It is well known that optimal health can be reached when the body is put in a condition to establish homeostasis (balance) in a relatively unchallenged state. This means that the body is able to efficiently regulate temperature, hormonal production, blood pressure, blood sugar levels, electrolyte flux in and out of the cells only when it has all the tools required to do the job (nutrients) and when its challenges are fair. Your body likes the challenges as much as you do, but there is a difference between challenge and stress!
The typical western diet poses real challenges that can lead to stress perceived both at a mental and physical level. Our body, due to a lack of nutrients (not calories!) often struggles to come back to balance, resulting in poor health. Such diets have few things in common. They supply an inadequate amount of proteins, healthy fats and fibres across the main meals and they contain a huge amount of sweets, processed or ultra-processed foods, often accompanied by too many drinks or coffees.
These diets might be convenient because people do not spend time for cooking but they are literally starving the body, depriving it of all the essential minerals and vitamins crucial for hormonal production, blood pressure regulation, activation of stress-coping mechanisms leading up to real challenges for the immune and digestive system that are often the ones that keep the health score.
When we overindulge on sweets, drinks and coffee to keep us going, we are eating "empty calories" with no nutritional value inside.
Most of the time people complain that they are stressed about food and cooking, providing for their families with different tastes is truly a hard job, but there are lots of ways with which we can re-establish balance and set off for the road of change, in the direction of a better health. Nutritional deficiencies can be tackled with supplementation when few changes have been implemented in the current diet.
I always encourage people to move baby steps, I share simple recipes that I know they can easily make at home. Simple, yet well studied, recipes that provide all essential nutrients. They are also based on your tastes and financial budget. I guide people in ways they do not feel overwhelmed by the overall process.
I feel that when people are encouraged to make a small change, they are likely to stick with it. However, what surprises me every time is the ability of every single person I have worked with to come up with ideas, to figure out themselves that their motivation improved when a feeling of being back in control of their diet has returned, when they have talked through it in a comfortable space and when they felt heard and understood.
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