The Balance Blueprint: Nutrition

In this episode, we talk about my approach for making choices for healthy eating.  I summarize years of study from experts in their field from modern science to the ancient science of Ayurveda.  

Reach out with questions and share your experience.  I'd love to hear how it's going.  Find me at www.centeredbyleslie.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hey everybody, welcome to Centered the Podcast. I'm your host, Leslie Braverman, and I'm sharing holistic content that reconnects you to your most centered self, that place within you that is energized, knowing, and uplifted despite the chaos and demands of life. It's that place within you where you can become the portal of possibility. We're filming this today, right after Thanksgiving. I was with family and extended family. It was a wonderful, long weekend. And we're sitting around the dinner table talking about longevity and how much information has come out on longevity tactics and this and that. And it inspired me to create a series. So this is gonna be the first in a couple of additional podcasts, and we're gonna call this the Balance Blueprint. And today we're gonna talk about nutrition. And my background in nutrition really started in the 90s. Well, I mean, it really started when I was born. My mom has always been an avid reader of health and wellness, even before it was an entire industry. And I have done everything from vegetarian to paleo to keto to in school. I had the benefit of learning ethnobotany. I had like deep dives with pioneers in their field, like Weston Price and Sally Fallon Morrill, and I've studied Ayurveda, and I'm finishing up a health coaching certification. So, like, this is a world I'm very, very familiar with, and I've seen the trends, and they're very similar to the fitness trends. And what has like really changed my life is this very specific lens that I'm gonna share with you today. And this is the lens of it's really a science lens of pH. And what I see in all of these different suggestions and ways to eat and live and this and that, it really all comes back to the homeostasis and balance that your body wants to be in. In the 90s, I read a book called The PH Miracle by Robert Young. And I have found that that lens of balancing pH within the body and applying it to everything I do and eat has been the greatest part of my personal longevity practices. It's what I teach my kids on how to eat. It's how I've always created food in the homes. So I'm gonna walk you through it. You can always read the book. It's not a big read, it's very simple, but it's really about like having a healthy mentality when you go to eat and not being too restrictive or too hyper-focused on this. So here's the lens, okay? The body, this is the science part. The body always wants to be in homeostasis. And one of the really great things that I remember learning from a yoga master was we come with everything we need, we just get in our own way, in our experiences and our attempts to try to, you know, control. So if you adopt the lens of supporting the body in its homeostasis, then everything actually is a longevity practice. And when we look at pH, we have an alkaline and an acid, and in between the two, a neutral. And this is pH, first of all, stands for potential of hydrogen, and it's how the ions are positive and negative. We're gonna leave that out. Okay, let's just look at acidity and alkalinity and neutrality. So the body has this very specific pH that it wants to be in, to be in homeostasis. And as we feed it, we're either pulling it from or emphasizing its balance. It's that simple. So the blood, the cells, the organs, the bones, the tissues in the brain all have an optimal pH that they function at. And when that is pulled, let's say more acidic, the body needs very specific nutrients, minerals in order to function. So it'll pull it from other areas. So we start resourcing internally from other areas that have these minerals that we need to alkalize the system. So, worst case scenario, we start to pull from the bones. And this is, you know, where things like or conditions like osteopenia, osteoporosis come from. It's in the system has been in acidity too long. It's resourcing because the body is so intelligent. Again, it comes with everything it needs, but we don't necessarily want it to resource from our bones. We want it to have the optimal conditions that it needs to have to thrive. This is an energy leak, a huge energy leak for a lot of people, is what we eat and how the body has to handle it. So if we pull back and restore our alkaline balance, it's not an energy leak. We're not pulling from the bones, we're not pulling from areas of the body that are meant to have the minerals they have. So let's talk about how to like help out that mineral supply chain. We'll talk about how to balance food and still eat exactly what you want to eat. So, in general, the most alkaline foods you can eat are going to be green. They're spirulina and chlorella, they're most of your green veggies, they're sprouts, things that are growing. Seaweeds are amazing, fermented vegetables, coconut is amazing. I love, I love coconut water. It's so yummy. And citrus. And these are really alkaline balancing. We can also enhance our water by making it more pH balanced. There's alkaline waters you can buy. But let's just look at food for now and not like the extras. Then we have a group of food that's more neutral, beans and seeds, and as long as they're raw. When we roast stuff, it becomes more acidic. And then there's a few grains that are kind of in this neutral pH, and that's buckwheat, oatmeal, rice, and quinoa. Okay, so if you just think of that, those two groupings of food, and make sure that you're balancing everything else when you eat it, then you're helping your body. So I'm not saying not to eat meat, I'm not saying not to eat roasted nuts, but don't eat them alone. And so that is really the lens of balance that I want to bring to the table. So when I teach my kids, because health always starts in the home, it always starts in the kitchen. What I teach them is to create a three snack plate. Right now I'm still making them breakfast most of the time, most of their meals. So they're in charge of their snacks. And this is usually where I see the most imbalance in adults as well, is a lot of people are starting to think about having a more balanced meals, but it's the snacks that can really get to you. So eating healthy snacks, I teach a balance of three groups. And so, for example, let's say the kids have or you choose fruit. Okay, so that fruit is acidic, not very acidic, but it is an acid. So you want to balance it with something that is more alkaline and neutral. So perhaps you want to grab some seaweed is a great thing to grab. Or you can grab like a handful of soaked and sprouted nuts or raw nuts to have with it. And that not only blunts the sugar, but it also helps to balance the pH. And then you can have it with perhaps some lemon water, and that would be a third thing, or some sliced veggies. My kids love carrots because they're sweet. They also do like thinly sliced celeries, or I mean, they just like, you know, most vegetables are kind of all in the same group for them. They don't, they don't really care to choose a vegetable. They're just like, I need to put this on my snack plate because mom requires it. So, but it is teaching them to balance everything. So the other thing I see for adults is something like like I had a client once who just really loved tortilla chips, like wasn't gonna stop eating tortilla chips. And I'm never about stopping something you love because food also has to be like there has to be some romance with your food. If you're only eating for fuel, there's a there's almost like a negative overlay on it. Or if you, you know, you if you're only eating because your nutritionist told you, or because you have to, emotions are a huge part of your wellness experience. So it has to be something that you feel good about and you love. So for instance, this client really wanted his tortilla chips, and I was like, that's great. So let's look at them from the acid alkaline balance. These are very acidic. What do you want to put on them that's gonna help to balance it and blunt, you know, blunt the effects of this acidity in your system? And he said to me, Okay, great. I'm gonna drink my lemon water chuck. I'm gonna instead of putting on, you know, acidic tomato-based salsa, I'm gonna do avocado. Fantastic. And then he was like, you know, on the days when I'm really on it, I can put on some microgreens, some sprouted microgreens. And on the days that I'm not, I'm gonna just give myself a pass that I've done something way better than I was doing before. And that's the kind of lens that I really want to bring to this aspect of longevity is not only giving yourself permission to just do your best on that day, but also having backup systems that are just part of your life that are already integrated. So a lot of people ask me what I do. And I have, like I said, I've done everything, I've tried everything. I've tried so many things. And in the end, intuitive eating is what works best for me. And what I really like to start my day with really changes, but it's always something incredibly alkaline. Sometimes I'll just have a glass of warm water with lemon or cool water with lemon, like tempid. And that is a great start for me right away. And then I'll do some stretches, which I'll share with you later in another episode. And then I will, so it's almost like an intermittent fasting. I eat later. And when I eat, it's gonna be something like banana with nut butter and cinnamon and salt. Himalayan sea salt is one of my favorite nutrients. So that's a really good fit for me. But what I start with is incredibly alkaline. And sometimes I'll start with a blend of green juice, which is gonna be something like a whole lot of cilantro, some parsley, sometimes parsley, sometimes not. It's really about what's fresh in my fridge, but I always have cilantro and I'll always put cilantro on food, almost like the client I was talking about also puts microgreens on food. And then I'll also add something like a big pile of ginger and half a lemon and usually some sort of kale or collards, and then I'll juice that. And I don't always strain it. Sometimes I'll drink the whole thing. I pull off the froth and I'll drink it. And then usually I'll put in some sort of like a half or a quarter fruit, like pear or apple, or maybe a handful of grapes if I have them. But I keep that fruit pretty small, and I really have the goal of alkalizing the body right off the bat, so that the other choices that I make in the day can have more leeway. And that beginning part of my day is really hyper-focused on easy alkaline foods. So that's the the basis of it. So if you want to play around with this, just start looking at your food as you prepare things, not with judgment, but with curiosity. Curiosity of okay, I see I made this beautiful dinner, or I threw together something because I needed to. How can I make it more alkaline and make it like a game? You know, and then you'll start noticing that there are easy things you can do. You can buy things to add onto your meal. And that's a great place to start, is just thinking of these key things that like the microgreens and the veggies, ferments, the seaweeds, citrus. These are kind of the go-to. And then any young green juices, where can you get them into your day? And it it's gonna start remineralizing the body. Two other key minerals that I really use a lot of are Himalayan sea salt, also known as pink salt. I love it. And then when I'm getting a lot of exercise, I'll have some other salt in my house, and I'll just stick my, I'll like my finger, stick my finger in the salt, like this is my own dish. And I'll just have a little extra salt or put a little extra salt in my water, and I just really make sure I'm also really hyper-focused on electrolytes. So getting those minerals in and getting in the alkalinity is the biggest longevity move that I've included in my life for the last, well, like I said, since the 90s. And I think it really pays off, you know, the feeling in my body is always fantastic, no matter what I'm going through, whether it's big life stuff, big emotional stuff, I my body always feels fantastic. And not a lot of people can say that. And I really think that these, you know, it's been like 30 years of eating with some sort of alkalinity lens that's made a huge difference in my life and in my clients' life. The interesting thing is I don't hear back about it from a lot of clients. I think what happens is people just start feeling better and they have so much more energy because this really acidity is really a huge energy leak. And they just forget how they used to feel. And they always just tell me, oh yeah, Leslie, I have so much more energy in working from working with you and you know, making changes in my life, but they don't really reflect on the fact that it's the alkaline acid balance that's changed at such a deep level. Again, we're talking it's your, it's in the blood, it's in the cells, the organs and the tissues and the brain. It's all in all of these places. So play around with it. Ask me questions, send me notes. I would love to assist you with this new way of looking at eating. And again, eat what you love and just balance the acidity. Be that portal possibility, and I'll be with you next time for some more of this longevity.