“Holistic” can be seen as many different thing to different kinds of people. The general definition is all the parts of a something that are interconnected, resulting in a connected whole. When applied to the human diet and lifestyle, I found a quote in a book titled Whole: Rethinking the Science of Nutrition by Dr. T. Colin Campbell that helps paint the right, simple picture of a holistic – or also known as the WFPB diet. (His book was one of my texts for the first half of my current nutritional certification. If you’re curious enough about the WFPB diet | Whole-Food-Plant-Based | I would highly recommend grabbing a copy of this book and settling in with it).
On page 7, Dr. Campbell writes, “The ideal human diet looks like this: Consume plant-based foods in forms as close to their natural state as possible(“whole”foods). Eat a variety of vegetables, fruits, raw nuts and seeds, beans and legumes, and whole grains.” That is the ideal human diet, with the dismissal of “-heavily processed foods and animal products.” The quote continues on with a warning to stay away from added sugars, salts and oils. And that’s it, easily spelled out here, and in the book. Yet still, what about the reality of attempting to apply this kind of lifestyle and diet to someone who had been following the SAD (Standard American Diet) their entire life? That seems insanely daunting no matter where you are on you’re diet journey
It is with these simply put but overwhelming statements and lists that create a resistance to trying out the holistic diet and lifestyle like the WFPB diet mentioned above. There are delicious recipes, and yes, there are countless cookbooks and Google searches to prepare you for the change. But there is one thing that is intertwined within the American lifestyle that seems to make the biggest argument: time.
Our time is the only thing we can’t get back, and we refuse to put it into anything we don’t find essential and/or pleasurable. We Americans run on stress and instant gratification – which is why we immediately Google search something like “holistic lifestyle for beginners”, see that it involves no fast food and no meat, and back away quickly. We work too much, see our loved ones less often, and cherish the tiny amounts of time between shifts. Meal prepping, multiple days at the grocery store and lack of convince food = too much trouble for us busy people. Believe me, I understand at last some of these struggles.
Here is the kicker though: when applying our time to things we find enjoyable and pleasurable we seem to always find the time and/or the money. It’s something I struggle with every single day – I can’t tell you how many times I said I couldn’t sit and make my own dinner between plans, but found enough time to add in an extra episode or two of Parks and Rec. on Netflix.
Since my passion for sharing my findings, I have been accused of trying to change the American way of living; of judging things and ways of life that I had been raised with my entire life, but I am here to say that I have no intention of destroying the BBQ on the 4th of July, or turkey dinner on Thanksgiving. What I want to change is the way we look at our edible traditions we’ve been blessed with, and change them for the better.
Since the Holidays just passed, most people are looking for a reset on their diets, or signing up for an insane, rigorous workout routine that about kills them by week two. What if, instead of trying to better the outsides of our bodies first and working on the insides way later on, we use the next few holiday-free weeks and reverse that habit? What if we all tried to better our insides before our outsides?
Over the next year, (W)holistic Life & Nutrition will be promoting the realities not only of the outcomes through transferring into a holistic diet, but the ups and the downs, and the pitfalls and the victories. We are all together, and we are not alone, even if we are the only ones in our family and friend group living this way! (Which I am!!)
I look forward to meeting with all of you readers throughout the year, and sharing my own real-life moments and memories of living a (W)holistic Life!