Hey there, Healthy Eating Action-Taker!

Today, let’s not take healthy eating

as some grandiose or difficult discipline,

but make it far easier to apply daily in life: through a filter.

How much easier would eating be if decisions were pre-made?

Yet healthy eating today has become a labyrinth of confusing or difficult decisions.

Because (and sorry to break it to you),

the world is objectively RIGGED AGAINST YOU EATING WELL.

Lowest effort wins while hyper-palatable foods are dominating.

Ingredient lists are engineered for addiction, never for true nourishment.

If you rely on price tags and willpower alone, you LOSE BY DEFAULT.

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I don’t eat “clean” perfectly.

But I do eat intentionally because I got tired of feeling foggy, wired, bloated, or low-energy after meals that were marketed as “normal.”

And as a final year med student + business owner right now in Havana, Cuba (pressed for time nearly ALL the time)

I CAN’T afford decision fatigue around food NOR risk low productivity due to poor nourishment.

So today we’re talking about:

• The Healthy Eating Checklist I live by
• How I decide intentionally when I eat out
• What goes through my mind when I prep or choose a meal

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🍏📄The Nutrition No-Brainer Healthy Eating Checklist:

In order to eat healthier in a world optimized for the very opposite,

you’re going to need a simple mental checklist.

Here’s mine, based on my 🍏5 Nutrition No-Brainers framework:

(The more boxes checked, the better!):

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₊˚ ‿︵‿︵‿︵✦‿︵‿︵‿︵ ˚₊

☐ 1) Most of the meal consists of REAL, WHOLE foods

☐ 2) Clean, bioavailable PROTEIN source is ALWAYS there.

☐ 3) All components after protein are LOW-GLYCEMIC.

☐ 4) Healthy oils used in the cooking/meal prep (OLIVE OR COCONUT OIL, REAL BUTTER)

☐ 5) ZERO unnecessary added sugars

₊˚ ‿︵‿︵‿︵✦ ‿︵‿︵‿︵ ˚₊

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Let's dive a li'l into each of them:

🟩☐ 1) Most of the meal consists of REAL, WHOLE foods

(Refers to Nutrition No-Brainer (NNBr) #4: Stick to Whole Foods)

This is always the FIRST FILTER~

Whole foods reduce the consumption of hidden sugars, seed oils, emulsifiers, and additives by default.

Calories wouldn’t even need to be a worry.

Not even the probability of overeating more than a serving more or two would occur by eating more REAL foods.

Since it’s ALL NATURAL, the body smoothly digests these and

extracts plenty of the great nutrients when freshly prepared/cooked/even when raw.

How I apply this:

I enjoy buying fresh veggie or fruit groceries

bi-weekly or once a month

so that I’m always cooking REAL food ingredients

MAJORITY of the time.

(I prepped the plain brown rice (no salt added) and

the roasted (baked) veggies (olive oil, salt and black pepper),

while my friend prepped the fried fish (flour outer padding, fried in vegetable/seed oil)

Here’s how the meal above performed based on the 🍏📝NNBr Healthy Eating Checklist:

Not perfect as you can see!

And I’ve stalled any glucose spike from the fried fish by following sweet hack #3.

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Meanwhile, I usually keep little to no packaged foods:

NO cookies, NO sweets, NO ramen, NO instant microwaveable meals, NO questionable sugary granola bars, etc.

As an exception I might stock up on legumes or veggies in cans or glass jars (lentils, chickpeas) where ingredients are kept simplistic:

*though potato is high-glycemic, will pass for carbs energy

When I can’t cook, these would have to do.

Not the best taste or full nutrition composition as in fresh foods,

but it honors this first checkbox ✅.

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🟩☐ 2) Clean, bioavailable PROTEIN source is ALWAYS there.

(If you’d like a refresher on the main whys of this, do check out what we covered previously at Nutrition No-Brainer #2: Emphasize High-Quality Protein)

Protein is the ABSOLUTE non-negotiable!

Always anchors the meal.

Ensures longevity and body weight control by protecting the lean muscle mass~

How I fulfill this in real life:

My main go-to are eggs:

my easiest super bioavailable win and fastest to prepare.

But there are sometimes periods of time in Cuba,

where I’m based at the moment,

where eggs aren’t available, and

I can’t always avoid processed meats like sausage, ham or picadillo.

When that happens, I accept the tradeoff consciously.

I don’t pretend it’s optimal,

but given what I’ll keep in my personal stock,

I would not keep too many processed protein sources.

Here’s how this meal performed based on the 🍏📝NNBr Healthy Eating Checklist:

Noice! A perfect score 😋

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🟩☐ 3) All components after protein are LOW-GLYCEMIC.

(This one refers to one of the first frameworks we covered within the Nutrition No-Brainer #1: Limit High-Glycemic Choices)

Most vegetables (especially non-root/ground foods veggies) are ALREADY low-glycemic.

What we can find here in Havana, Cuba include:

Cabbage, bell pepper, cucumber, spinach, string beans, etc

All nutrient-dense, fibrous, definitely colorful.

Though in Cuba, sometimes there is little variety,

and what I would do is always add two types of veggies as the side dish for lunch or dinner.

So what you can do is add creativity to the meal prep: boiled, sautéed, roasted, soups, etc.

It may very well be the same ingredients, but texture and taste experience will be different.

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Adding GOOD FATS like avocado or

REAL cheeses (not the processed ones with so many extra chemicals)

becomes PRIORITY #2 AFTER PROTEIN, and

THEN you can consider a portion of carbs

(best being brown or integral rice or other low-glycemic carb staple-be it bread, pasta, etc.)

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Still, if you do find your meal having quite the substantial portions for simple carbs

(like white rice, bread, corn-based foods, etc)

you can REDUCE THE GLUCOSE SPIKES

by following ANY ONE of the sweet hacks:

🍎 Recall the sweet hacks: HERE.

Sweet hack #3 has saved me for a lot of eating-out meals like this:

Let’s review the Healthy Eating Checklist!:

🔔CAVEAT!!

Overall, I didn’t taste anything directly sweet in this meal,

but we do know some supposedly “salty” foods, can STILL contain sugar:

Eg.

I know it’s in Spanish…

Even the NAME of the snack means “Salty/Salted”
YET! Within the first 5 ingredients…is SUGAR and OTHER FORMS of it.

🍎Again the resource with all the different names of sugar you can look for in packaged labels can be found here:

​[Glucose Goddess’ Hidden Sugars List]​

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🟩☐ 4) Healthy oils used in the cooking/meal prep (OLIVE OR COCONUT OIL, REAL BUTTER)

(You can refresh yourself on the main WHY of choosing these good fats instead of common oils like sunflower, vegetable, soybean, or canola oil etc. Review access is found HERE.)

This one vitally matters more than people realize.

Olive oil, coconut oil, real butter tend to be

my non-negotiables at home.

But when food comes from outside sources (cafeterias, restaurants), this becomes the highest-risk variable.

We don’t know:

❓What oils they’ve used;

❓If they reuse the oil to cook (even more damaging) and

❓If the oil became overheated or not, spoiled rancid or not.

Benefit of the doubt,

knowing restaurants or food businesses are usually high-inventory

as well as with high potential for wasted ingredients not used,

then I can usually guess it’s a seed oil they’re using.

Price is sometimes quite the giveaway,

since especially olive oil isn’t native to my home country, Belize,

nor where I’m studying right now: Cuba.

Above was the meal I ate on the only day I went out with a friend during my Nutrition No-Brainer Challenge and

chose within personal goals: ovo-lacto vegetarian and prioritizing 130g of quality protein.

Here are the checkboxes honored:

In the end, I’ve learnt to trust my body’s signals:

external food eventually makes me feel subtly repulsed.

Which is usually my body reacting to

overly sugary, salty, seed-oil-heavy, or inflammatory ingredients.

🌟Homemade meals never trigger that response,

which is why they’re the most sustainable option for healthy eating.

In fact, homemade ALWAYS wins on health.

You get to know WHAT EXACTLY you are fueling and nourishing your body with.

🥡External food wins on time and convenience of course,

but then you lose the control or knowing of what you may be consuming…

Remember: they rarely optimize for your real, true health…

rather, they strive for more profits and “better taste”

which often means over-doing on flavor-enhancers

(well…such as sugar or

other quite deadly combinations of fats + sugar

to trigger addictive loops in the brain response systems)

🤔Thus, you choose in the end, and at least choose CONSCIOUSLY.

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🟩☐ 5) ZERO unnecessary added sugars

(For the more in-depth whys of this principle, you can review the previously shared Nutrition No-Brainer #5: Trust Nature’s Sweetness)

By far the sneakiest one!

🔔Beware:

‼️“Natural” tomato sauce with extra ingredients, including SUGAR (in whatever disguised form).

‼️ Drinks with three names for sugar hiding in plain sight.

‼️ Peanut butter made with seed oils and sugar.

If a product should be one ingredient, I want it to be one ingredient,

because anything extra can disrupt

natural biological systems in our body.

Eg.

Plain tomato puree/sauce VS Pasta sauce?

Here’s how I usually add sweetness if needed:

often caramelized onions or

vegetable combinations already complementing salty, savory with sweet without adding direct sugar or salt.

I even made 🍎apple jam this weekend using ONLY 3 INGREDIENTS

(no sugar added, not even approvable sweetener)

Sugar does NOT need to be added!

The apples themselves are sweet enough 😜:

🍎 (If you’d like the recipe for this, reply to this email requesting it~)

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Kaboom!

That’s it~

Here’s what you learnt today:

• Healthy eating can follow an easy decision filter
• You don’t need all boxes checked:

even ONE checkbox fulfilled

makes progress and a difference

(a point towards the most optimal YOU)

The goal isn’t to be ultra-strict, but to stay aware of:​
• What you’re consuming.
• Where it’s coming from.
• What’s actually in it.

(By the way, did you notice the only meal that upheld ALL checkboxes with confidence, was the 🏆HOMEMADE ONE?)

A Simple Step to Try Today:

There’s no need to do a complete overhaul of your meals or food choices,

but the best way to start are little steps at a time!

Before your next meal, run through this checklist and ask:

Which ONE check box can I uphold right now?

₊˚ ‿︵‿︵‿︵✦‿︵‿︵‿︵ ˚₊

☐ 1) Most of the meal consists of REAL, WHOLE foods

☐ 2) Clean, bioavailable PROTEIN source is ALWAYS there.

☐ 3) All components after protein are LOW-GLYCEMIC.

☐ 4) Healthy oils used in the cooking/meal prep (OLIVE OR COCONUT OIL, REAL BUTTER)

☐ 5) ZERO unnecessary added sugars

₊˚ ‿︵‿︵‿︵✦ ‿︵‿︵‿︵ ˚₊

Catch you in the next one!

Emz,

Founder of Nutrition No-Brainer,
​FemTech Premium Ghostwriter,
​Final Year Med Student​
​
🍎 PS…If you’d like a motivational one-pager PDF of the Healthy Eating Checklist that you can print out and place where it can best encourage you, reply to this email with your request!

🍎 PPS…If you’re enjoying Nutrition No-Brainer, please consider forwarding or sharing this to a friend, family loved one or colleague.

It helps more people stop overthinking food, and start eating with intention~

And whenever you’re ready, here are 2 ways I can help you:

1. 💬🍽️Free Nutrition Discovery Call: Let’s chat on a brief pivotal meeting about your nutrition goals and how you can achieve healthy eating fit to your context~

2. 🍏📑The Nutrition No-Brainer Challenge (WAITLIST stage): Put your healthy eating into active practice and build a library of evidence without perfection, and

what more fun and motivating than with an accountability community and me as your coach and guide for 30 exact days!

So far ONE SPOT out of 10 is left for lifetime access as a founding beta participant!:

But I’m willing to expand to more participants in the first cohort if needed for this exciting launch!

So feel free to still sign up, and be given TOP priority to the next cohort if anything~

​​Join the waitlist for FREE → HERE​ or reply to this email "🍏"

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