Month: December 2018

Wishing You Healthy Holidays!

December 23, 2018

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In much of the world, winter and new year holidays are upon us, or soon will be – remembering it is the beginning of summer and middle of the natural year in the southern hemisphere.

This common cross-cultural occurrence suggests roots in ancient winter solstice celebrations, even in cultures that traditionally used a lunar calendar, and a common desire to mark the welcome turn from declining to increasing daylight.

Regardless of your culture and the timing of its seasonal holidays, another common theme this time of years is that our emphasis on happy holidays can make healthy holidays difficult. All too often, we are encouraged to engage in older, less health conscious customs, or new ones born of nostalgia for the past.

This can mean less healthy eating, less regular exercise, or less healthy and even patently health-indifferent social activities – all with the potential for significant inertia in our lives well beyond the holiday season.

With these ideas in mind, HumanaNatura would like to offer ten ideas to help make this or your next holiday a healthy one for you, your family, and your community, wherever you are and whenever your holidays occur:

#1: Eat before events – as an aid to avoiding unhealthy foods

#2: Offer to cook – greatly improving culinary control

#3: Bring a dish – ensuring at least one healthy option

#4: Morning walks – before becoming busy with events

#5: Group calisthenics – fun for kids of all ages

#6: Active activities – away from couches and chairs

#7: Share 2018 recaps – fostering learning & understanding

#8: Discuss 2019 plans – inspiring reflection & forward thinking

#9: Volunteer – to reach more people in the holiday spirit

#10: Renaturalize – by spending time in nature, quietly or adventurously

This list may encourage you to have other healthy holiday ideas, and we would enjoy hearing them in the comments section.

From all of us in the worldwide HumanaNatura natural health community, we wish you healthy holidays, whether now or next.

Tell others about HumanaNatura…give the gift of modern natural life!

Progressive Life At The Solstice

December 21, 2018

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Greetings from HumanaNatura at the solstice! Around the world, we are now at one of two crucial milestones in the natural year. Today is the shortest day, start of winter, and beginning of a new natural year in the northern hemisphere. And it is the longest day, natural midpoint of the year, and start of summer in the south.

New Day Waits For You

A Moment in the Everchanging Light of the Natural Year

In the HumanaNatura natural health system, and as explained in our Mastering The Natural Year graphic and post, we encourage spending this and every solstice with family, friends, and community. With the extreme light and heightened feelings that come with the solstices, it’s a natural opportunity to celebrate progress in our lives and Natural Life Plans, break from our routines and seek new perspective, and encourage greater health and progressivity in others.

If you have not yet created a Natural Life Plan to guide your use and expression of the third HumanaNatura technique, Natural Living, our links will take you to our planning worksheets and seven-step planning process. Together, these resources will help you to begin more intentionally health-centered and naturally progressive life in the days and weeks ahead.

From all of us in HumanaNatura’s worldwide natural health community, we wish you new health and happiness, at this and every solstice.

Tell others about HumanaNatura…give the gift of modern natural life!

One-Meal-A-Day Salad Meal

December 4, 2018

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In the Natural Eating section of our Personal Health Program, HumanaNatura encourages care with meal frequency, in addition to meal quality, to promote weight and health optimization. At first, this may involve a daily eating window of 4-8 hours, but we may eventually move to eating just one meal a day, or OMAD eating. This added step can further increase our nutritional and metabolic efficiency, and provide a number of practical and long-term health benefits (see OMAD for an overview).

The idea of eating only once a day may seem daunting at first, but OMAD and intermittent fasting more generally are quickly and easily practiced by most people – by moving first to snack-free eating and then to fewer, larger meals. The approach is also greatly aided when we eat healthfully and ketogenically – for example via the HumanaNatura program and following HumanaNatura’s OurPlate healthy eating guide – since each step naturally reduces food cravings. As an example of healthy ketogenic and OMAD eating, check out today’s sample HumanaNatura meal, and be sure to subscribe to follow our healthy eating and other natural health posts!

Our meal today is calorie-rich and ketogenic, with about 1800 calories overall and 70 percent of these calories from fats. It is intended to provide all needed daily nutrition and a stable body weight for a person at their ideal weight and fully transitioned to OMAD eating and ketogenic nutrition. Importantly, and as with eating overall, our actual calorie needs for weight maintenance with OMAD eating will vary by person. But often, they will be on the order of 2/3 of calories when consuming three meals a day and 3/4 when eating two meals. If you are not eating ketogenically, you can replace some of the foods with fruits or starches (see OurPlate and  Natural Eating Overview for more information).

Our sample meal begins by preparing a four-egg omelette with cooked shrimp, chopped cilantro, thinly sliced and chopped cabbage, and a bit of black pepper. As the omelette cooks, a large salad is prepared with baby greens, a few grape tomatoes, a peeled and sliced avocado, a generous portion of cubed brie cheese, seeded and coarsely cut orange bell pepper, a scattering of raw sunflower seeds, and a simple but generous dressing of olive oil and white balsamic vinegar (not shown is an appetizer or dessert of raw almonds and cut celery). When the omelette is done, it is plated alongside the salad ingredients as shown, and topped with a small zig-zag of chilli sauce. The entire meal is then garnished with black pepper and parsley flakes, and served promptly. Tasty, healthy, and perhaps needless to say, filling!

Learn more about creating naturally delicious and optimally nutritious meals like this via OurPlate, HumanaNatura’s simple natural eating guide for designing optimally healthy modern meals. Experience how this science-based and 100% natural approach to our daily meals can change the way you eat, feel, and live. Sharpen your skills at making delicious and naturally healthy Salad Meals via our Salad Meal Overview. And explore the science and key principles of optimal Natural Eating through HumanaNatura’s comprehensive Personal Health Program.

Once you have begun eating the HumanaNatura way, you can explore your many opportunities for new, more natural, and healthier life between meals – via HumanaNatura’s comprehensive four-part system for modern natural life and health. Check out the overview of our free health programs and resources at Welcome.

Tell others about HumanaNatura…give the gift of modern natural life!

HN’s 20 Natural Eating Guidelines

December 1, 2018

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The Natural Eating technique within HumanaNatura’s Personal Health Program and underlying our companion OurPlate dietary model utilize twenty nutritional guidelines. Below, we provide a brief summary of all twenty guidelines.

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HN Natural Eating: For Omnivores & Vegetarians, With Or Without Carbs

Overall, the guidelines distill our Personal Health Program’s survey of historical and contemporary dietary science, and seek to summarize and encourage optimal modern eating patterns – notably including but extending beyond ketogenic diets.

You can explore any or all of the Natural Eating guidelines and the science behind them in practice at OurPlate and more deeply via HumanaNatura’s Personal Health Program. But the following summary should give you a good preliminary sense of our important and far-reaching proposals for optimal modern nutrition:

1. Raw Foods – recognize raw-edibility as a sign of food naturalness

2. Healthy Cooking – use cooking to increase food taste and nutrition

3. Proteins – ensure adequate but not excessive natural proteins

4. Fats & Oils – emphasize fish and other foods rich in Omega-3 fats and oils

5. Carbohydrates – avoid all sugary foods and have clear carbohydrate goals

6. Greens & Vegetables – should be at least half of our food intake by volume

7. Natural Animal Foods – wild-caught, free-range, and grass-fed are healthier

8. Dairy Products – use attentively within your personal fat and carb goals

9. Sweet Fruits & Cooked Starches – use or avoid, depending on your carb goals

10. Grains, Cereals, Legumes & Beans – ecologically and personally unhealthy

11. Processed Foods – avoid these foods in nearly all their forms

12. Food Allergies, Intolerances & Aversions – avoid these foods as well

13. Microbiome Health – crucial to health and promoted by Natural Eating

14. Vegetarian Eating – Natural Eating includes lacto-ovo but not vegan diets

15. Supplements & Probiotics – generally not needed, but four exceptions

16. Added Salts – often not needed or advisable, but four exceptions here too

17. Artificial Sweeteners – avoid but use as needed instead of sugary foods

18. Recreational Drugs – none except moderate sugar-free caffeine drinks

19. Fasting – daily eating windows and multi-day fasts can be very healthy

20. Food Ecology & Sustainable Eating – seek 100% sustainable eating

If you have questions or want more information on our Natural Eating nutritional guidelines, please see HumanaNatura’s Personal Health Program. Feel free to comment below, or message us anytime via Contact HumanaNatura.

We hope this summary of our twenty Natural Eating guidelines is interesting and helpful to you.

Tell others about HumanaNatura…give the gift of modern natural life!