How does a foodie become a clean eater to perform at their best, yet still enjoy life? If you’re a gourmet you may cringe at this sentence. I am proof that it’s possible and I want to share my tips with you. Five years ago, I noticed my performance at work was not what it used to be. That dreaded inevitable ageing of my body was showing symptoms like low energy and brain fog. I was an active person with normal weight, yet my edge was slipping. I wanted to feel my best, perform at my best and live well every day. I achieved all those things and as a bonus lost 5% of my body weight without eating less, mainly by choosing ingredients in my cooking, takeout, and convenience foods. Unexpectedly, my hay fever allergies subsided as well. These are just some of the benefits of eating less inflammatory foods combined with nutrient-rich foods. You will also be very surprised which healthy foods are bad for you. Even some superfoods are also more like villains dressed up in capes.
I’ve been a foodie ever since age 21, I worked in Japan and then Europe for half of my 20s and travelled the world. I have eaten the weirdest, ugliest things just as I have eaten edible art. I have eaten ancient recipes and innovative dishes. During my ex-pat years, I enjoyed cooking local dishes. Making edible creations is a rewarding hobby, and unlike other hobbies, doesn’t cost the world, and doesn’t need extra space. I am also a food researcher because the application is so much fun. Whether it was this exposure, my upbringing, or some people just have foodie hands, I can cook well. I know all the traditional combinations whether it’s a European base or Asian. I can throw things together from the fridge and discover a new ‘wow moment’. My slap-dash plated lunches look like restaurant fare. When I make an impromptu dish, I keep adding flavour and colour until my senses are satisfied. I was already a good cook before I was a lab technician for a year in my late 20s. It was very similar to a pastry chef; exact measurements, fluids and powders, unique tools, timers, and varying ovens and refrigerators.
I have a few recipes I always cook but mainly I try new recipes, even though the failure rate is higher. To do this you have to taste the mediocre whilst waiting for the next transcendence. I persist because the chance of a new favourite dish awaits. The added challenge of cooking while travelling or on a budget, and my creativity thrives under constraints.
This is why when I cleaned up my food choices, I had to study all the ingredient possibilities, or I would quit. My tastebuds would protest, or my brain would go to old reward patterns of unhealthier temptations. Let me be the adventurous eater and you can take my top ‘best of’ hacks and avoid the mediocre experiments.
As a starting point of dietary best practices, I learned from publications by functional medicine doctors reversing chronic diseases like diabetes and auto-immune diseases. Then I could flex the advice and find the intersection where delicious eating meets ultimate health. For over five years, I’ve been applying advice from functional medicos (and their eating plans) and I am overdue in sharing my tips. These doctors are conventionally-trained doctors who have done extra certifications in integrative medicine like diet. The human diet and nutrition is often studied for less than a week by medical students at Western universities (2).
Functional medicine doctors treat the root cause first, not the symptoms first. Their doctrines are preventative. Many patients eventually no longer need medicines because their biomarkers normalise. For inspiration watch Dr Michael Mosley’s Australia’s Health Revolution about diabetes successes (3).
Doctors like Dr Terry Wahls and Dr Steven Gundry treat hundreds of patients annually through their clinics reversing their debilitating conditions like multiple sclerosis (nerves deteriorate) back to good health using functional medicine. In the short-term, I would improve my daily performance, and in the long term, I would extend my life and delay ageing. That is a game-changer. I can control my health with small daily choices.
This is my personal health journey. It’s intended to help busy people improve performance and wellbeing with daily habits like ingredient swaps, cheat sheets, or easy recipes.
If you have serious symptoms, please seek advice from a medical practitioner. Five years ago, I did not have a chronic disease diagnosis (yet) but I did have physical, emotional, and mental challenges that were affecting my daily performance and quality of life, which would only deteriorate as I aged. I didn’t know then, five years later, and I am still as passionate about recipe hacking, and how to have fun with healthy food.
Over a series of posts, I will share my shopping hacks, take-out hacks, recipe ingredient swaps, and I will summarise some of the latest medical trials that are myth-busting what is healthy to eat and what is no longer.
I have a Bachelor of Applied Biology and at university I studied; human physiology, microbiology, chemistry and psychology, to name a few. This foundation helps me simplify complex concepts. If I knew my functional medicine journey would last five years, I could have certified and become a nutritionist or dietician. I took more of an applied researcher angle because the latest medical findings would not make it into mainstream curriculum for years, maybe not for a decade. I also found investigative journalists with their own serious diseases who solved them and shared. Like me, they were analysing medical discoveries about human health and adapting their lifestyles. They were inventing and creating and so was I. There were also quite a few nutritionists and dieticians who had reversed their own diseases using diet and lifestyle. I have studied many from Australia, the United Kingdom, and North America. For clarity, I’ll cite references for health claims as I share.
As a science-trained creative, I am constantly inventive with anti-inflammatory foods to give myself two outcomes: maximum pleasure with maximum health. I also love detail, I read ingredient lists on packaging (so you don’t have to). My food journey has been like Tim Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Chef but without the unlimited budget of a millionaire. To me, financial restraint also pushes my creativity to find workable and practical solutions (and he didn’t certify as a nutritionist to help people either).
Besides the latest medical research, I’ve also enjoyed learning the food history of all Peoples. Before rapid transport, every culture had health solutions from what was at hand, and over generations how to make ingredients more nutritious, such as by using methods like fermentation and pressure cooking which neutralises inflammatory foods. Simultaneously around the world, communities figured out nutrition through trial and error, millennia ago. Modern industrialised food systems have broken a lot of golden food rules and many of today’s convenient and cheap choices are inflammatory. Unfortunately, modern food processes are everywhere, and you shouldn’t have to cook everything from scratch so better choices are the key. Life is all about trade-offs. Optimum outcomes under time constraints. Where can I make my life easy and get the best benefits?
By eliminating inflammatory foods, I felt energised, more mentally ‘in the zone’, and some unexpected benefits included increased libido and better skin. Another indicator that is measurable but was not my main aim. At first, I lost 5% of my body weight in a few months with no portion restrictions, calorie-counting or change in my exercise.
This was approximately three kilograms, and I went down a dress size. Five years, ago was the heaviest I’ve been, and I can eat as much as I want of a diet that on-the-whole anti-inflammatory foods (and I’m a foodie who loves to eat!)
Each year, my weight fluctuates by a kilogram or two, usually in winter when my body is naturally wired to store fat to stay warm, or when I have prolonged stress which drives cravings, more energy demand, and comfort eating. Overall, I am happy with this natural variation and it’s how I recognise stressors that no matter how much I ignored them they were putting me on a path of ill health. It was just a matter of when. I am a huge fan of a preventative lifestyle. To fast-track any health issue, I just use the stronger dietary guidelines by these same doctors and improvement is assured. Just like your body is constantly rebalancing its homeostasis, that’s how I think about my inputs, a constant balancing act.
My initial weight loss was puffiness and inflammation of my body. Basically, inflammation disrupts cellular function. Your body takes inputs, uses the good stuff, and excretes what it doesn’t need through sweat and toilet time. Depending on how well all your systems are functioning, some toxins can stay within the body embedded in complex and varied cellular tissues, like heavy metals in foods. Plus, as your cells age and die they also must leave the body. Your body is also constantly replacing billions of cells every day. Some blood cells live only three days. Your eyes, brain and heart cells often last for life (1). Basically, a large part of how well you perform is how well you take out your trash.
Another inflammation issue is modern processed foods do not have enough nutrients for cellular health. Secondly, processed foods overload energy pathways like a flood. Rather than making cellular processes more energetic, an overly processed diet blocks energy production at a cellular level and a vicious cycle of fatigue and food cravings continues. It’s a conundrum and as a busy person I still eat processed foods but as a last resort, and I will tell you which ones are best. Modern environmental toxins including from man-made chemicals also play a part in inflammation, but I want to stay focused on eating.
Many modern foods cause allergic reactions so subtle most of us ignore it unless we are in pain, or aren’t noticing for years until we notice ageing. Allergic responses stimulate the immune system which diverts energy away from the brain (normally the greediest organ) and stimulates appetite to deal with the extra work. Having a regularly overworked immune system from your diet, costs your health and may lead to chronic disease. Eating more anti-inflammatory foods is part of the solution you can take charge of.
“In Science in 2002, 70 to 90% of the risk for diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and autoimmunity is due to environmental factors. The genes do not drive most chronic diseases. It is the environment. It is time we stop blaming our genes and focus on the 70% under the individual’s control.” - Dr Terry Wahls, 2011.
Your environment is everything your body comes in contact with. Let’s start with the most likely inflammatory foods that you may be allergic to, but your symptoms are subtle, simmering away beneath the surface so to speak, while your body can cope, are wheat, dairy, tree nuts, eggs, soy, seafood and shellfish, and even sesame seeds. Then there are the vegetables and fruits that have inflammatory lectins; plant defences to stop being eaten. As a foodie, I haven’t eliminated all these foods. Everyone has different food tolerances. The beauty of the body is once you eliminate a couple of major agitators relevant to your individual biology, the immune response calms down for many other triggers. This is why my annual hay fever subsided.
Listing these well-known food allergens, reminded me that as a graduate I always had blood-shot eyes and I was a bit self-conscious about it. A naturopath had told me it was my body expressing a food intolerance. I was young and carefree and ignored her advice and kept eating all the things I wanted. Today after much more awareness, she was right. I’m a slow learner. Today when I eat an inflammatory food my eyes become red, no longer clear white. What other blood vessels in my body were dilating as a reaction? Such symptoms may seem minor, but these signals help you stay on track to be the best version of yourself, living life to your fullest.
A classic symptom of inflammation is fatigue. Most people are habitually fatigued, and the social acceptance of coffee masks the signals an overloaded body is sharing. Fatigue is not something we have to just live with because of modern-day pressures. As functional medicine doctors have proven from numerous medical publications, food choices can improve fatigue (4), and those foods can still be delicious ones.
Eating clean also reduced my pollen allergies. I got to take my Springtime back!
That was a life-changer because non-drowsy over-the-counter hay fever meds gave me side effects like irritability and sleep issues (because there was still a hyper-vigilant immune response under my skin). Last year, the hay fever allergy flared up and I knew my diet had slipped back into inflammatory foods (it was the festive season, and temptation is everywhere), so I corrected course. We’re all human and that’s why my advice is at the intersection of best-practice healing and practical living. The beauty of the body is in less than two days you can remove the agitator from your system. Within 14 days the immune response can stop for said trigger. Within 30 days you can stop addictive behaviour (5). You can feel and think better within a few days or weeks. The barrier isn’t that high to be the best version of you using tasty foods.
The key to my healthy weight loss, energy growth, and youthful appearance is not summed into one movement. My solution is not paleo, not keto, not fasting, not vegan, not vegetarianism, not coeliac, not FODMAP. It is the tastiest version of all of them. I’ve skimmed the cream so to speak for people like me whose daily performance was slipping.
I studied the similarities between all these doctors’ models and eliminated the outlying restrictions because some are extreme to heal chronically ill people. I saw patterns of what was working across many practitioners’ recommendations, that fit in with my gourmet tastebuds without restricting quantity.
I did not eliminate carbs or fats or meats, but I did swap out inflammatory versions. I still eat seafood, eggs, and tree nuts. I am swapping out wheat and selective cow diary for less inflammatory versions.
Many inflammatory vegetables like nightshades are not even on the list of worst allergens because they don’t cause immediate anaphylactic shock but there can still be a raging fire under your skin. The secret to success is the food swap.
I still eat most nightshades so don’t be discouraged because the key is how to prepare them.
I have two good friends who were diagnosed with auto-immune diseases in their 30s and I often summarised medical publications for them, as I made my own healthier journey supported by publications of functional medicine doctors and I was so passionate that daily changes make all the difference. I found their barrier to switching to anti-inflammatory foods was knowing what to swap out when at the supermarket, restaurant or in the kitchen. It was information overload. That is why after years of memorising non-inflammatory foods when I shop, meal prep and dine out I have the cheat sheets for busy people. If you have an auto-immune disease my learnings may complement your doctor’s advice. I want to share these foodie hacks that improved not only my daily performance but my quality of life. I think better, feel better and look better than I did five years ago. This blog is already long so think of this post as my mission statement with more practical articles coming soon.
References:
(1) Fischetti, Mark. “Our Bodies Replace Billions of Cells Every Day.” Scientific American. Scientific American, April 1, 2021. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/our-bodies-replace-billions-of-cells-every-day/ .
(2) “Doctors Need More Nutrition Education.” News, May 9, 2017. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/doctors-nutrition-education/ .
(4) Footnote: A 12-month trial showed ten patients with secondary progressive multiple sclerosis (auto-immune disease) there was a significant improvement in fatigue following a modified paleolithic diet for 90% of days, (supplements and other treatments like massage completed for at least 75% of days). Source: Bisht B, et al. A multimodal intervention for patients with secondary progressive multiple sclerosis: feasibility and effect on fatigue. J Altern Complement Med. 2014 May; 20(5):347-55. doi: 10.1089/acm.2013.0188. Epub 2014 Jan 29.
(5) Lembke, Anna. Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence (pp. 76-77). Headline. Kindle Edition.