Common Foods You Think Are Healthy But Are Actually Adding Ten Years to Your Life
BOYT: Kimberly, when did you recognize your passion is to educate others on achieving total health and wellness? What was your inspiration to write The Beauty Detox Solution?
Health and wellness has always been a one of my greatest passions. I started reading any nutrition-related info I could get my hands on by the time I was in middle school, and once I was in high school people began asking me for nutrition and dietary advice. So it was always a natural pull for me to serve others through nutrition and help them get healthy, to feel and look their best through food and an overall holistic lifestyle.
My journey took me across many lands, to many teachers, and across a vast amount of information which was so simple at its core, but also so effective at helping me reach all my goals. I too used to struggle with weight and skin issues, and had tried so many calorie counting and restrictive diets. They never worked out in the long term. I was always so hungry and evaluating what I was going to eat next. As I formed my philosophy it was a revelation—it was so simple to stay slim and have a ton of energy. And I knew anyone could achieve it also!
I am so grateful for coming across the knowledge which now makes up my philosophy, and wanted to share it with the world! Celebrities started finding out about my program, and working with them is a major part of my everyday life. But I wanted others to benefit, not just celebrities. The inspiration for The Beauty Detox Solution is to help people everywhere feel and look their best. When our minds are free from the burden of these worries, we can focus on our personal, professional and spiritual goals. I hope my program helps people everywhere free themselves, the way it has helped me free myself.
BOYT: We understand that you've spent quite a bit of time traveling. Did your travels offer a different perspective or view on your nutritional philosophy? If so, how?
Before becoming a clinical nutritionist, I spent three years traveling the world to over 50 countries, visiting every continent but Antarctica. Through my travels, I often visited regions of the world with access to far fewer resources than we have in America, but I noticed something very interesting—the women lookmuch more beautiful. They have gorgeous skin, look much younger, and simply don’t have the same weight and health problems. As I immersed myself in these various cultures and understood the way they approach health and beauty, I gained a fresh perspective. I could really see how much Western society overcomplicates things with our different diet plans and beauty products. In contrast, simple beauty practices coupled with a more natural diet get much better results. When I returned home, I took the best beauty and health secrets I’d collected from my travels, immersed myself in the study of nutrition, and backed up my findings with science. My philosophy is the combination of all of my discoveries.
BOYT: The word "detox" is commonly used to explain a major nutritional overhaul, harsh or restrictive diets, or a great way to jump-start your system. How does your book differ from many other detox or diet books on the market?
There are a lot of detox, beauty and diet books because our society makes health and beauty seem so confusing! Many programs focus on what I call the “surface” evaluations of foods—how many calories, grams of carbs, protein, etc. a food has. And too many women feel like they have to micromanage and count everything they eat in order to look their best. That’s simply not true!
My program focuses on the powerful link between beauty, health and energy. The key is unlocking our Beauty Energy, the potential energy we all have inside us that can rejuvenate skin, reduce wrinkles, melt away pounds and give us newfound energy. A staggering 50-80% of our energy is spent digesting, and the more energy we spend digesting, the less energy we have to rejuvenate our cells and fight aging. With the Beauty Detox Solution, you can free up this Beauty Energy, so you can use it to create beautiful skin, hair and nails.
Sure, there are many programs out where you can lose weight—at least for a time. But what’s the good in being a size 4 if you look 10 years older? My program is not only about losing the weight, but having amazing skin, feeling energized and looking younger, too!
BOYT: You say that we humans don’t eat the way nature intended. How so?
Many of us are stuck in this vicious cycle where the food we think is healthy and helping us look our best is actually aging us more. I bet if you opened up your fridge you’d see foods you think are good for you, like low-fat yogurt, free-range chicken, cage-free eggs. But when you look in the mirror in the morning-- and this is especially ladies, before we put on layers of foundation and concealer--you’ll see just how aging these foods really are in the form of dull skin, dark circles, and fine lines and wrinkles you see staring back at you!
The Beauty Detox program encourages a more natural, holistic approach to food. On the program, you’re encouraged to eat an abundance of healthy foods that are easy for the body to digest, freeing up your Beauty Energy to fight the effects of aging and help you lose weight. For instance, increasing evidence shows that the heavy amount of protein we eat all day long is actually very aging. My clients start to look younger and feel much better just by swapping that egg white omelet in the morning with my Glowing Green Smoothie, a delicious blended drink made with vegetables and fruits, which is one of the foundations of my program. It tastes like the sweetness of fruit, and has all the Beauty Minerals you need to rejuvenate every cell in your body and face. It provides a fantastic boost of energy and is chock-full of belly-filling fiber to satisfy your hunger, so by 11 am you’re not reaching for that skinny latte or half a Danish at the office.
BOYT: Are there any foods that you suggest everyone eliminate from their diets? If so, which ones?
Dairy can be very difficult for many of us to digest and creates a lot of toxicity in the body. Think of toxicity as rust in a bicycle wheel—it’s so much harder to pedal a bicycle along when the wheels are clogged with rust. Over time, our bodies collect toxins in much the same way a bicycle wheel collects rust. All of that toxicity contributes to weight gain, wrinkles, breakouts, and dull skin, hair and nails. To look our best, we need to clear out that “rust” or toxicity in our bodies and learn to eat in such a way that we stop amassing toxicity. The good news is that we can derive all the nutrition found in dairy, including calcium, from plant foods. In The Beauty Detox Solution I provide delicious dairy alternatives so that you never feel deprived and, if you absolutely can’t give it up, I explain which products make better choices—like goat cheese—and share other strategies to help minimize the toxicity when you eat beauty-sapping foods like dairy.
BOYT: Should I just change my diet overnight and begin eating to detox? Or is there a transition required?
There’s so much information out there on drastic, confusing ways to “detox.” But as we all know, it doesn’t help to clean your house just once a year—you have to keep it clean on an ongoing basis! Your body works in much the same way. We should not think of cleanse as a noun, as in “I am going to do a cleanse”, but rather as a verb: “I am cleansing on a daily ongoing basis.” By making a daily change, such as drinking the Glowing Green Smoothie every day, we are cleansing and improving our beauty and health tremendously with one easy daily step, and we need not change our entire diet drastically overnight.
Those who make drastic changes may experience unpleasant symptoms like dizziness or weakness. Because our bodies are used to the stimulation of heavier acidic foods, the high amount of cleansing foods kick toxins to the surface. To avoid discomfort—and frustration!—I recommend transitioning gradually into the full program, and allowing our bodies to cleanse out old waste gradually. Putting proper foods in the body is only half the battle; we have to cleanse out old waste, which is equally important in us reaching our health and beauty goals.
BOYT: You work with a lot of celebrities. Have you put them on similar programs as the phases you outline in the book?
Yes, the program I outline in the book is the same program I use with all of my celebrity clients. Not only has my program benefitted celebrities, but I’ve also been able to share it with numerous clients throughout the country, from working moms to storeworkers to retirees. I wrote The Beauty Detox Solution to share my program with everyone, and to help people everywhere cut through all the confusing information.
BOYT: Please tell us about the Glowing Green Smoothie, what you call the “shining star” of your program.
The Glowing Green Smoothie is the absolute best way to supply ourselves with Beauty Energy and Beauty Minerals. In one delicious drink, we get the fuel to not only lose weight, but rejuvenate our skin, fight aging, and increase our energy! It’s so easy, it’s so simple, and it has worked for all my clients, from Hollywood stars to busy moms and schoolteachers. I often work as the nutritionist on different movie sets, and this amazing thing happens when I do; I start making the Glowing Green Smoothie, and the next thing you know, you look around and all the actors and directors and producers are drinking it every day, because they love the way it makes them feel.
Made up of about 70% green vegetables and 30% fruit, the Glowing Green Smoothie helps you eat far more greens than you ordinarily could. But it is not just the quantity of greens that makes the smoothie so amazing—because we blend the greens and fruit for easy digestion, your body is able to absorb more of the vitamins and minerals without working so hard. Thanks to all its nutrients and fiber, the smoothie is incredibly filling, so it keeps you reaching for all that mid-morning second cup of coffee and that bagel we really didn’t want to eat!
The recipe is on my website, at www.kimberlysnyder.net.
BOYT: Lastly, what is the biggest change that a woman can make to jump-start a healthy diet and weight loss plan?
Here are four easy tips any woman can start doing right now to start slimming down naturally and increasing energy:
1)Try to limit all liquids with meals, as liquids dilute digestive enzymes and hydrochloric acid in stomach and make digestion slower and more difficult.
2) Only eat fruit on an empty stomach, and never for dessert. Fruit digests very quickly out of the stomach, and if we eat it after heavier foods it will cause a “traffic jam” in our system, fermenting, causing bloat and making weight loss harder.
3) Try to keep protein and dairy out of your mornings since we’re in “cleanse mode” in the mornings, when our body has shifted energy from digestion to cleansing, and we haven’t started to eat yet that day. Ideally, try my Glowing Green Smoothie, or try fruit followed by almond milk and some oatmeal, or a gluten-free piece of toast with some avocado.
4) At lunch and dinner try to separate your proteins and starches. Have one or the other. Example: Eat fish with veggies or brown rice with veggies, but not fish with brown rice. Simpler meals and fewer food groups are easier to digest.
To start my program the first step is to read The Beauty Detox Solution with an open mind. Since I have created this program from a unique perspective as a nutritionist and world traveler, I introduce many nutritional concepts that might be very new to readers. In fact, my clients often tell me that they go through a paradigm shift of sorts in the way they think about food and health after learning the program. And then you can go shopping and whip up a Glowing Green Smoothie to get started!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
After graduating magna cum laude from Georgetown University, Kimberly Snyder didn’t choose an ordinary path. Instead, she embarked on a three-year solo journey spanning over 50 countries and six continents wherein she studied the health and beauty practices of numerous cultures around the world. Snyder is a clinical nutritionist, and a member of National Association of Nutrition Professionals and The American Association of Nutrition Consultants.
Snyder is the go-to nutritionist for many of the entertainment industry’s top celebrities and has worked with clients on some of Hollywood’s biggest film sets. She has been a guest and nutritional expert on many national television programs, including Good Morning America, E!, Extra and Good Day LA. She has also been featured or served as a contributor to publications such as Lucky, InStyle, Elle, Nylon, Fitness, Women’s Health, Hers, Real Simple, Us Weekly, OK!, In Touch, and Life & Style. Snyder splits her time between New York and Los Angeles. Visit Kimberly at her blog at www.kimberlysnyder.net.
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