If you want to lose weight healthily and stay slim, nutritionist Matthias Riedl recommends “species-appropriate nutrition”. He names the six most important rules – and explains the easiest way to integrate them into your everyday life.
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There is one big problem that all my patients suffer from equally: Even if they know everything about the concept of species-appropriate nutrition, they end up back in the kitchen – and do everything as usual. Putting the information into practice is therefore a huge hurdle. The good thing: Anyone can overcome them!
And with another concept that I have developed with the help of all my experience from decades of practical nutritional therapy in line with the current studies: the 20:80 principle. This means: 80 percent of the previous diet can remain, only the remaining 20 percent have to change – depending on what type of nutrition you are.
If you use this program to integrate species-appropriate nutrition into your everyday life, you never have to worry about whether you can lose weight sustainably and stay slim. You will!
“The Ultimate Slimming Code” by Matthias Riedl, published by GU-Verlag
Just four steps are enough:
Step 1: Thorough troubleshooting in a diary Each of us eats differently – so our unfavorable eating patterns and culinary preferences are also individually different. In order to fix these errors, we first need to track them down. A nutrition log helps here: Write down exactly what you eat, drink and in which situations you do it over a period of four weeks. Important: Be really honest and consistent. After all, only a comprehensive food diary will allow you to take an insightful look at your eating habits, which is necessary in order to be able to make lasting changes to what is important.
Matthias Riedl is a nutritionist, diabetologist and medical director of medicum Hamburg, Germany’s largest specialist practice in nutritional medicine. As a board member of the Association of German Nutritionists (BDEM), he is committed to education on the subject of nutrition. Above all, he wants to support people who are no longer helped by conventional medicine. Here you can read an excerpt from his book “The Ultimate Slimming Code”.
Step 2: Identify and weight the most important nutritional mistakes Have you carefully kept your food diary for four weeks? Excellent! Now try to identify the worst mistakes that are driving your weight up: habits and preferences that go completely against the rules of humane nutrition. Most of my patients recognize about six to eight problematic patterns, with these being particularly common:
Once you have a list of your personal bad habits, pick two to tackle first. These should be the patterns that you think will be easiest to change. Many of my patients then decide to eat more vegetables – and to save on refined carbohydrates.
Step 3: Derive healthy mini-habits The principle behind every successful change in diet – I can not repeat it often enough – is: “Go slow!”
So start slowly, little by little. However, since most of us have trouble accepting this standard, allow me a brief digression as to why this is so. Trying to turn your diet 180 degrees overwhelms your brain. Because habits are so stable because automated actions use less energy in our upper part of the body – and allow it to work more efficiently.
If we didn’t spread a salami roll in the morning as if remotely controlled, but instead constantly ran through all the breakfast options in our heads, we would not only have a time problem, but would also give our brain an energy crisis. That’s why our brain goes on strike when we try to change too much at once – and will do anything to get us back on the path of old habits. Sometimes behavioral addictions are also involved.
However, such a conflict between mind and body does not occur if we take the change in diet slowly. Patience is actually the prerequisite for sustainable customer success. So for each of the two mistakes you want to eliminate first, come up with two healthy mini-habits to help you along the way.
Again, choose behaviors that you are very likely to be able to practice without torment. And initially leave those preferences untouched that are particularly important to you and thus part of your identity. For example, if you love pasta and now plan to eliminate all white flour pasta from your diet, you will give up this plan at the next opportunity – and stop the change in diet.
My practical experience shows that most patients find it easy to modify their breakfast. For example, if you are planning to reduce your daily carbohydrate intake and consume more vegetables, you can do this with an adapted morning meal – for example with a power quark, like the one I usually eat: I mix 150 grams of low-fat quark with two tablespoons of oatmeal and 100 grams of berries – and finally add a tablespoon of linseed oil. If you now eat a piece of raw food, for example a large carrot or four radishes and a tomato, then you have literally eaten off two new healthy habits at the same time! You don’t like the quark? Then try scrambled eggs and a small piece of wholemeal bread with cream cheese and fresh sprouts instead of the salami bun.
I guarantee that if you spend an hour or two thinking about healthy mini-habits based on the concept of species-appropriate eating, you will come up with many that are just as enjoyable as the old ones, but much better for your figure and health are.
Once you’ve automated the first new habit in a way that you don’t have to think about it anymore—usually after about a month—think of two more. As soon as these are internalized as well, tackle the next two – until you have corrected your mistakes identified in step 2! If so, move on to the next set of unfavorable eating patterns – and derive healthy mini-habits again… You see, changing your diet is a long-term project, but one that you’re completely in control of – not yours have to do without culinary favourites. You decide what to change and how to do it!
Step 4: Focus on foods that make you feel full when making your new habits When you start changing your diet, you should always keep one thing in mind – in everything you do: only those who get full with it can keep up with an adapted diet. Therefore, always shape your new habits around the healthiest fillers. Among the macronutrients this is protein, among the micronutrients it is fiber. In addition, all types of vegetables are among the absolute slimming foods – as are valuable fats. You should use these pieces of the puzzle to create your new habits.
Research knows that if you combine all of the above, you will feel full quickly, stay longer – and lose weight more easily. Without counting a single calorie.
