I have 3 simple rules when it comes to creating the BEST DIET FOR YOU:

1. The one that makes YOU feel good.

2. The one that has nothing to do with diet culture

3. The one that is diverse in phytonutrients

NUMBER 1: The best diet is the one that makes YOU actually feel good. Physically and mentally and emotionally.

I don’t mean the one that makes you look a certain way or the one that makes you morally superior, I mean the one that genuinely makes you FEEL GOOD. 

And here’s what I’ve realised  after working with and talking to hundreds of people about this, most of us don’t actually know what it means to genuinely FEEL GOOD. 

I still remember the first time I truly felt good as an adult!

I had this energetic reserve. I felt vibrant and alive and alert and excited for the day, and I was a struggling stay at home mom with a baby, so that’s saying something for me! (I know I know, those were the glory days… well, not for me they weren’t.)

I also felt good in my body. I didn’t have any bloating or gas or gut discomfort, which was my standard. I had more patience, I slept better and felt calmer and happier. It was all good things, and I had no idea it was even an option before that moment!

Because out brain does this thing where it normalises us feeling like hot garbage so we can keep on with our life. It would detrimental to our survival if we spent all our time wallowing in our own physical misery, we would give up on life!

Instead, our brain just adjusts its dial and normalises us feeling unwell, so it’s a background feature instead of the leading character.

It tells us it’s normal to feel bloated and gassy and tired and run down.

We’re normalising chronic diseases and autoimmune diseases because they’re so common now, but they’re not normal! I’m not throwing shade, but I am calling it out. 

We’ve normalised depression and anxiety and overwhelm and burnout and exhaustion and incredible hormone struggles.

We’ve normalised feeling like a pile of hot garbage. 

All of this, our brain has normalised  for us so we feel normal and can keep on keeping on. 

But in some small way, so many of us are thinking: what in the actual fuck? This is not how I pictured my life, and this is not how I want to feel!

Because there’s another part of us that wants more. That wants to be able to run after our kids or our grandkids. We want to feel alive and wild and free when our kids head off to college. We want to feel whole and happy and like we’ve got a full tank of gas and the zest and vibrancy to get after life! We want to love and be loved and feel confident and like we can trust our body and ourselves. 

So there’s always this duality of things happening. And I don’t care where you land on how great or ungreat you feel, these are common human desires that are held back because of how we feel in our body. 

So, what do we do!?

We get curious about our own body and how we’re actually feeling.

Over the years I’ve cut gluten and sugar, and meat and then did the whole 30 and then went fully plant based and then did the AIP and then paleo and then keto and then the mito food plan, which is like a modified version of keto that’s much more sustainable.

I’ve done slow carb and low carb and all the carbs. I’ve done IFMs gut reset a few times, and their detox – like for offloading toxins plan, and I’ve done the low FODMAP for SIBO, and in between all of these I’ve been doing my own things. 

And what I can tell you is that because of this, albeit a bit outrageous amount of exploration, I know for sure what my body likes and doesn’t like.

I have done this partly because it’s my job and I want to always know what people experience when they do any kind of elimination diet or dietary changes, but also because I’m forever amazed with the power of food and how it can make us feel and heal people, and also, of course, make people very sick. 

We don’t like to talk about that because we like our doughnuts and duritos too much to admit that they make us sick. Not quickly, but slowly. 

Here’s what it all comes down to, and I can say this with confidence:

Your ideal diet is YOURS. 

It’s based on your microbiome, which is like your fingerprint (nobody has the same one as you) and your history and your bio-individuality, and how you perceive the world, and everything that you’ve experienced up until this point. It is yours.

So, it is 100% YOUR JOB to figure out your ideal diet based on your own data.

How do you do that?

You try things out. You eliminate things, you challenge yourself to change your eating habits, you explore new things. And if it’s really hard for you or you feel really lost, you hire a coach who’s a gut health mentor (ehem, that’s me) to guide you through this challenge.

NUMBER 2: The best diet has NOTHING to do with diet culture.

Unfortunately we’ve created the idea that the only reason to restrict things from our diet is for weight loss, instead of eliminating things because we want to actually feel good. Which is an entirely different vibe. 

When we eliminate things because we want to feel good we can feel empowered and healthy and happy about our choice. That doesn’t mean it’s easy, but the vibe is entirely different. 

When we eliminate things for weight loss it feels disempowered and puts us into scarcity mode. 

But remember, our job is to figure out how and what to eat that actually makes us feel good, and then stick to that as best we can, and pay attention if it changes. 

This has nothing to do with the latest diet trend and EVERYTHING to do with your body and how it responds to food.

In all my experimenting I’ve done I now know with clarity what my body loves, and what it doesn’t. I also know with absolute certainty that this can and probably will change. (My body is changing all the time so why wouldn’t my diet?)

This removes all the drama around labelling yourself and HOW you eat. You don’t eat paleo or vegan pegan or kept or vegetarian, you just eat for your body and for how you WANT TO FEEL.

Please understand that I am not out here giving you permission to eat like crap. The goal here is to GENUINELY feel good, and you cannot feel good if you eat like crap. You might try and disagree with me here, but I would just say that it’s just that at this moment you don’t yet know how much BETTER YOU COULD FEEL.

Eating for YOUR PERSONAL HEALTH has nothing to do with living in a caloric deficit or forever following a set of rules created for therapeutic purposes and then destroyed by the weight loss industry.

NUMBER 3: Eat More Plants.

Yup, this is the part of the conversation that I tell you to eat kale… I mean, it was only a matter of time right!? I am, after all, a health coach!

I’m kidding, I don’t even love kale… don’t tell anyone.

BUT! Let’s talk about WHY WE EAT PLANTS!

The vast majority of us will benefit from eating a wide and diverse variety of plants on a daily basis. 

This is universally agreed upon by pretty much everyone, which is saying something because most of the time all the experts are busy loudly disagreeing on things. (Which is why it’s up to you to figure out what works for you!)

Phytochemicals found in plants are the things that help our body work. They stimulate enzymes that help the body get rid of toxins, boost the immune system, improve cardiovascular health, promote healthy estrogen metabolism, and stimulate the death of cancer cells. So yeah, let’s eat some plants!

The best way to do this is to practise eating the rainbow, as potentially cheesy as that might sound! But it’s how we ensure we’re getting a wide range of phytochemicals, and even within each colour we want to be adding in diversity. 

If we eat the same foods over and over again, even if they are colourful, we may be missing the plethora of other phytonutrients across the spectrum. Rather than getting all of your blue-purple phytonutrients from blueberries, you may want to try other blue-purple foods like purple potatoes, purple rice, and even purple cabbage – all of which will give you very different phytonutrients within the blue-purple colour. 

So try a new food every week to ensure getting as many phytonutrients as possible!

This is a fun project to get your family involved in. I love sending my kids out into the produce to select something new to try, which makes them much more likely to actually try the new thing!

I especially like encouraging this because it’s actually about ADDING instead of subtracting, which naturally is more enticing to our brain.

I’m not telling you what plants to eat or that some plants are superfoods and others are a waste of your time, I‘m just telling you that plants are what we eat that actually optimises our body and how it functions. 

Yes, make sure you’re eating adequate protein and healthy fats, AND also eat a wide range of colourful plants. 

And pay attention to how your body reacts to things.

Sometimes some plants won’t be your friend. Sometimes things will need to be cooked in order for you to tolerate them. Sometimes you’ll need to cut something out for a while so your body can heal and then you’ll be able to bring it back in. Sometimes you’ll just always feel better when you don’t eat something so you’ll never want to eat it again. 

Pay attention to you. 

Know that it’s your body and your body doesn’t give a dang if you’re eating plant based or paleo or keto or the mediterranean diet or the autoimmune protocol. It has no idea what any of those things are, but it does know how to feel good if you give it a chance. Your body WANTS to feel good, that’s the nature of nature.

So give it a chance!

Because gut health is my favourite thing in the world, I always suggest doing an elimination diet of some sort, for even just 10 days. Your mind will be blown with the changes you can experience in even this short window of time!

You can email me if you want to learn more about elimination diet options, but ultimately you can just give it a go. It’s all out there on the internet! (Which can be a bit scary or overwhelming really.)

These are the top 3 things that will help you find the best diet for YOU.

Not for you aunty or your sister or your barista, but YOU.

You are special like a snowflake, and at some point we all need to figure ourselves out!

This is part of that work.

Thanks for reading, and be sure to download my FREE epic list of life changing habits to keep you on your health and wellness path!