plant-based foods.

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To me, it all boils down to simplicity and making it easy for people to comply with the guidelines, stick with it indefinitely and reap the enormous benefits of a health-promoting diet...with effortless and permanent weight-loss as a convenient by-product. My final point is this:

Even the most nutritious of all diets

is of no value if people have trouble sticking with it.

Simplicity is the name of the game. K.I.S.S. (Keep it simple stupid) At Harmony Earth, we want to be known for promoting a no-nonsense way to achieve vibrant health, prevent & reverse chronic disease...and enjoy permanent weight-loss as a by-product....all through the simplicity of nutritional excellence...with a vast number of environmental advantages as another convenient by-product. Regards, Jim Hicks.