On the Are You Menstrual? Podcast I did an episode with Dana Monsees about how your relationship with food can affect your gut health. We place a lot of value on food, which is absolutely important for our health, but it can easily become stressful, obsessive, and cause more harm than good. One of the concepts we discussed in detail is neutral nutrition, which is what I want to focus on in this newsletter since I think it’s something that can improve your relationship with food, reduce stress, and support your overall health.
Instead of using your typical perfectionistic approach that is often taken when it comes to health, you use a more compassionate and realistic approach that will support you mentally, physically, and emotionally. Many functional nutrition approaches are not realistic for most people that have a job, a family, other responsibilities, chronic illnesses, fatigue, etc. but it doesn’t mean they can’t apply some of those principles and practices to their life. In fact, the goal would be to figure out which practice will be the most beneficial for helping to improve your quality of life the fastest and to slowly build from there. It’s also common in the functional medicine space to feel like if you don’t follow a diet or protocol perfectly, everything will fall apart and you will never see your symptoms improve. This is very far from the truth. Neutral nutrition takes into account that you don’t have to be perfect and it’s probably in the best interest of your health if you aren’t always perfect. It also helps you apply principles and build a toolbox that you can adapt to different seasons of your life rather than following another strict diet that you will inevitably stop and leaves you looking for something new to start the cycle all over.
While we’ve seen food heal certain issues and transform people’s lives, it doesn’t fix everything. I do understand why people think this way though especially with the type of marketing from the wellness industry that many of us are inundated with every day over and over on social media. Telling us if we eat this food and eliminate that food, all of our symptoms will be resolved. Or that if we take x, y, and z supplements our hormones will be balanced and we will be healed. The truth is, you can eat as perfectly as you want but still struggle with health issues because of other stressors. Our relationship with food and body image are often big contributors to this stress that are often left out of this conversation.
It’s important to consider how much stress is following a diet or protocol to a T causing you? If working on your health is stressing you out, you likely need a different approach. Taking a step back to really look at what is helping, what makes you feel good, and what you can let go of can be really helpful. It’s not bad to experiment with nutrition and supplements, but if things aren’t improving and it’s adding stress, your symptoms may not be about the food.
The main principle behind neutral nutrition is that there is no food that is inherently good or bad, but foods do have different nutritional value. For example, an orange has more vitamin C than a kit kat bar. You are not a good or bad person if you eat certain foods. If you have a chronic health condition or a health concern you’re working on, it is helpful to add more nutrient-dense foods to support your body, but we don’t have to eliminate less nutrient-dense foods. And we absolutely do not have to eat “perfectly.”
A lot of what neutral nutrition is is deconstructing what you think you know about food. We talk about this in the Are You Menstrual? Podcast in episodes 1 and 2–the process of unlearning, which we feel is essential for health. Many people have a lot of shoulds around what they should or should not be eating. Understanding the thought process behind the should and breaking that down can help neutralize that food for you. For example, a lot of people want to limit carbs because they think they are going to make them gain weight and lead to high blood sugar. If we deconstruct this, we will see that carbs break down into glucose in the body, which is our body’s preferred fuel source. If we avoid this macronutrient altogether, that isn’t beneficial for our health. We can now see that carbs are not bad and this neutralizes this food.
No ma’am. Not even close. It’s not that I am totally against intuitive eating, but I think it assumes a lot of things and neglects a lot of people that are in larger bodies as well as those with chronic health concerns that are worried about eating all that they want. In intuitive eating, you have to follow the different steps when applying the principles and the last step is gentle nutrition, which is very similar to the concept of neutral nutrition. I think that eating intuitively and eating “all that you want” should include eating foods that you know will support your health as well. It doesn’t have to be an all or nothing. I also find that many people that start intuitive eating don’t have great hunger and fullness cues and don’t know what it means to feel good because they have underlying health issues like hypothyroidism, PCOS, endometriosis, or have been under eating for a long time. They end up feeling worse, more confused, and more tempted to go back to a strict diet. We can eat foods that we know have specific health benefits without obsession and give ourselves permission to enjoy other foods as well.
In summary, we need to unlearn food rules, let go of a perfectionist mindset, and apply principles that are working while we let go of the rest.
Listen to the podcast episode here and here is another great podcast episode on body image and food fear while healing.
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