Holistic Nutrition: What It Is, Why It Works, and How To Get Started

Twenty years ago, I was in my teens and already struggling with aspects of my health. What started as trouble controlling my weight and chronic sinus infections later spiraled into hormonal imbalances, adult acne, and anxiety and depression. 

I tried everything I could to eat healthy and get plenty of exercise, but things only seemed to get worse. Whenever I sought support from healthcare professionals, ranging from doctors to nutritionists, the answer was always some variation of the same thing: “Everything looks fine, just keep doing what you’re doing.”

Then one day, everything changed. What I thought was going to be just another diet book, turned into a life changing discovery of holistic nutrition. 

A New Way of Eating

The recommendations I was reading felt so different from the advice I had received in the past. So I ditched all my previous notions of healthy eating, gave up calorie counting and diet meals, and dove head-first into this new-found theory.

It worked.

For the first time in years, I started to feel good. I was seeing the results I’d been striving for, not only in my appearance, but much to my surprise, in other areas of my health, too. My allergies and sinus problems improved, my energy levels felt more stable, and best of all, I was actually getting to enjoy food again.

A New Profession

These changes made such a huge impact on my life that I went back to school for holistic nutrition so I could learn more and eventually be able to help others. The more I learned, the more I discovered how much was wrong with the nutrition and health advice we typically receive. 

Holistic nutrition showed me how to look at health from a comprehensive, big-picture perspective, and it made all the difference to the success I saw for myself, and later for my clients.

WHAT IS HOLISTIC NUTRITION?

Holistic nutrition is a health philosophy that recognizes that our health is a unique expression of our whole life, including our physical and biochemical status as well as our mental and emotional health, spiritual health, and the influences of our environment. 

It works with the body’s natural ability to restore, regenerate, and rebalance by focusing not only on the importance of what we eat, but also what the body does with the foods we eat. 

While there are foundational principles to eating well, holistic nutrition professionals emphasize individualized support, considering current health status and health history, genetics, lifestyle, and more to create a customized plan that fosters health and healing.

In short: Holistic nutrition uses unique food and nutritional support to promote whole body health.

WHY IT WORKS

Imagine a large, wooden ring that has string wrapped around over and over again, like a web. This ring represents your body, and each line of the web, running from the center to the outside, represents a system in your body, such as your cardiovascular, endocrine, neurological, musculoskeletal, or digestive system. 

At first glance, each line of that web— i.e. each system in your body—may seem like an independent entity, but upon further examination, it becomes evident that it is a single, interconnected system with no break or end. Now envision yourself pinching one of those lines and pulling it tight towards the outside of the ring. 

A Holistic Approach

That individual line would change more significantly than the others, but every single line would be impacted in some way. This is how your body works, too. It may seem like a dysfunction in your endocrine system is simply a hormonal imbalance, but since hormones are the chemical messengers that signal reactions in the body, an imbalance in hormones may very well be influencing your digestion, detoxification, neurotransmitter function, and more.

This is how holistic nutrition approaches health while also understanding that one of the key elements that influences all of our physical processes is nutrition.

Food, or more accurately the nutrients in food, can impact every facet of our health. 

An Inter-Connected System

At times, this impact is direct, such as vitamin C helping to boost the immune system, turmeric helping to fight inflammation, or a lack of vitamin D causing rickets. Other times, the impact is indirect, such as cruciferous vegetables helping to support detoxification, which in turn helps the body maintain healthy estrogen levels. 

But just as the body is a complex interconnected system, nutrition is the same. Most nutrients work synergistically in pairs or groups to provide the body with what it needs to function well, and if one nutrient is out of balance, whether due to lack of consumption or a health condition that triggers an imbalance, that nutrient imbalance can have a domino effect on other nutrients, and therefore other health conditions.

Focusing on Nutrients

What makes holistic nutrition different is that it goes beyond what we eat and it looks at how our body utilizes nutrients. Most of the time, when we think of nutrition, we think of the foods we consume or the supplements we take, but how we process and assimilate those foods and supplements is a key element of nutrition. 

Holistic nutrition works to support the ideal use of nutrients by focusing on healthy digestion and nutrient synergy, which is influenced by what we eat and how it’s prepared as well as things like our mood, stress levels, chemical exposure, and other lifestyle factors. By doing this, holistic nutrition works to improve whole body health through addressing all the aspects that influence the nutrition our body receives.