Food for Focus, Fitness and Feeling Fabulous

Have you connected the way you feel with what you eat? Of course, you know that in order to lose weight you have to make dietary changes, but the fact is that the quality of your diet directly impacts the quality of your life. For example, food affects the neurotransmitters in your brain and thus can have an immediate effect on your mood. Studies have shown that low-quality, high-fat diets and obesity are associated with depression. If you feel lousy, depressed, foggy, tired and unable to make positive and empowering decisions, the problem may be on your plate, not in your mind.

Change your diet and you can change the way you feel. Eat the right food, give your brain the nutrients it needs, and you’ll reap a bounty of cognitive benefits: improved mood and memory, stronger cognitive function, laser focus, clear thinking and a calm, relaxed mind. And, incidentally, you’ll also lose weight.

The Omni Diet involves much more than cutting some calories here and adding a few minutes of exercise there. It strips away the ugly mess that is the standard American diet, with too much sugar, unhealthy fats, gluten, artificial flavors, fake fillers and ingredients that have no nutritional value.

Everything You Need

The Omni Diet provides the ideal balance of vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, fish and lean meats that give your body everything it needs for peak performance, maximum weight loss and optimal health. Eating a diet that’s 70 percent plant foods and 30 percent protein (including animal protein) restores energy, slashes the risk of disease, optimizes brain and hormone functioning, produces dramatic weight loss and makes the body healthy from the inside out. Imagine the Omni dinner plate: a huge, raw multicolored salad spiked with chunks of avocado and sprinkled with nuts or seeds covering 50 percent of your plate; a lightly cooked plant food such as braised cauliflower with basil sauce filling another 20 percent of your plate and three to six ounces of lean protein, such as wild salmon, occupying the remaining 30 percent. What could be simpler and better for your health?

After eating a protein-containing meal or snack, you feel fuller longer and burn more calories than you would after eating high-carb, sugar-filled foods.

A Few Words about Exercise

Exercise is a cornerstone of the Omni Diet. It actually magnifies the benefits of your nutritional choices and makes you look younger and healthier. Exercise also makes a psychological contribution to weight loss: When you are working out and feeling fit, you feel so good that it’s much easier to make smart choices about what you eat. Exercise triggers the release of brain chemicals that boost mood, confidence, willpower, and all the other emotional factors that help you choose a plate of vegetables over a dish of ice cream. When you feel positive, optimistic, and happy, you don’t need to turn to food for emotional support. And the food/exercise connection works the other way, too: When you eat right and start to lose weight, your success fuels your motivation to do other things – such as exercise – that benefit your health.

Omni Success: Easier than You Think

With the Omni Diet, you succeed every time you take a single step toward good health. You’re a winner every time you drink a glass of water, go for a walk, do one workout, eat a bowl of broccoli, throw out a bag of chips, ask for support from your accountability buddy, write down your next day’s menu, write in your food journal. Even taking a deep breath, closing your eyes, and reminding yourself that you have committed fully to living a healthier life makes you a success.

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