Beginner Nutrition Plan
From www.mercola.com

Welcome to the Beginner Nutrition Plan!

Dr. Mercola's Nutrition Plan

Beginner

Proteins     Carbs     Fats     Beverages     Supplements     Lifestyle

Other Plans:
Intermediate     Advanced
Resources:
Exercise     Food Alerts     Recommended        Vegetables
Return to:
Introduction     Getting Started

I feel it's best for most people to start at the beginner level of this nutrition program. However, if you're healthy and highly committed to improving your health, you can go straight to the intermediate or advanced section. I do recommend reading through each plan, though, as recommendations that are mentioned in each plan aren't repeated when you go to the next level. The reasons I recommend most people starting at the basic level are twofold:

There is, however, a general principle that is useful for everyone, no matter what level you choose:

Listen to your body!

As I mentioned in the introduction, this is one of the most important principles in this series of recommendations. If any food or supplement makes you sick in any way, stop it immediately! You have the tools to tell if something is good for your body or not -- please use them!

Step 1: At least one third of your food should be uncooked.

There are valuable and sensitive micronutrients that are damaged when you heat foods. Cooking and processing food can destroy these micronutrients by altering their shape and chemical composition. Regular vegetable juicing will easily help you reach this goal of 1/3 raw food in your diet.

Step 2: Eat more vegetables.

Let us first start out by describing what you can and should definitely eat more of: vegetables. ALL vegetables promote health, unless you are allergic to them or they cause gas or intestinal problems; consult my " Recommended Vegetables " list for the healthiest choices.

It would be best to consume your vegetables uncooked, but you may have to lightly steam them initially.

Vegetables contain phytochemicals, which are powerful natural agents to promote health. They will also help to alkalinize your system, as most of us are far to acidic. Most people benefit more from increased vegetables than from extra vitamins. You will normally need a large amount of vegetables to optimize your body's pH acid/alkaline balance

Nearly everyone would benefit from eating as many vegetables as possible within the allowances of their metabolic type design limits, or their unique biochemical individuality. Please remember that you are unique, and your body knows best and will tell you, what is an optimal amount for you. An Eskimo simply can't eat as much vegetables as a Peruvian Indian can. Not only would they feel poorly but they'd likely develop a ravenous appetite matched only by their sweet cravings, as well as who knows what degenerative process and emotional imbalances.

The best way to determine the amount of vegetables your body requires is by finding out your metabolic type . While we all need vegetables to stay healthy, the type and amount should be determined by what metabolic type you are. There is a basic test you can take to find out your metabolic type which is detailed in my new book, Total Health Program . Carbohydrate metabolic types need far more vegetables in their diet than protein metabolic types. One of the easiest ways to fulfill your vegetable intake is through regularly consuming vegetable juice .

In other words, let your body report back to you how accurate your appetite/taste buds are at gauging what is right for you.

Step 3 : Keep your vegetables fresh.

If you are unable to obtain organic vegetables, you can rinse non-organic vegetables in a sink full of water with 4-8 ounces of distilled vinegar for 30 minutes, or use the solution described at the end of this article.

Please be sure and squeeze as much air as you can out of the bag that holds the vegetables and then seal it.  The bag should look like it is vacuum-packed.

I do this by holding the bag against my chest and running my arm over the bottom of the bag to the top, which bleeds the air out of the bag.

This will double or triple the normal storage life of the vegetables.

Step 4 : Limiting sugar is critical.

Eating refined sugar weakens your immune system and promotes yeast overgrowth. All non-diet pops have 8 teaspoons in each can. Most packaged cereals have sugar as their major ingredient. Avoid most natural sweeteners (including corn syrup, fructose, honey, sucrose, maltodextrin, dextrose, molasses, rice milk, almond milk, white grape juice, fruit juice sweetened, brown rice syrup, maple syrup, date sugar, cane sugar, corn sugar, beet sugar, succanat and lactose).

When in doubt about the sugar content of a food you can always look at the list of ingredients and see how many grams of carbohydrates are listed. Unless the carbohydrates are from aboveground vegetables you should be concerned that they represent sugars that could alter your insulin levels.

Step 5 : Avoid hypoglycemia.

Most of us eat large amounts of grains and sugars that cause us to have large amounts of insulin circulating in our blood . When you stop eating grains your body will take several days to lower your insulin levels. In the meantime the high insulin levels will cause you to have many symptoms such as dizziness, confusion, headaches, and generally feeling miserable.

If you eat every two hours for the first few days of your transition you will be able to avoid this temporary side effect. You will need to eat some protein, such as an egg , piece of chicken, turkey, fish or some seeds along with a vegetable such as a piece of celery, cucumber or red pepper. This will help to prevent hypoglycemia and stabilize your blood sugar.

Even after your system has adjusted, it will be wise to eat 4-6 meals a day. Eating more frequently has been shown to normalize cholesterol levels . It will also help your adrenal glands better regulate cortisol levels.

Many people ask about Equal or Nutrasweet (Aspartame) . These artificial sweeteners need to be eliminated. There are more adverse reactions to Nutrasweet reported to the FDA than all other foods and additives combined. In certain individuals, it can have devastating consequences. If you are healthy you can use a few teaspoons of succanat intermittently. One should also avoid artificial chemicals like MSG.

Make a Menu -- If you fail to do this, you are planning to fail

Most people have great difficulty implementing these suggestions unless they sit down once a week (at a time when you are well rested, fresh and relaxed) and plan every meal for the week ahead.

A good rule for working people is to prepare your meals ahead of time. For example, make your lunch for the next day before you go to bed. Also, know what you will be eating for dinner before you leave the house in the morning. This way you can go to the store or take the appropriate items out of the freezer. This is strongly advised. Those who don't do this will more easily slip back into their old, more comfortable, and less healthy eating habits.

Ten Recipes

All you need to do is find at least ten recipes that you like. That is all that most families use.  You might have to try ten recipes to find one that you and your family enjoy, but that is ok as it is all part of the process. It is vitally important to have a variety. Do NOT rotate between two or three meals or you will burn out and stop the program. Variety is the key.

Step 6: Learn to distinguish physical food cravings from emotional food cravings.

If you are seeking sweets or grains because of an emotional challenge, you will want to consider using the simple and rapidly effective psychological acupressure technique, EFT , to rapidly help you control your emotional food cravings.

Many people don't understand that emotional well-being is essential to physical health. In fact, in terms of dieting for weight loss, not addressing emotional issues -- whether small or serious traumas from the past -- is the primary reason that most people who lose weight often fail at keeping the weight off.

If you are maintaining negative thoughts and feelings about yourself while trying to take physical steps to improve your body, you will not succeed. It will be like repeatedly washing your car in an effort to keep it clean during a dust storm. Fine-tuning your brain to "positive" mode is absolutely imperative to achieve optimal physical health.

Many people shun this notion, not because it doesn't make sense, but because the medical establishment has conned them into believing that it means they'll be shelling out many thousands of dollars over the coming months or years to traditional psychological care.

Well, some of the traditional psychological approaches may sometimes work, but there is a better solution. It's psychological acupressure, an inexpensive, simpler and proven way to eliminate the negative emotions barring you from a full and healthy life. And the Emotional Freedom Technique -- or EFT -- is the most powerful form of this technique available.

EFT Can Help You:

If you feel that your own emotions, or your own self-image, may be your own worse enemy with this (or any) nutrition plan, I highly recommend you read my free EFT manual and consider trying EFT on your own. You may also want to consider my EFT series on DVD or VHS , which provides in-depth discussions and lessons on EFT, and also provides an in-depth discussion of this nutrition plan. EFT is an easy technique to learn, and because of its incredibly high success rate at helping people instill positive emotions, it is also gaining widespread popularity quickly.