By definition diet and nutrition are two different things.
In order to explain the difference perhaps, we can think of eating food like a typical school set-up.
In fact, the part of the brain which hunts for food is the same circuitry that hunts for information.
For whats better than food today? Knowing where to get food every day.
Diet is your school timetable, it details what and when.
Nutrition is how you process the information presented - how your body uses it.
Like leaving school, many of us don’t graduate from a prescribed timetable to become the authority in their own life and this is true with food. Think of all the different ways one could organize their diet.
….One meal a day, 3 meals every other day, 6 small meals a day, Large lunch small dinner, small breakfast, large lunch no dinner,
…..I could go on the combinations are many.
Returning to the analogy, what’s the best school timetable?
My answer, the one designed for the individual and based on how he or she learns best; how they best processes information, information which can be applied now and retained to use long into the future. In regard to nutrition, we’re looking at foods your body converts to give you optimal energy now and the building blocks to challenge potential for longest time into the future.
So discovering your optimal nutrition can be like discovering your optimal learning system, it becomes the key to unlocking your potential.
Calories could be grades -they give a general marker of what has been consumed but they do not account for the individual and the ‘success’ of the processing process. The education system can’t cater to the individual, but you can! Because the way you convert food is like how you convert information- completely unique and you hold the answer. In an ideal world a child would have a timetable built around the best way they learn, my point here is that you have the power to structure your diet around your optimal processing.
It’s worth a second mention for Calorie counting. Although helpful for clients it’s not part of our longterm plan, counting calories is a cultural concept. If you concentrate on the number of calories a food provides then you miss the feedback the quality of life the food provides and it’s that feeling of quality which will give all the information needed to nail down optimum nutrition and inform optimum diet (structure).
One place to start….
The foundations of your structure (diet)….. the start time.
Getting up at the same time each day could be the most important part of redefining and clarifying your relationship with food (nutrition and diet).
Like a conductor, It sets the beat,
1,2,3,4…
Your circadian rhythms first beat is when you wake and the rest of the song falls in line - health doesn’t want freeform jazz, it wants a beat it can build its melody around - hunger arrives in harmony with you arriving home for dinner. Healthy choices are about timing, eg we want to avoid being uncontrollably hungry when shopping in the sweet aisle, instead, we want to peak appetite and hunger in controlled and safe environments like your kitchen. Starting at the same time each day gives us the best chance.
After a broken nights sleep the body’s appetite conducts the band and you don’t get what you need, you get what you want Some research suggests we consume an average of 500 calories more following a few disrupted nights sleep and it’s not veg it’s highly palatable (sweet and salty) foods things easy to hand - think pizza, toast, biscuits. Why that is I’ll explain later.
In short, If you’re passionate to identify your optimal diet in order to optimize nutrition then a higher priority will need to be put on sleep.
Consistent sleep gives a consistent diet and that becomes the structure or measuring stick to understand our relationship with food and the influences on it. Consistently is key and when you get up is literally the starting point.
