So you made a 2022 Resolution...
We all have to start somewhere! Beginning with a commitment is the most important step in achieving your goals, and what better time to commit than the New Year?
How is your New Year diet going so far? Did you know that the average New Year resolution lasts for 2 weeks? That's often because we dream up an end goal, but we don't decide on a solid plan of how to get there. Just joining a gym isn't enough to keep the commitment. Just deciding to eat "healthier food" isn't enough to keep on track. This blog can help you get on back on track with an overview of do-able and sustainable dietary programs and lifestyle changes. When you understand how the diets work, it is a lot easier to turn the diet into a lifestyle, which is much easier to stick to because it becomes a part of your routine. While quick-fix diets can leave you hungry and unsatisfied (potentially leading to binges or too many cheats), healthy lifestyle food choices makes you feel satisfied, strong, and able to maintain results long-term. When you discover what foods make you feel good, strong, and energetic, it will be a lot easier to to say "no" to foods that do not promote your wellness. This blog is not meant to be medical advice. It is always best to consult with your doctor if you have health concerns. Dietary changes can have powerful impacts on our health! 
Where do I start? Which diet should I choose?
Everyone has different nutritional needs, so the diet that worked for your friend could be wrong for you. We each have different constitutions, metabolisms, blood types, allergies and intolerances, stomach acid, nutritional deficiencies, genetics, hormones, sleep schedules, and so on! We should discover the foods that make us feel our best, not bog us down. (Working with a nutritionist or natural doctor can take a lot of the guess work out!)
No matter which diet you choose to follow, there are some basic concepts to follow to achieve weight loss: 1. Keep a food journal or use an app to track! This will make you tune into what your body is telling you. Record what you ate, then how it made you feel. Then look for patterns! Does a certain type of food make you itchy each time? Is there a meal you like to eat that makes you bloat each time? Did you realize how many calories or how much sugar you are eating? After you learn your patterns and needs, you will develop habits that work better for you. You won't need to continue tracking once you know what is best for you! Even a basic hand-written journal can give you big clues because it requires you to listen to your body. But there are great apps available to help you fill in all the details, see graphs and charts, and earn rewards for progress! My Fitness Pal, Lose It!, and even FitBit's App are all excellent. 
2. Keep your blood sugar balanced! Research keeps finding, again and again, that it's almost impossible to lose weight if you don't keep your blood sugar within a healthy range and keep it consistent. If you're on a roller coaster throughout the day, your body won't get out of "storage mode." 3. Consistent and high-quality sleep is critically important. Sleep is so important that our bodies cannot function without it. If you don't prioritize getting enough consistent high-quality sleep, the odds are that your body won't have what it needs to endure physical changes. That is because sleep is when our hormones "reset" - hormones such as the ones that control our metabolism, stress response, and mood. When our hormones are negatively affected by poor sleep habits, our bodies struggle to maintain appropriate responses to food, stress, and our environment. Creating a consistent bed-time and sleep routine trains your hormones how to function well to keep you healthy, which in turn allows your body to stop holding on to weight. Read more about this topic here: Why Is Sleep So Important to Weight Loss? | Sleep Foundation 4. Exercise cannot undo a bad diet. Exercise is very healthy, but is not necessary for weight loss. That's correct - exercise is not necessary for weight loss. What you eat, when you eat, and how you eat are the driving factors in weight gain or loss. If your only goal is to lose weight, then you can just focus on your diet. It does not work to eat junk food and exercise to burn off the calories you ate, because you cannot exercise enough to burn off junk food faster than you eat it. Also, eating a calorie-deficit diet of poor food choices will reduce your energy levels, making it more difficult, if not harmful, to exercise enough to burn off calories. That said, we can't stress the importance of exercise enough! Using our bodies makes more energy, builds muscle and endurance, boosts our brains and organ functions, makes us more resilient to change, and greatly improves our moods and spirits. Healthy habits are ones that take the health of our whole body and mind in consideration. Healthy habits don't just focus on eliminating the negative. It is also important to note that the type of exercise program you do will affect what diet you should choose. If you intend to do regular cardio sessions, you probably will not have the energy to benefit from it on a low-carb diet. 5. Reducing calories and portion sizes may help, but what you eat is most important. Not all calories are equal. 200 calories of protein will keep your blood sugar stable and satiate you for a while, but 200 calories of cupcakes will keep you feeling hungry and will send you on blood sugar roller coaster that will ruin your energy. Each of the diets I explain next utilize these concepts, making it easier for you to stay on track. We offer a variety of foods that support each of these diets, making it easier for you to buy conveniently while staying on track! Many foods come with labels to say which of these diets they fit into, so just check the front of the packaging! Whole 30
Whole 30 is a GREAT place to start, especially if you're feeling overwhelmed!
It is a 30 day challenge that can easily continue on, or convert into one of the other diets. Whole 30 is about learning to choose, cook with, and eat unprocessed whole foods that keep your blood sugar stable. Because carbohydrates tend to lead to blood sugar imbalances that reinforce junk food cravings and poor eating habits, this is a low-carb diet. It is designed to teach healthy lifestyle habits and break old food habits, and reducing sugar and carbohydrates reduces, or even eliminates, cravings. The rules are simple: 1. No added sugar! 2. No alcohol. 3. No grains. 4. No legumes. 5. No dairy. 6. No processed ingredients such as carrageenan or sulfites. 7. No alternative versions of baked goods, even if they're made from compatible ingredients, because eating them will reinforce old habits and make it hard to learn new ones. 8. Do not step on the scale to record your weight during the 30 days. Instead, listen to your body. Focus on how much better you feel! Whole 30 meals are made of real food: Eat meat, seafood, and eggs; vegetables and fruit; natural fats; and herbs, spices, and seasonings. Eat foods with a simple and recognizable list of ingredients, or no ingredients listed because it's an unprocessed whole food. To learn more about Whole 30, go right to the source at their website: https://whole30.com/ Paleo
The "Paleo" diet is also known as the "Caveman" or "Ancestral Diet." Fundamentally, it is a diet in which you eat what a hunter-gatherer would have eaten prior to the development of agriculture. The paleo diet is focused on nutrient-dense whole foods in appropriate quantities. It is not focused on calories or macronutrient ratios (protein vs carbs, for instance.) In fact, the creators of the Paleo diet stress that it's a broadly plant-based diet that includes moderate amounts of animal food. This leads to a well-balanced nutritional diet that feeds you what you need, not what you don't need. This will naturally reduce your hunger and eliminate the need to count calories.
The Paleo diet is frequently altered to be a high-protein and low carbohydrate diet because it is easy to eat high-protein while Paleo. Eating high-protein and low carbohydrate is an effective method to keep blood sugar balanced and lose weight steadily, but keep in mind that the Paleo diet is meant to give you the nutrition that your body needs to function and feel best. A low-carbohydrate diet can lead to lower energy levels in some types of people, so it is important to listen to your body. The Paleo diet is rich with meat, seafood, eggs, leafy greens, and vegetables. It allows for sparing nuts and seeds. It does not allow for foods that contain anti-nutrients like saponins and lectins. This means no grains, beans, or legumes. We carry many foods that are paleo compliant! Read more about the official Paleo diet on their website: The Paleo Diet® | Defining The Paleo Diet Ketogentic Diet, or "Keto"
When we eat a diet very high in fat, low in protein, and very low in carbohydrates, our bodies start to burn ketones instead of glucose for energy. The "Keto" diet is designed to keep you in a state of "ketosis," in other words, burning ketones instead of glucose. This is an effective way to regulate blood sugar, reset hormones, stabilize the immune system, and reduce hunger. The end results can be extremely rewarding!
This is a challenging diet to do correctly, but if you are determined then it can be highly effective. It is not just about eating low-carb like an Atkin's diet. Cheating can undo your efforts, and so can eating slightly too much of a "healthy" food. It requires measuring your ketones in your urine with test strips to make sure you stay in ketosis. It may require supplementing with ketones or fat sources to stay in ketosis (we offer these supplements and test strips.) The Keto diet means eating enough whole food based fatty foods to keep you satiated and stay in ketosis. Butter, animal fats, cheese, coconut oil, and avocados are staples on the keto diet. Read more about how to do the Keto diet here: The Keto Diet for Beginners | ketogenic.com 
There is a popular version of this diet that is simply high-fat and low-carb, but does not focus on staying in ketosis. While this is not a true "keto" diet, this version does help with weight loss because it eliminates sugars, starches, and processed foods. This is very similar to eating high-protein and low-carb. Fats and proteins are the slowest nutrients to metabolize, keeping you feeling satisfied and energized longest. A diet high in fat or protein keeps blood sugar stable, reduces cravings, and trains your insulin to react appropriately. It also means you will be eating a whole food diet rich in nutrition without foods you don't need. Any diet that emphasizes nutrition over junk will lead to better health!
There are many food products that claim to be "keto" compliant, but will not boost ketones. These foods are normally just low-carb options without sugar (or with alternative sweeteners.) They can be great choices if you're simply trying to eat a low-carb diet, and they can be great options when you're in the mood for something a little different without breaking your diet! If your goal is to stay in ketosis, however, then focus on whole fatty foods. We offer a variety of animal fats and healthy oils, like MCT oil! What about weight loss pills and protein shakes?
They can absolutely be useful aids!
Starting a diet with a cleanse can help your body adjust to the changes more easily. When you help your body flush out the junk in your liver and gut, you will be able to benefit from a cleaner diet sooner. Your body will have more energy to devote to your metabolism. Also, our fat stores more than just... well, fat. It stores nutrients for later use, and toxicants that were removed from our system and stored in our fat where it can't hurt us. When we lose fat we can release some of this stored junk, and a good cleanse can help get it out of our bodies. 
Weight loss supplements are most effective when paired with a diet. Sure, they can help boost your metabolism or enhance your bowel movements, even on a poor diet. You might lose 5-10 pounds while you take them without making dietary changes. But that weight will come right back without changing the habits that lead to the weight gain in the first place. Pairing these supplements with a weight loss diet can help you shed the extra pounds faster and maintain your results.
Protein shakes can make it so much easier, and sometimes healthier, to get enough protein in your diet! Eating enough meat throughout the day to reach your protein goals can be exhausting for your body, and you may need to eat too many plant-based foods to get enough protein. A clean protein shake gives you exactly what you need in an easy-to-digest drink, without too much of anything you don't need. Protein shakes can be both animal-based or plant-based - there is more than just whey!
You can do this!
Now that you have some simple rules to follow, are you ready to get back on track? Let Terry's help you! We keep our grocery department stocked with many Whole 30, Paleo, and Keto compliant foods.
Here's to meeting our health goals in 2022! 
Author: Sarah Langer
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