Louise Murray is a Health & Mindfulness Coach with the qualification from the Institute of Integrative Nutrition and a mindfulness coach. She looks at nourishing people ON and OFF the plate by coaching them around 12 different aspects of one’s life. Through her work Louise discovered that its busy working women, who often put their own needs last after family and career, benefit from her support the most. She helps them fill their lifestyles with healthy balanced choices and live truly well, being the best version of themselves.
http://www.livewellwithlou.com/
What is post-modern nutrition?
Nourishing yourself OFF the plate is just as important as how you nourish yourself ON the plate.
Nutrition is great – eating the right foods to fuel your body is wonderful. Finding a way of moving that serves your body is amazing. But diet and exercise are just the tip of the health iceberg…just the visible part of what actually affects your overall health and wellbeing. For true health you need to go deeper, below the water. What lurks beneath the surface is far greater. To feel your best you need to nourish yourself both on and off the plate, nourish yourself physically AND mentally.
This approach recognises that nourishment doesn’t just appear on your plate – we don’t just hunger for food. We hunger for play, fun, touch, romance, intimacy, love, achievement, success, art, music, self-expression, leadership, excitement, adventure, and spirituality. All these elements are essential forms of nourishment – they satisfy your soul and your hunger for life.
A truly nourishing life is built by a fulfilling career, loving relationships, an energising and rejuvenating exercise routine, and a spiritual practice that soothes and invigorates (a spiritual practice doesn’t have to be religious – its anything that makes you feel connected to something great than yourself. It could be a yoga class, meditation, being out in nature).
In fact, post-modern nutrition appreciates that nourishment off the plate can far outweighs the effects of food on your plate on your overall health and wellbeing. You can drink all the green juice in the world but if you are not nourishing your life OFF the plate too, if you aren’t nourishing your life holistically, you will not feel truly healthy, vibrant and happy.
Your body needs physical food, of course, but a robust, fulfilling life is the real fuel for happiness and balance. If you are in a toxic relationship, have fallen out of love with your career and are too busy for any form of self-care, you will not feel ‘well’ or happy and your health will be affected. No amount of kale can counteract an unhealthy lifestyle. Only by combining nourishment ON and OFF the plate can you feel complete mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical satisfaction.
To balance your nourishment off the plate, we often have to make changes that might be challenging. This could mean taking a leap in your career, ending a relationship that’s not serving you, signing up for a marathon, or embarking on a meditation challenge. We also look at how areas on and off the plate are connected - does stress at your job or in your relationships cause you to overeat? Does lack of sleep or low energy prevent you from exercising?
By combining good food and lifestyle tools you can transform your body, mind and health. By using the power of nutrition, self-care, healthy habits and lifestyle tools you will be empowered to live your best life.
Bio-individuality & intuition-based wellness
These core concepts shift the focus away from the doctor’s and nutritionist’s office and onto the individual. They help people cultivate a greater self-awareness of their health and go deeper into engaging in preventive care as a way to stay healthy, treat diet-related illnesses, and ultimately control their destiny. The focus is on putting you in charge of your own health and wellness.
Postmodern nutrition closely aligns with DIY healthcare and is right on par with the world’s focus on replacing conventional practices with new DIY behaviour. So what does this mean exactly? It’s about having a deeper understanding of how the food we eat is intimately connected to the health of every system in our body, how our gut health impacts our immunity, and how to make the connection between one bodily system and another.
Postmodern nutrition recognises that each person has unique sensitivities and specific needs. This is bio-individuality, which says everyone has their own system – and what works for one person may not work for another. It instils an inner-knowing process surrounding health.
Our bodies tell us what it needs and when it needs it as well as what it doesn’t and when it doesn’t. Imagine how different this world would be if we could simply listen to this inner knowledge. Taking simple action based on this information could prevent many lifestyle and diet-related illnesses.
Feeling bloated, for example, sends a signal that an ingredient heeds paying attention to. Self-directing through an elimination diet in this case can identify sensitive foods from the get go before they further inflame the body and increase susceptibility to illness down the road.
Most health issues begin with dietary cues. Therefore, intuitive eating, another important element, helps individuals recognize how food affects them in real time. Our bodies give us signals, and individualized DIY healthcare places a big emphasis on noticing and addressing these signs.
This individualised, and intuitive approach contradicts the current one-size-fits-all method promoted in the multi-billion-dollar diet industry that says “do this and lose 10 pounds in one week.” Mainstream dieting boasts this broad approach to losing weight, and ultimately fails. Generalised statements, such as “dairy and carbs are bad,” confuse the public, igniting a mass yo-yo dieting society, where many complications are sure to follow.
Ultimately, figuring out how to address diet and lifestyle-related health conditions through a bio-individual and holistic approach is key, not just acutely in the short-term but to protect our health and our community’s health in the long-term.
It’s just a matter of being able to tune in, listen, and implement positive change. This new era of postmodern nutrition is setting us up for a game-changing time in our lives, and our individual destinies (and health) depend on it!
