Nutrition: A Simple Overview of a Complex Topic

If you’ve ever dealt with wanting to lose weight, change your diet to offset a health challenge or never really knew what nutrition is really about, this post will help get it all cleared up.

Nutrition at it’s core, it just about eating for optimal aspects of living. It’s for energy- which macronutrients cover (carbs, fat and protein primarily), micronutrients- like vitamins and minerals, hydration, and antioxidants- substances that improve immune function to keep the body healthy.

While we can separate the main parts like that, in real life, they are all intertwined and connected, and work in symbiotic ways. Consequently, if any one of those areas gets too far out of bounds (too much/too little), it won’t affect JUST that area, but over time, the whole body itself.

It’s funny how food in our day and age, with all the accessibility we have to foods we love, all year round, Americans are the most unhealthy eaters in the world. Sadly, it’s the convenience foods, or “Franken-foods” that are the leading cause of this issue. Generally speaking, fruits and veggies are widely available, and even for those of lesser means, are included in government food programs. The flip side is that our stores are FULL of so much processed, far-from-natural foods too. With the American way of getting ahead, being-all-you-can be, we see more and more how our society gets stuck in the mode of “grab-n-go” eating, and living on caffeine drinks to stave off our natural hunger cues.

Something that isn’t typically included in nutrition is HOW we go about consuming our sustenance. Back in the day, most families ate breakfast and dinner at a communal table, together, usually including conversation and a fair amount of time preparing and eating the food. This allowed for the benefits of digestion to work properly, both because there were less “Convenience” options available, and most meals were made with fresh, seasonal, even home grown fruits, veggies, dairy and eggs. We took the time to make the food, but we also took the time to chew and digest the food too.

Sadly, our modern diet has turned to products that are very sugar-intensive, so much so that our palettes have been trained over time to crave it more and more. It causes our bodies to ride what I call, “the blood sugar roller coaster” which is super hard on our adrenal glands, liver and pancreas. It’s no wonder we have such a high prevalence of Type 2 (insulin resistant) Diabetes, because our bodies were never designed to eat such high sugar, high processed carb diets. If only people could recognize that their health problems will not be best solved by popping pills from a doctor who rarely has extensive knowledge of the power of food and nutrition. Miraculously, this type of insulin issue and be completely addressed through a lifestyle change which includes cleaning up their diet and integrating regular, varying intensity exercise.

Working in the health, nutrition in fitness field for so long has taught me that one part, rarely included in the nutrition discussion is what poor nutrition can do to our mental health, and how our beliefs and thoughts about food affect our nutrition. Let me expand that for you.

We all know that there are different types of fuel you can put into your vehicle. The better the fuel, the better the performance and longevity of the vehicle (or at least they sell us on the pricier stuff for this reason). But if you use regular fuel in a vehicle requiring premium, over time, performance will degrade, and the vehicle won’t live out it’s lifespan in a optimal way. Can you see the correlation to our bodies made through this analogy?

People complain about being tired, foggy-brained, fat around the middle or all over, stuck at an unhealthy weight, paying so much money for prescriptions, and more. What proper, real-food nutrition can do is cover the premium fuel need, the intricate chemical exchanges, clean up the on board computer and get the body into the sleek and efficient state it was designed to be.

But on a deeper level, people have allowed food to be an unnatural source of comfort, and sadly, it’s not an apple or a spinach salad that people gravitate towards after a bad day. Nope, it’s right back to the “Franken-foods”, the processed, sugar-laden, quick-fix bags and boxes of non-redeemable “carbage”. I get it, I’ve done it, so understand it comes from both personal and professional experience. Rarely do these food choices: 1. Fix the bad day, or week or month, 2. Provide the fuel needed feel GOOD about and in your body. Dealing with the root of these feelings is absolutely essential to truly break out of these type of emotional traps. It usually only makes things worse, physically and emotionally!

As I said, I wanted to keep this brief and simple, to give you food for thought, an expanded understanding and maybe an idea or two to make things a little bit better as it relates to food, your body, your health and your psyche around food.





Annie Berryhill is a lifelong health, fitness and nutrition enthusiast, combined with professional certifications from Precision Nutrition Level 1 & 2, former certs from Faster Way to Fat Loss, Crossfit Level 1, USA Weightlifting Level 1, and AAFP. She loves working out, cooking, converting unhealthy recipe favorites to clean, healthy versions, writing and creating wearable art designs. She has authored many e-books on health, mindset, goal-setting and her first published book, Breakthrough to Freedom-Creating a Life You Love on Purpose can be found on Amazon or on this site’s store.
Married to her high school squeeze, Damon, they’ve successfully navigated raising 2 sons into men, while juggling the crazy world of professional sports. They currently live in the mountains of Utah, but will always call Southern California, and the beach towns of the Pacific, home.

If you’ve ever dealt with wanting to lose weight, change your diet to offset a health challenge or never really knew what nutrition is really about, this post will help get it all cleared up.

Nutrition at it’s core, it just about eating for optimal aspects of living. It’s for energy- which macronutrients cover (carbs, fat and protein primarily), micronutrients- like vitamins and minerals, hydration, and antioxidants- substances that improve immune function to keep the body healthy.

While we can separate the main parts like that, in real life, they are all intertwined and connected, and work in symbiotic ways. Consequently, if any one of those areas gets too far out of bounds (too much/too little), it won’t affect JUST that area, but over time, the whole body itself.

It’s funny how food in our day and age, with all the accessibility we have to foods we love, all year round, Americans are the most unhealthy eaters in the world. Sadly, it’s the convenience foods, or “Franken-foods” that are the leading cause of this issue. Generally speaking, fruits and veggies are widely available, and even for those of lesser means, are included in government food programs. The flip side is that our stores are FULL of so much processed, far-from-natural foods too. With the American way of getting ahead, being-all-you-can be, we see more and more how our society gets stuck in the mode of “grab-n-go” eating, and living on caffeine drinks to stave off our natural hunger cues.

Something that isn’t typically included in nutrition is HOW we go about consuming our sustenance. Back in the day, most families ate breakfast and dinner at a communal table, together, usually including conversation and a fair amount of time preparing and eating the food. This allowed for the benefits of digestion to work properly, both because there were less “Convenience” options available, and most meals were made with fresh, seasonal, even home grown fruits, veggies, dairy and eggs. We took the time to make the food, but we also took the time to chew and digest the food too.

Sadly, our modern diet has turned to products that are very sugar-intensive, so much so that our palettes have been trained over time to crave it more and more. It causes our bodies to ride what I call, “the blood sugar roller coaster” which is super hard on our adrenal glands, liver and pancreas. It’s no wonder we have such a high prevalence of Type 2 (insulin resistant) Diabetes, because our bodies were never designed to eat such high sugar, high processed carb diets. If only people could recognize that their health problems will not be best solved by popping pills from a doctor who rarely has extensive knowledge of the power of food and nutrition. Miraculously, this type of insulin issue and be completely addressed through a lifestyle change which includes cleaning up their diet and integrating regular, varying intensity exercise.

Working in the health, nutrition in fitness field for so long has taught me that one part, rarely included in the nutrition discussion is what poor nutrition can do to our mental health, and how our beliefs and thoughts about food affect our nutrition. Let me expand that for you.

We all know that there are different types of fuel you can put into your vehicle. The better the fuel, the better the performance and longevity of the vehicle (or at least they sell us on the pricier stuff for this reason). But if you use regular fuel in a vehicle requiring premium, over time, performance will degrade, and the vehicle won’t live out it’s lifespan in a optimal way. Can you see the correlation to our bodies made through this analogy?

People complain about being tired, foggy-brained, fat around the middle or all over, stuck at an unhealthy weight, paying so much money for prescriptions, and more. What proper, real-food nutrition can do is cover the premium fuel need, the intricate chemical exchanges, clean up the on board computer and get the body into the sleek and efficient state it was designed to be.

But on a deeper level, people have allowed food to be an unnatural source of comfort, and sadly, it’s not an apple or a spinach salad that people gravitate towards after a bad day. Nope, it’s right back to the “Franken-foods”, the processed, sugar-laden, quick-fix bags and boxes of non-redeemable “carbage”. I get it, I’ve done it, so understand it comes from both personal and professional experience. Rarely do these food choices: 1. Fix the bad day, or week or month, 2. Provide the fuel needed feel GOOD about and in your body. Dealing with the root of these feelings is absolutely essential to truly break out of these type of emotional traps. It usually only makes things worse, physically and emotionally!

As I said, I wanted to keep this brief and simple, to give you food for thought, an expanded understanding and maybe an idea or two to make things a little bit better as it relates to food, your body, your health and your psyche around food.





Annie Berryhill is a lifelong health, fitness and nutrition enthusiast, combined with professional certifications from Precision Nutrition Level 1 & 2, former certs from Faster Way to Fat Loss, Crossfit Level 1, USA Weightlifting Level 1, and AAFP. She loves working out, cooking, converting unhealthy recipe favorites to clean, healthy versions, writing and creating wearable art designs.

She has authored many e-books on health, mindset, goal-setting and her first published book, Breakthrough to Freedom-Creating a Life You Love on Purpose can be found on Amazon or on this site’s store.
Married to her high school squeeze, Damon, they’ve successfully navigated raising 2 sons into men, while juggling the crazy world of professional sports. They currently live in the mountains of Utah, but will always call Southern California, and the beach towns of the Pacific, home.