What is Positive Nutrition?

In a nutshell, Positive Nutrition is an approach to eating that focuses on getting the ‘good’ stuff into our bodies, rather than worrying too much about excluding or cutting out the so-called ‘treats’. It is a shift in thinking from deprivation to abundance that can be incredibly liberating, particularly if we have been caught up in a cycle of on-off dieting culture for a long time.

Fundamentally, our bodies need a wide range of essential nutrients every day to function optimally. Yet our whole conversation around food for the past few decades has often been about minimisation – somehow ‘less’ has become synonymous with ‘better’. But eating less food (usually with the aim of consuming less calories), inevitably also means less nutrients. So by restricting our diets, we are also reducing our body’s ability to digest and absorb the essential nourishment we need to function.

So whilst yes, of course, we do need to be conscious of maintaining a sensible energy balance overall, that doesn’t necessarily mean less food. It is instead about choosing enough of the right sorts of food to meet our body’s requirements for nutrition. Those foods – like colourful fruits and vegetables, wholegrains, nuts and seeds, proteins and healthy fats – should therefore be our priority in terms of our financial budget and cooking time, as well as our appetite and ‘energy budget’. If we do happen to have the odd slice of chocolate cake or glass of wine as well, then that is absolutely fine. But it doesn’t take away from the fact that we still need to eat our greens.

I believe therefore that a healthy diet first focuses on the positives – adding a deliciously wide variety of whole foods into our diets, creating nourishing balanced meals, and ensuring we are hydrating ourselves properly. When we practice eating like this, we can rapidly start to feel and see a difference, without having to feel the stress and scarcity associated with highly restricted dieting again.