Finding Your Personal Diet for Satisfaction, Fitness, and Wellbeing

A practical guide to eating for genuine satisfaction and durable fitness and wellbeing

Visual by Cyril & Ty

Eating: a natural necessity with countless cultural approaches. From traditions to trends, science to marketing, abundance to restriction.

A few years ago, when we weren’t satisfied with some aspects of our physical wellbeing and fitness, we decided to explore new ways to approach how we ate, with the hopes of finding greater personal satisfaction.

We encountered a lot of information, quite often contradictory, about eating and diet.

When dealing with so much diverging content, it’s quite easy to feel lost, confused, even frustrated, or annoyed. Especially when all we want as individuals is simply to feel good and be happy with our bodies.

And yet, to this day, we know that a lot of other people experience the same confusion and frustration we did back then.

So, nowadays, as fitness and wellbeing consultants, when asked about eating and diet, the last thing we want is to be yet another bunch of people telling others what they should or shouldn’t eat.

Because we’re not looking to prove anyone wrong or to claim we hold universal truth.

We’re looking to assist others in finding what genuinely works for them, just as we’ve ultimately been able to do for us — only faster and more easily.

That’s what a personal diet is about.

And today, that’s exactly what we’re sharing with you:

• the practical core process that has empowered us, and the people we’ve helped over the years, in finding a genuinely satisfying personal diet;
• the empowering perspective shifts associated with this process, to go beyond limiting preconceived notions about eating, fitness, and wellbeing;
• direct examples of eating behaviors promoting satisfaction, fitness, and wellbeing, that this process has led us to discover and enjoy.

All with the purpose of assisting you in eating for genuine satisfaction and durable fitness and wellbeing, thanks to your personal diet.

By implementing what we share you’ll likely start experiencing results on the day. And, with some variations depending on how satisfied you are with your current diet, you can safely expect transformative and durable changes in less than a month.

Now, let’s get started!

Empowered by Our Bodies

Through the years, we’ve personally been able to try and experience many different kinds of diet: paleo, keto, high-carb, high-protein, vegetarian, vegan, fruitarian, raw, gluten-free, dairy-free, intermittent fasting, and quite a few others as well.

Through this experimentation, we found that we, as humans, were empowered by our bodies’ astonishing ability to adapt, through metabolic processes such as:

• homeostasis: the maintenance of an internal, physical, and chemical state of steadiness;
• overcompensation: the energetic and structural adaptation to adjust physical performance following exercise stimulus;
• even autophagy: which can be assimilated to cell digestion and recycling.

Beyond these fancy terms, the bottom line is that, when trying a new behavior with our diet, we realized early on that we could notice significant results anywhere from instantly to only 24 to 72 hours, regarding:

• ease of digestion;
• energy levels;
• mood;
• mind clarity;
• body fat;
• muscle mass;
• skin clarity;
• even tensions, aches, and pains.

This means that our bodies tend to adjust and try to optimize themselves according to how we use them, which includes how we eat.

And so we’ve personally come to call this overall ability our bodies’ autonomous adaptation.

As a side note, on top of homeostasis, overcompensation, and autophagy, we can also include in this autonomous adaptation the astonishing processes of healing and immunity.

And yet, our experience —working as a personal trainer for Cyril, then fitness and wellbeing consultants for the both of us— has shown us that this overall ability is, for many, unfortunately, either unknown or completely overlooked.

But this autonomous adaptation is precisely what can empower us with our eating, as it allows us to directly identify the connections between our eating behaviors and the quickly emerging associated results we experience.

It also makes for our first notable shift from hindering preconceived notions about eating:

SHIFT N°1: Results connected to how we eat not only happen, they happen FASTER than many people think!

A Practical Core Process

We’ve previously mentioned many of the diets we’ve been able to try over the years.

Well, one thing has allowed us to go even further than pre-made diets, into finding our very own personal diet, for genuine satisfaction with durable fitness and wellbeing — systematic experimentation.

Much like a scientific approach, we can make use of systematic experimentation and observation when it comes to eating.

And instead of peer review —another component of the scientific method— we focus on owning, trusting, and following the subjective experience of our eating results, to access practical self-knowledge and genuine satisfaction. Kind of like a process of subjective science.

Basically, instead of blindly listening to others —peers, hearsay, studies, trends, norms, etc.— we remember that we are the ones living in our bodies and that feeling good in connection with how we eat is our goal!

Indeed, thanks to the autonomous adaptation of our bodies that we’ve just discussed, systematic experimentation allows us to both re-examine our eating habits and discover possible new ones, as we identify their connections to the quickly-emerging tangible results we experience.

That’s how we get to design our own satisfying diet.

So let’s address the elephant in the room: food!

And there are quite a few different food groups out there:

• meat;
• fish and seafood;
• eggs;
• dairy;
• vegetables;
• fruit;
• grains;
• legumes;
• nuts;
• seeds;
• mushrooms;
• and drinks as well.

So, when it comes to eating for satisfaction, fitness, and wellbeing, this is the systematic experimentation we recommend:

1. Isolating food groups. For about 3 days, just increase your intake of one specific food group OR avoid it altogether. This is what we personally call isolating food groups. This is going to help you better identify and understand the effects of each food group on your body, through the fast-emerging results you experience. If you cook from scratch then you already know what food groups you use, and if you use processed foods, just check the labels to identify the food groups used as ingredients. Finally, when you eat out, just check the menus, or simply ask about the ingredients.
2. Paying attention to the fast-emerging tangible results. Within anywhere from instantly to only 24, 48, or 72 hours, you’re likely to experience noticeable results —thanks to your body’s autonomous adaptation— such as those we mentioned previously: ease of digestion, energy, mood, skin clarity, body fat, muscle mass, aches and pains, and mind clarity. The two behaviors of increasing your intake of a specific food group or avoiding it altogether both lead to fast-emerging results. And the contrast between the results from increased intake and total avoidance helps us identify more easily the effects each food group has on our bodies.
3. Putting two and two together and adjusting our diet accordingly. Based on the results you experience and identify, you can mindfully choose for yourself what you eat. In fact, for every food group we’ve experimented with, we’ve personally been able to find connections to results on our bodies: unpleasant ones we had been experiencing until then and which we could now get rid of, and new enjoyable ones we had been looking for that were now ours to experience.
4. Repeating the process. Just take it one meal at a time, as you remain fuelled by your desire to feel genuinely good in your body, and your trust in your ability to be!

This overall process is precisely what we personally refer to as mindfulness when it comes to eating.

And this simple approach of mindful systematic experimentation is also a formidable one, which can help us adjust our personal diet fast and in genuinely satisfying ways: isolating one food group will get you results anywhere from instantly to only 2 to 3 days, and repeating the process with other food groups will allow you to experience overall transformative and durable changes in under a month.

You can also isolate a given food group for longer — 7 days instead of 3 for instance — or isolate it several times, to confirm the results you previously got.

And if you’re not able to detect specific results after isolating a given food group, then we definitely recommend isolating it again and/or longer. Indeed, as we mentioned previously, for every food group we’ve ever experimented with this way, we’ve been able to identify specific results on our bodies.

Actually, based on personal and professional experience, you’re likely to progressively get more attuned to your body, as you experiment and filter what you eat. Thus relieving your system — especially your digestion — of potentially burdening foods, and making it easier to identify connections between food groups and results.

So we definitely recommend not being afraid to try this process of mindful systematic experimentation and to just remember to pay attention to the quickly emerging results we mentioned and to how you feel.

We’ve never ended up with deficiencies by skipping a meal or dropping a given food group for a few days. Just like we’ve never had a problem binging on fresh ripe fruit.

Instead, this process has allowed us to find exactly what types of food work for us.

And this makes for our second shift:

SHIFT N°2: Beyond pre-made diets, we can experiment with how we eat and be SAFE! Not to mention super-empowered by what we discover!

Adjusted to a T

After experimenting with food groups, you can move on to food types for even finer tuning, as a phase 2 of systematic experimentation.

Each food group contains different food types: different types of meats, different types of fruit, different types of vegetables, etc.

You can also take into account the processing and cooking methods, which means that, for instance, steamed broccoli is technically different from boiled broccoli or raw broccoli.

The key concept here is to identify one type of food in your diet and isolate it, much like what we’ve discussed with food groups:

• increase your intake of it or avoid it altogether for around 3 days;
• just like with food groups, we recommend doing this food type isolation process one food type at a time, for unequivocal identification of results;
• as a rule of thumb, we also recommend sticking to a maximum of around 5 different food types in a given meal. Again, just to make emerging results clearer and subsequent adjustments easier.

The results you experience by isolating food types might be more subtle than with food groups. But, as we mentioned, we progressively get more attuned to our bodies’ sensations and results as we experiment, filter our diet, and relieve our systems —especially our digestion— of burdening foods.

And so isolating food types this way is how, for instance, we discovered the difference between the effects that unsalted roasted peanuts had on us, in distinction from salted peanuts, or even peanut butter, which itself can also be crunchy or smooth.

And that’s precisely how you can also choose exactly what works for you.

For even finer tuning, as a phase 3 of sorts, you can also experiment with:

• food types quantities and combinations: how much of a given food type you eat, and what combinations you make with other food types;
• meal duration and distribution: how much time you take for each meal, how much you chew, how many meals you have per day, and when.

As with the process of systematic experimentation we’ve described, just try something new with these parameters for 3 days, and subsequently adjust your diet according to the results you experience.

Now, isolating food groups and food types is really the core element of the process, but if you feel like adjusting your diet to a T, experimenting with these other parameters can help you maximize your overall satisfaction and results.

Finally, for us to be as systematic in what we share with you as the experimentation we recommend, we also want to address the two following points:

• Detoxing and skin clarity: your experimentation is likely to lead to some detoxing, which means some results you’ll experience may not be directly caused by some food groups or types you experiment with, but rather just be a manifestation of overall detoxing. In our experience, these results mostly have to do with fluctuations in skin clarity. Zits may come and go just as a result of detoxing. Nothing to be alarmed by, though, so don’t worry!
• Metabolic fluctuations and energy levels: as you experiment, there’ll likely be some fluctuations in how much calories you ingest on a daily basis — as a quick reminder, calories are a unit of measurement of energy. In our experience, when our bodies adjust to such caloric fluctuations, we can experience some fluctuations in our energy levels as well from one day to the next. Again, nothing major, this is just a heads-up.

We’re only addressing these two points so you can be aware of them and not misidentify connections between food groups or food types you experiment with and results in skin clarity and energy you experience, that may not be connected to them.

As we said before, in our experience, all food groups and even food types lead to different results on our bodies, so if you’re unsure about the connections between a specific food group or type and the results you’ve experienced, just give it another whirl to ascertain it one way or the other. Just like science, that’s how self-knowledge works!

Now, don’t be discouraged by the different parameters and pointers we’ve discussed so far, or the potential number of food groups and food types out there!

That’s precisely what all these are, pointers, which you are free to resort to, but in no case have to. We just want you to be aware of your options.

Indeed, trying systematic experimentation will get you results from the very first food group you isolate, and you’re free to decide just how fine-tuned you want your diet to be, and how much experimentation you want to do.

No obligation whatsoever!

This bottom line makes for our third shift:

SHIFT N°3: You’re in charge, your diet is yours, and YOU get to decide how you eat and why!

New Behaviors for New Results

We’ve discussed the process of mindful systematic experimentation at length. And we’ve talked a lot about tangible results in connection to eating behaviors.

So it’s only fair we share some of the transformative behaviors and results that this process has led us, and the people we’ve worked with over the years, to discover, refine, and enjoy.

And so, as additional guidance and practical inspiration, here are a few examples of such eating behaviors and their associated fitness and wellbeing results:

• We found that we could feel much more energized by enjoying fresh ripe fruit instead of grains or energy bars — either grain or nut-based — in turn making exercising much easier and more enjoyable. As a side note, fresh ripe fruit is most often soft, fragrant, flavorful, and deliciously sweet and satisfying on its own — if it isn’t all of this, odds are it isn’t ripe!
• Experimenting with intermittent fasting has allowed us to find a meal distribution that worked better for us, outside of the traditional breakfast-lunch-snack-dinner model we had been raised on. Our custom snack-snack-dinner distribution has led to better regulation of our appetite, our body fat, and our enjoyment of our meals. It’s also led to increased and steadier energy levels, as well as a better and steadier mood.
• We’ve been able to put a stop to unwanted body-fat storage, by not mixing carbs and fats in our meals anymore. Common metabolism theory predicts that eating fats leads to the presence of fats in our bloodstream. It also predicts that consuming carbs leads to an elevation of our blood sugar, responsible for triggering a storage response in our bodies, via the release of insulin in our blood. And so, in our experience, no fat storage occurs when we eat either fats or carbs in our meals, resulting in theoretically only having either fats or carbs in our blood, in significant amounts, at the same time.
• We’ve found our ease of digestion to be greatly improved by the consistent presence of fiber and water in our food;
• We’ve found our eating satisfaction and our digestion to both be significantly improved by taking the habit of chewing our food thoroughly — our stomachs don’t have teeth!

But there are also more unexpected results in connection to eating that we’ve been able to discover and enjoy:

• We’ve been able to get rid of recurring, and until then unexplained, stomach, back, and joint aches and pains, by going gluten-free — gluten is a particle found in wheat, barley, rye, and products containing them.
• We’ve also found our skin clarity to be improved when digestion itself is improved and therefore more efficient in detoxing.
• Going dairy-free has allowed us to enjoy clearer minds by relieving mucus-induced congestion in our sinuses and nasal cavities. It has also allowed Cyril to get rid of hay fever, and even a food allergy to raw fruit —if you can believe it— after experiencing these most of his life. Dairy refers to milk and milk-derived products.

On top of these results, with some of the behaviors we’ve mentioned, we’ve also been able to discover tangible connections between our diet, exercise, and sleep:

• We’ve found that some foods could directly put us in the mood to exercise, by providing us with more energy: that’s the case for fresh ripe fruit, rather than grains for instance, as we mentioned earlier.
• We’ve also directly experienced how an adequate diet could boost the results we get with exercise: like, for instance, with fat loss and what we mentioned previously about not mixing fats and carbs in our meals.
• The same goes for sleep: we found that an adequate diet makes digestion less laborious and fosters easier and more restful sleep, leading to more energy, better mood, increased mind clarity, and more enjoyable exercise.
• And, in turn, we’ve experienced that sleep and exercise could both help regulate our appetites, by boosting our mood and being genuine sources of enjoyment in themselves, which means they both help us make more empowering choices with how we eat, more easily.

And so these connections between eating, exercise, and sleep have led us to enjoy a real synergy between these different aspects of our daily lives.

Finally, with the combination of all the results we’ve just discussed, we’ve found our mood, serenity, and overall daily satisfaction to be hugely improved.

And so it is through such transformative behaviors and results that systematic experimentation can lead you to discover and experience for yourself the direct, tangible, and empowering connections between what you eat and what you get with your body.

And on so many levels too, way beyond the single notion of gaining or losing weight, or abstract concepts of health.

And this makes for our fourth shift:

SHIFT N°4: There are MANY tangible results associated with eating, fitness, and wellbeing: it’s not just about weight or abstract notions of health!

Redefined Eating Satisfaction

Thanks to the process of mindful systematic experimentation and the associated results we experience with it, we can redefine our approach to diet in a practical and empowering way.

Indeed, the resulting experience-based knowledge of the connections between our eating habits and our results is what makes a personal diet paramount in enjoying genuine eating satisfaction together with durable fitness and wellbeing.

Because, with a personal diet, we experience an overall causality of eating satisfaction:

• we enjoy eating our meals, with foods we choose and know from personal experience are right for us;
• we get that unique undeniable feeling of satisfaction right after eating, without feeling physically weighed down or guilty;
• we keep the enjoyment going by synergizing more easily with how we exercise and sleep;
• we get fast noticeable subsequent results as well — including all those we mentioned previously — in aesthetics, performance, and fitness, as well as in how we feel, i.e. our physical wellbeing. All thanks to our bodies’ autonomous adaptation.

And so, with a personal diet, we experience a redefined eating satisfaction, as a continuity of enjoyment in the causality of our eating, its many results, and its synergies, as we experience them daily.

And all of this just keeps us coming for more, completely solving the motivation problem!

We’ve also mentioned health in our fourth shift. Well, it seems to us that the word healthy is thrown around rather lightly these days.

But with a personal diet built with systematic experimentation, we go beyond alleged health. Beyond debates and moot points.

Because this overall satisfying eating causality gives a whole new meaning to health, as we experience tangible and genuinely enjoyable results with our bodies, in aesthetics, fitness, and wellbeing.

And that’s what empowers us to decide how to feed ourselves.

This makes your personal diet the alternative to doing something branded as healthy or good for you but which yields no detectable results and no concrete satisfaction. The alternative to following abstract alleged health, as a gamble to maybe live longer, through restrictive behaviors, because hearsay, marketing, gurus, or trendy studies say so.

We’ve personally been there, and it really didn’t deliver for us. And we know we’re not the only ones.

Because, ultimately, it’s a choice to experience enjoyment both as we eat and with the tangible results that follow — instead of just one or the other.

But, unfortunately, it’s a choice not that many people know they have.

And yet, genuine enjoyment from fast tangible results diffuses any notions of confusion, restriction, or sacrifice.

And so all this makes for our fifth shift:

SHIFT N°5: Personal diet isn’t about restriction, guilt, or intangible health, it’s the experience-based choice for genuine OVERALL eating satisfaction!

We Don’t Have to Be Afraid!

Now, don’t worry, we know first-hand that change can be scary, but, for us, when it comes to finding an empowering and genuinely satisfying way to eat, there’s nothing to lose, only things to be gained.

And so, in this last part, we share the 3 remaining shifts that have helped us move past fear, confusion, and frustration with eating and its many results.

SHIFT N°6: There’s no such thing as failing your diet!

When it comes to cravings, they tend to go away after a few hours or a day. And if you indulge them, then you can always gather more experience as to what tangible effects consuming these foods has on your body.

This then allows you to gain perspective and maybe do things differently when you feel ready for it.

We personally don’t even refer to indulging possible cravings as cheat-meals like many do. Because the notion of cheating implies that there are rules, and that by cheating you’re breaking them and doing something wrong…

But, as we’ve talked about at length through our several shifts, when it comes to eating and diet, there doesn’t have to be any rules that you don’t make yourself.

Letting go of external, abstract, and often untrue notions about eating, and trusting in the tangibility of the results we get sets us free and truly empowers us.

And learning more about the noticeable connections between what you eat and what you get, by experimenting, allows you to do just that!

That’s why we’ve come to call indulging cravings buffering rather than cheating.

Because it can be as much a part of our own personal diet as we want, without pressure, restriction, or guilt. Only personal experience and choice.

SHIFT N°7: Trust your subjective experience of your results!

Mindful systematic experimentation can take you further than hearsay, hot new studies, pre-made diets, debates, moot points, and abstract health. But only if you trust your subjective experience.

So we recommend you try your best not to be biased by the labeling of foods as healthy or unhealthy that you may have heard before — or that you may still hear.

Socio-cultural entities around us have their own agendas and the messages that go with them. But, at the end of the day, as we mentioned before, we’re the ones who have to live in our bodies, and we don’t have to feel afraid or pressured, as we deliberately adjust our personal diet according to our tangible results.

So trust your body, trust your results, and trust yourself.

SHIFT N°8, last but not least: Don’t let go until you’re satisfied!

Not letting go is key to finding enjoyable behaviors with eating and its many results. And part of experimenting is acting on the belief that we have the power to feel as satisfied with our diet as we want.

Something we’ve found quite helpful in keeping us on the path to figuring out which personal diet genuinely works for us is this little mantra:

“I have the power to feel good, satisfied, and happy with my body every day.”

Whenever in doubt about your diet endeavors, just come back to it.

The way we see it, new results require trying new things, whether in how we think or what we do.

Thanks to what we’ve shared about our bodies’ autonomous adaptation, mindful systematic experimentation, the many results connected to eating, and the associated empowering shifts from limiting preconceived notions, you’re free to design your own satisfying personal diet.

Indeed, beyond the ambient cultural noise and solicitations surrounding eating and diet, these are the most empowering tools we’ve found, and the only ones necessary:

• our bodies’ ability to adapt and give us feedback based on how we feed them, in the form of quickly emerging tangible results;
• our readiness to systematically experiment, pay attention to these results, and adjust our diet accordingly — what we personally call mindful eating.

Because beyond education, hearsay, trends, norms, traditions, hot new studies, or the rigidity of pre-made diets, yes, we’re the ones living in our bodies.

That’s why the practical process of mindful systematic experimentation is, in our personal and professional experience, the ultimate tool when it comes to eating for genuine satisfaction and durable fitness and wellbeing.

That being said, and though we can get pretty passionate about the subject, we’re well aware that we all have different circumstances, and so there isn’t a shred of judgment or any intention to be peremptory or alienating in what we’ve shared with you.

We really only hope you find whatever works for you!

And so we look forward to reading about your thoughts and experience in the responses to this story.

Until then, we thank you for your time, your trust, and wish you the best in finding your personal diet for genuine satisfaction and durable fitness and wellbeing!

References

• Homeostasis on Wikipedia
• Superovercompensation And Overcompensation For Improved Athlete Performance by Liam Hallam
• Autophagy on Wikipedia
• Healing on Wikipedia
• Immunity on Wikipedia
• Scientific Method on Wikipedia
• Food Groups on Wikipedia
• Metabolism on Wikipedia