How Much Do I Really Need To Eat
When and How Much To Eat
What you eat after you eliminate Western Pattern food staples is key, but equally important is timing of meals and portion size. If possible, have your last meal of the day before the sun goes down to remain in harmony with our natural ancestral cycle. If you must have a snack, the true test of whether you are truly hungry or just looking for a distraction is to eat an apple. Most of us eat habitually, but if you’re not hungry for breakfast, which is not the most important meal of the day, skip it. Technically, the first meal of your day could be at 1 P.M. It can still be called breakfast because you are literally breaking the fast.
There is no need to label this intermittent fasting when it could be termed “listening to your body.” Do have healthy snacks like a few almonds, a piece of grass fed jerky, or a piece of fruit handy for when hunger strikes. Eat slowly, mindfully, and without the distractions of watching television or using other electronic devices. You’ll notice that giving your full awareness and allowing for sensual enjoyment when you eat will nourish you and optimizes digestion far more deeply than when you eat mindlessly.
Developing healthy eating practices and increasing your intake of fruits, vegetables, and healthy fats will deliver the biological information and energy needed to optimize cellular regeneration. And when you are no longer eating for hunger but as a source of distraction, entertainment, or self-medication, do eat less—those who do so live longer. Here are some daily eating practices to embrace:
- Eat something raw with each meal. (It is worth repeating that only raw food contains plant stem cells known as meristematic cells, which powerfully contribute to your life energy and longevity.)
- Be mindful and take joy in eating.
- Remember: fat is your friend and the key to deeply satisfying your appetite and cravings for sweet things. Incorporate healthy oils for cooking and dressing vegetables. Add whole food sources of fat, such as coconut, avocado, olives, certain cold-water fish, nuts, and whole eggs with the yolks, to your diet.
- Eat or drink something fermented daily to support the healthy bacteria in your microbiome.
- Don’t get overly fixated on eating three square meals a day. Replace at least one meal a day with delicious and highly therapeutic smoothies made from superfoods and regenerative plant extracts. You’ll feel more deeply nourished and energized this way.
- Increase your dietary fiber in the form of microbiota accessible carbohydrates or prebiotics. Prebiotics are a special class of fiber that resists hydrolysis by gastric acidity and mammalian enzymes and is instead selectively fermented by the intestinal flora, augmenting the growth or activity of flora that confer a health benefit to the host.
Prebiotics include:
Jerusalem artichokes, onions, garlic, leeks, asparagus, green bananas, cocoa, jicama, almonds, blueberries, carrots, cassava, pumpkin, and taro. In this phase you are likely to experience a number of positive changes. First, the constant craving for quick-fix energy boosters, from caffeine to sugary or refined carbohydrate-rich snacks, will start to fall away. As your body becomes better fat-adapted, many of your past “comfort” foods will lose their addictive appeal.
With this, your entire system will receive a signal of safety and deeper nourishment that it may not have experienced since back when you were a baby. When we rely on the neuroendocrine rollercoaster of high-glycemic foods followed by insulin releases and subsequent blood sugar crashes to power ourselves through the day, we are whipping our adrenals and following a fight-or-flight pattern that is deeply compromising to our health.
As your general stress levels taper off, you may also notice your sleep improve, which can create an incredible enhancement in your regenerative capabilities. In addition, since many of the foods in the ancestral diet require you to acquire and prepare them yourself, you will be benefiting profoundly from the “medicine” of self-care. When you nourish yourself, your soul will heal just as much your body.
