Ready Set Collaborate with Wanda Pearson
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Ready Set Collaborate with Wanda Pearson
The MAI Health Food Model with Davida Bostic: Sustainable Nutrition Without Strict Diets
Forget everything you think you know about healthy eating. Health coach Davida Bostic is revolutionizing nutrition with her MAI Health Food Model—a refreshingly practical approach that works for busy lives.
Drawing from her unique childhood with a bodybuilding father who introduced her to everything from goat milk to tropical fruit oatmeal, Davida developed a philosophy that helps people transform their health without the guilt, deprivation, or complexity of traditional diets. Her method is brilliantly simple: Minimize, Alternate, and Integrate.
What makes this approach different? It's rooted in understanding human psychology rather than just food science. As Davida explains, when we're told we "can't" have something, our natural response is often rebellion. Instead of rigid rules, the MAI method creates sustainable habits through gradual changes that feel empowering rather than restrictive.
The conversation dives deep into the profound connection between sleep, stress, and food choices. Sleep quality directly impacts what your body naturally craves, while stress triggers unhealthy eating patterns. Understanding these relationships helps explain why willpower alone rarely leads to lasting change.
Beyond just food, Davida introduces her "seven sovereign foods" framework—spirituality, nutrition, physical fitness, knowledge of self, community, environment, and emotional health—offering a holistic perspective on wellness that acknowledges eating habits don't exist in isolation.
Whether you're struggling with sugar cravings, looking for budget-friendly whole food options, or simply tired of diet culture, this episode delivers practical wisdom you can implement immediately. Ready to transform your relationship with food without giving up what you love? This conversation is your first step.
Connect with Davida Bostic
Integrative Nutrition Health Coach, Health Educator
Email: health@davidabostic.com
website: https://davidabostic.com
Instagram: Drive-Thru Diet (@drivethrudiet)
Phone: 786-641-9987
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Speaker 2:Welcome. Welcome to the Ready Set Collaborate podcast with Wanda Pearson. I am so excited to have my guest, Davida Bostic, and she's going to talk to us about integrative nutrition, health, and I know I need to get myself together, Davida, you probably don't have to be helping me out.
Speaker 2:I have a sweet tooth and I need to get rid of that sweet tooth. My doctor already told me that I am so excited for you to come and share your knowledge that can help people get it together, because this is 2025 and health is so important. To be able to do the right things to stay alive longer, right? Say hello to the audience, davida.
Speaker 3:Hi audience. It's Davida Bostic, integrative Nutrition Health Coach. How's everyone?
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, I'm so excited. I've been trying to get her on and I got her on. This year has been a great. We've had some great guests on, really help people, and this is very important to what you're doing as far as helping us to do the right thing, to have the right approach to our nutrition. So I think all of us can use this and I want my husband to hear this too. He's going to hear it too. As far as what we should and what we shouldn't do, let's get this show a party on the road here, and I'm going to talk about the Vita's bio.
Speaker 2:Meet the Vita Bostic, an integral integrative nutrition health coach and the creator of the MAI health food model a practical approach to nutrition that helps busy individuals lose weight, boost energy and cut sugar without giving up convenience. With years of experience coaching entrepreneurs, professionals and parents, davida believes in meeting people where they are and guiding them through the ultra process, through landscape, toward a sustainable whole foods lifestyle. Forget strict diets. Her method is all about realistic, lasting health transformation. I love that. So I can. I don't have to give up everything you can help me do.
Speaker 3:No, you don't have to. You don't have to give up everything right now. Giving up everything is really not for everybody, and just the way that the mind naturally works is just going cold Turkey on things Usually. It's not sustainable. We're beings of habit, and so it's habits that really help us make long-term changes, not just us deciding one day okay, light bulbs on, we're going to make a change.
Speaker 2:It is the habits that sustain us Absolutely and habits are hard to break. So by you starting off slowly and getting us to the point that we need to be in yes, when you come in to actually help us be sustainable, yes.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Did I say that right? Yes, yes, ok, thank you. I'm going to ask some questions here for you. I wanted to know what inspired you to become a health coach.
Speaker 3:What inspired me to become a health coach. Growing up, my dad used to do amateur bodybuilding when he was younger, and so growing up with him, just having him around. Of course, by the time we were born, he wasn't bodybuilding doing amateur bodybuilding anymore, but growing up, just him being around. He believed in fitness. He was a very fit man. He believed in his supplements. He believed in eating healthy. He used to research a lot of foods. He would always inspire me and my brother to just try a lot of different things. He introduced us to a lot of different foods at the time. He introduced us to things like goat milk, honey and banana sandwiches and with raisins and it was like what is this man doing? We would have oatmeal and we would have tropical fruit oatmeal and we're like why you got papaya and oatmeal type of thing? But my dad would always say no, you got to eat it, you got to make sure you get your nutrition in, like you got to explore food. So just growing up, him and my mother being entrepreneurs, they were always on the go. They were always on the go and they actually helped inspire me to become a health coach. To be honest with you, just having that background and having parents who worked a lot, my mom couldn't get in the kitchen every day and cook so they would always try to source like the best options of food.
Speaker 3:My dad was very big on us taking multivitamins, drinking a lot of water and, just over time, just living that lifestyle. Then witnessing a lot of my mom's friends and our family friends and just their health and how they suffered from health issues and things like that. I just put it together. Put it together. I'm like, okay, what is a good lifestyle? A healthy lifestyle?
Speaker 3:Every night, my dad would do a set of sit-ups, push-ups and jumping jacks. No matter how tired he was, he'll sleep and do jumping jacks because he was just that motivated and adamant about getting your fitness in every day. That really became a catalyst for me to become a health coach and it helped to really push me in the direction to want to be able to help people, because I noticed that a lot of people usually suffer, especially when they're busy. They have children, you run businesses or you have a very high demanding career. You suffer in choices, career you suffer in choices and just being able to have someone in a community that understands how to make good choices, to develop good habits to live a healthy life. That's what really motivated me to become a health coach.
Speaker 2:That's inspirational, I tell you, especially when you learn from a young age to be able to do this and you definitely get that this was God, this was your mission from God. Yeah, you have to build his legacy. Yes, that is great.
Speaker 3:What does integrative nutrition mean? Yeah, integrative nutrition is basically an approach to nutrition that factors in the whole person, but not just the whole person, but what works for the whole person. Integrative nutrition also takes into account the multiple health modalities veganism, paleo, all the different type of diets, all different type of modalities, whether they're holistic or medical, to help fix or get to the root of a problem with a person. For me personally, based on the principles of integrative nutrition, I developed something that I like to call the seven sovereign foods. Right, integrative nutrition to me focuses on these core perspectives, and it is spirituality, nutrition, physical fitness, knowledge of self, community, environment and emotional health.
Speaker 3:When you talk about integrative nutrition, there's a wheel that I basically created that has those seven factors on it, and those seven factors is integrative nutrition. It's not just about what you eat, it's not just about how you eat it, it's not just about eating period. It's about how you move, it's about how you think, it's about how well you know yourself, it is about the environment you're in, the community you're in, and taking into account how all of these elements help to frame your mind in the proper way to make good decisions about your health on a daily basis.
Speaker 2:That's awesome and I'm going to make you repeat those at the end of the seven principles. Yeah, no, I agree with all of those that you're saying here. So, yeah, that's going to be your ending note. Now, what are the seven principles? Again, I'm actually the readers. Are you going to tell us what the principles are? But no, it really makes sense to do that. How was whole food lifestyle different from a typical diet?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So I lived a whole foods lifestyle for a long time coming, being a teenager, coming into adulthood. A whole foods life, a whole foods lifestyle, is not a restrictive lifestyle. It is something that naturally goes with the flow of how your life is. It is about those choices, again, that you make on the daily basis. A whole foods lifestyle is, in the morning, instead of me having a five stack of pancakes with eggs, guess what I'm going to do? I'm going to have lemon water and a bowl of berries with some grapes and some oranges, and then I'm going to go on a 15 minute walk.
Speaker 3:Typical diets usually say you can't eat this, you can't eat this, you can't eat that, you can't eat that. A whole foods lifestyle says okay, this is the time that I have, this is the money that I have. I'm going to take this and make this choice and then and I'm doing I'm making this choice for the betterment of my health I cannot, I'm not choosing to eat this because someone said I can't. If I choose not to eat something is because it's not the best for me. So a whole foods lifestyle is also not just about what you eat, it's how you eat it, but also the mindset behind how you eat, what you eat, and I'm going to give you another example Whole foods lifestyle mindset is for lunch.
Speaker 3:I'm just going to decide to eat a heavy lunch so I can eat a lighter dinner. I know that bread bloats me. I know that I have an allergy to cheese me. I know that I have an allergy to cheese. I'm not a vegan per se, but I'm not going to have anything with gluten for lunch and I'm not going to have anything with cheese in it for lunch. What I'll do, I'll get something that has more rice, more vegetables, and I'm going to make sure that every meal that I eat has a raw vegetable on it or a fresh vegetable. I have to eat a salad or I have to eat a bowl of fruit. That is a whole foods lifestyle. Typical diet says no. You can't. Sometimes without really sometimes coming from a place of biasness as to why this is the ultimate best and not necessarily what is the best for you in your situation that is, that's powerful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, now I can think I can do that.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:Cause I was asked. I actually asked what are the foods that has less sugar in it? Yeah, I know I'm not a papaya drinker, but I said, okay, I got strawberries. I do like strawberries. Yeah, I didn't realize. I love pineapples, but I guess that has a lot of sugar. Can you eat pineapple too?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yes, yeah, because it's a natural sugar. The sugar that comes from a fruit, when the plant converts that sugar in the fruit, is different from the sugar that you get when it's processed in a facility.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's good to know. Yeah, I think I go on that. Whole foods, yeah. So how can someone transition to a whole food diet easily?
Speaker 3:Okay, this is where I came in. This is where I come in at right, someone transitioning into a whole foods diet easily. Like I say, I take into account the what I like to call the seven sovereign foods. But there's a method that I created and you read it earlier. It's called the my Health Food Model M-A-I. I don't call it the May, I call it the my Health Food Model. And the my Health Food Model basically stands for minimize, alternate and integrate.
Speaker 3:It's not about going cold turkey, cutting everything off. It's about taking small steps to minimize something first. Once you start making minimizations on something that you know hey, I have a problem with sugar, I have a problem with meat, I have a problem with eating fatty fried foods we're going to minimize that. Once we can minimize that, then we're going to work on the alternations. What do I like? That can give me the same satisfaction. That is a great alternate and usually that's where you would stay for a while. You will stay in the minimizing and alternating because why?
Speaker 3:You can still eat what you want to eat, and most of the time you can. It just comes in a form of how you eat it, right? For instance, if someone has loved cookies right. What a lot of people don't know is they may think that, oh, I love the sweetness of crunchy cookies, or I love chocolate. But sometimes it's really not even the taste of the cookies that you want, it's actually the crunch of the cookie that you want. It is the texture that you want. This particular texture you can get from cookies. So now we know, okay, this is more of a texture thing, not necessarily a taste thing. Now we're going to think about, okay, what is an alternative to this crunchy type of cookie that gives me this same feeling? And so now we're minimizing the traditional cookie and now we're alternating with something else, just one at a time, one at a time. Okay, I can tolerate this, I can tolerate this. And then, once we do the minimize, alternate rotation for a while. Guess what we go to integrate Once you get to the integration stage, the integration is you know what?
Speaker 3:I am absolutely going to make this a permanent staple in my life. I am going to now do more of this. I am going to do more of this. And with the my Health Food model, I know it works for me. It's worked for a lot of people around me that I've talked to, that I've given them tips on how to fix that, people that I've coached and things, and I just hope it works for the world to be honest with you. But that's definitely one thing that I saw, because people don't like to be told no, they don't like to be told no, they don't like to be told I can't. Because sometimes when you say you can't, no, it's like I think I want to go do it more. How do you like that?
Speaker 3:And so it's like how do you break that habit? And it's let's minimize it, let's find out, which, again, is where a health coach comes into place. A health coach helps you find what the problem really is, and sometimes the problem. Most of the time, the problem is usually not exactly what you think it is. It's not necessarily the taste, it's not necessarily the place that you're going, it is the feeling that you get from doing this thing. And so if we can find minimize, find alternations for that feeling, then we can actually start to integrate healthier lifestyles. That's how a person would be able to transition to a whole foods diet more easily easily.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's deep and that's so true. I was going to ask you what MAI and I wrote it down here Minimize, alternate and integrate. That's M-A-I.
Speaker 3:Health food model. Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's awesome. That's awesome. That really does make sense. Yep, that crunchiness of cooking, that's what I need. To give up my yeah. So we got to get an alternate of that. How do you help clients overcome their food cravings?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so, in terms of overcoming food cravings, what I just explained with the my Health Food Model, that's how we start the steps of overcoming those food cravings, because that's one step. Another step would also be like testing, doing DNA testing to see are there any imbalances in your system that's causing your brain to say, hey, I need more of this red meat, I need more of this chocolate, because there's something in that food that your body is probably saying, hey, I, when you give me this, I feel better. Give me more and more of this. So there are two ways, like I say, it is with the testing, to make sure that your nutrition, mineral levels and everything like that is good, which, of course, is something that can be overseen by a nutritionist or dietitian Because, again, I'm a health coach.
Speaker 3:I offer the solution, I provide you with the tools and I offer you the solution to get to the problem and I help you implement the tools and I offer you the solution to get to the problem and I help you implement the habits right, but I'm not the one that helps to diagnose and give you all of that stuff like that. But yeah, that's how you can do that, that's how I help my clients with their cravings. We get to the root of that.
Speaker 2:And that makes sense. Yeah, I definitely love what you're saying here, so it's just, yeah, trying to get started. I'm happy you're on again because there's a lot of information here. What role does stress and sleep play in nutrition?
Speaker 3:oh my gosh, it is so much to unpack. It is so much to unpack with that stress and sleep. Okay, stress is a number one. Let me reframe that Sleep is a number one pillar to good health and nutrition. Okay, because when you sleep and you have good sleep your body actually craves the proper things. Your brain can function better, your nerves, your neuron, everything in your body comes on sync. It's like it comes online when you have proper sleep. Okay, because you're not just, it's not just about the act of sleeping, but the biological process of when you sleep. That also factors into your environment. Ok, good sleep is also determined by environment. Sleep major pillar Now stress is a major pillar in destroying health, in destroying health, and knowing how to properly manage stress and not allow stress to interrupt one of your main pillars of health, which is your sleep, is what helps you with proper nutrition.
Speaker 3:Like I say to me, nutrition is the spirituality, is the knowledge of self, is the environment, the community, is the physical, health is all of that.
Speaker 3:The role that stress and sleep plays in nutrition is one is the destroyer and one is the creator. One helps to build your health and one helps to deconstruct your health. And when it comes to the way that your body processes food, when it comes to the way that your body processes minerals, vitamins, from the food that you eat, when it comes to how you eat, what you desire to eat, even cravings. When your sleep is not on point, you crave a lot more unhealthy foods because your body is trying to do what it's trying to release the stress. When your body is overstressed because of poor sleep, your body is going to say, hey, go eat this sweet thing, go eat this red meat, go get that fried food, go get that. Those are all signals to reduce stress and those are. That's just. It's just so much to unpack there, but those are some of the main pillars of how stress and sleep play a role in nutrition.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's awesome as far as how you laid it down. Yeah, that's so important, girl, we're running out of time here. What are some of the budget-friendly whole food options that you can use? Okay, budget-friendly, making it fun and easy.
Speaker 3:Well, okay, budget friendly whole foods options. Let's see budget friendly. When you say budget friendly, what we're talking about?
Speaker 2:no more than fifty dollars yeah, with the food cost today, I don't know okay.
Speaker 3:so some budget friendly whole foods options. Fresh vegetables are usually always the best those. Those are usually your top whole foods, next to fresh. You can do frozen foods. So you can do things like bananas, oranges, those basics. Berries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, blueberries, those types of things. Sometimes even treat yourself to maybe a dragon fruit, some type of exotic fruit, once a week, just pay the $5 for it, $2, $ type of things. Sometimes even treat yourself to maybe a dragon fruit, some type of exotic fruit, once a week, just pay the $5 for it, $2, $3 for it. Because the amount of nutrition that you get from that food versus a $5 meal at McDonald's or Burger King is really going to benefit your health longer term. So you can do berries, oatmeal If you're into oatmeal, even quinoa, just get a bag of quinoa, do a half a cup of quinoa in the morning and season it and put some fruit on the side. Or you can do frozen fruit, like the dragon fruits, the mixed berries, and make smoothies with it. So those are some very budget-friendly whole foods options.
Speaker 2:That's good. Smoothies with smoothies be part of that. Can you make smoothies with that, like the?
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2:That's usually what I do. I make smoothies with the fruit and the yogurt. Yeah, that's good to know. How can we make it fun and easy with families?
Speaker 3:How could you make it fun and easy with families? Get the family involved. Definitely, get the family involved With me. When I because I have my children, when we're eating healthy, I allow them to say, hey, okay, everybody, pick a fruit. I'm going to pick a fruit. What type of fruit do you want? And most of the time it's usually expensive fruit bowls. But I say, no, we're not going to do a $30 fruit bowl.
Speaker 3:We're going to spend about $20. We're going to get some bags of fruit. We're going to make our own fruit bowls, which usually come out a lot better, so definitely getting the family involved, family community involved.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's awesome, I agree. So, yeah, you're giving me some ideas here, but I got to talk to you offline. As far as I need to, mine is, for some reason. So what's a simple go-to meal you recommend?
Speaker 3:A simple go-to meal that I recommend. Okay, a lot of people feel like this is not the best because people like variety, but a simple go-to meal is some rice. I like to do coconut rice with some black beans, right, and a kale salad, a blueberry kale salad. So you just get some kale, blueberries and maybe some vegan feta cheese, or you can do what they call it's called like a pate, like a cashew or nut pate. You toss those, the kale and the blueberries in that with some type of bread, some type of bread. You can do things like unleavened bread. You can do a cornbread. A lot of people in the South they eat the cornbread. So you can do a cornbread, you can do a pita bread. But I usually like to balance my plates with being a protein, a starch, a grain and a fresh fruit, a vegetable and water.
Speaker 2:OK, ok, that and water.
Speaker 3:Okay, okay that makes sense.
Speaker 2:That makes sense, Girl. We run it out. It's time here, but let me ask you this, and then we're going to do the final takeaways how does the mindset affect eating habits?
Speaker 3:To be honest with you, mindset is the number one factor that determines good eating habits, and that is one of the reasons. That's the main reason why I actually developed the my health food model because, like I say, I realize people don't like to be told no. You cannot do no. If you, if we can continue to feel like we're in control of our choices, we will make better decisions long-term. And so mindset is the number one key. If I know, if I make the decision to say you know what, this is not good for me, so I'm going to minimize this. But let me try with something else. I feel good about this. You know what. I'm going to make this a long-term thing. And the next thing by the time I get to the end of the my Health Food Model, which is the Integrate, I'm no longer eating that thing. That's unhealthy for me, but because it's been making me feel so good during this time, I can take this with me long-term and with a lot of people that I have helped with the my Health Food Model, they still use these same principles to this day and it works for them.
Speaker 3:My mom called me sometime, my sister called me and they're like hey, this is snack, I'm trying to eat, this is snack. But you know what? I did this the other day, but what I'm going to do? The last two weeks I've been on track like this, I've been on track like this and they're very mindful, very aware, just for that. But mindset is the number one. If your mindset is not right, it's not going to work. And, believe it or not, there's a large percentage of people and I'm not going to say the percentage because I don't want to be inaccurate, but there's actually a large percentage of people that revert after going on strict diets. Most of them don't, and that's why a lot of large weight loss companies and stuff they're billion dollar industries because people do not stay on track with strict diets. They don't. It's not practical to life.
Speaker 2:This is great because it's an alternative that you're offering, because when you go on those diets and you lose the weight, then you get off them, then you're gaining the weight back again. What you're offering is actually an alternative that minimize alternate, mai. Minimize alternate integrate. That's great we're winding down, but tell us those seven principles you told us about again.
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah, so the seven sovereign foods of health is spirituality, nutrition, physical fitness, knowledge of self, community, environment and emotional health.
Speaker 2:That makes sense. That's great. That is great. So where can listeners connect with you? Because you give?
Speaker 3:me a lot of great information.
Speaker 2:I'm telling you.
Speaker 3:My head is like spinning, okay, I got it. Listeners can connect with me on Instagram. My Instagram is my name Davida Bostic, my TikTok is my name Davida Bostic, or you can just look up Davida. You can find me there, and my YouTube is Davida Bostic, so you just look for my name and you'll find me.
Speaker 2:Okay, and we spell your name D-A-V-I-D-A. Yes.
Speaker 3:David with an A. Yes David with an A, yes David with an A. And then, Bostic.
Speaker 2:That's awesome, davida. I appreciate you being on the podcast with me and you gave some great inspiration as far as what we do, because now, like I said, this is 2025. Now we need to get our lifestyle together. Yes, most definitely To be able to live a longer life. Yes, but no. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. And I'm going to have you on again because you gave a lot of stuff. She does so many other things, but we just picked this subject for today.
Speaker 1:Yes, Thank you.
Speaker 2:Definitely connect with Davida Bostic. She definitely have a lot of things to share to help you get on the right track as far as dining, eating the right foods and your lifestyle to live a long life, most definitely.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Thank you once again. Audience, I want you to make sure that you share, like and follow Ready Set Collaborate podcast with Wanda Pierce. I'm on all podcast platform as well as YouTube, so definitely connect with us and connect with Davida. Thanks again, davida.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thank you, ms Wanda. Bye, bye.
Speaker 1:That wraps up another episode of Ready Set. Collaborate with Wanda Pearson. I hope you found inspiration and valuable insights to help you build meaningful connections and successful collaborations. If you enjoyed today's conversation, be sure to subscribe, share and stay tuned for more great discussions. Until next time, keep collaborating and making an impact.
