We promote the use of whole foods as the foundation for healthy eating, as well as the use of therapeutic nutrition in the form of high quality supplementation as needed to help correct physiological imbalances, dysfunctions or dietary deficiencies.
HIIP also recommends avoiding processed carbohydrates, as well as foods manufactured, grown or raised with harmful chemicals, antibiotics and toxins.
What You Should Eat
HIIP promotes whole foods as the foundation for healthy eating, with daily calorie consumption that is proportional to calorie expenditure once an individual has reached a healthy weight and body composition.
HIIP believes that the application of therapeutic nutrition from high quality supplementation can help correct physiological imbalances, dysfunctions and dietary deficiencies.
HIIP does not recommend the absolute elimination of any single category of macronutrient; in the absence of specific allergies or intolerances, protein, fat and carbohydrates as whole foods provide essential nutrition. However, HIIP does believe that the majority of calories should come from protein and fat rather than carbohydrates – especially during weight loss.
HIIP understands and appreciates the rationale of those who elect to avoid foods from animal sources for ethical or environmental reasons. That said, HIIP does not believe that eating only plant-based nutrition is optimal for a healthy diet, and instead suggests that complete nutrition is most easily achieved when food from animal sources is also included.
How You Should Eat
HIIP promotes home cooking and personal meal preparation, and fosters food selection and preparation skills for better control over exactly what and how much food is consumed. HIIP endorses the idea that simple, economical meal preparation is possible for most everyone, and that the skills and insights associated with selecting and combining ingredients enhance long term weight management.
HIIP recommends practices such as meal planning to encourage advance preparation and help prevent the selection of unhealthy foods for reasons of simple convenience rather than nutritional value. HIIP also supports the tracking of food intake to maintain vigilance around portion control, increase mindfulness, and prevent emotional or distracted eating, as well as other eating behaviors driven by factors other than true nutritional need.
What You Should Avoid
HIIP believes that what you avoid eating is at least as important as what you do eat.
HIIP recommends eliminating or minimizing the consumption of processed carbohydrates or sugar, which is known to cause weight gain, inflammation, hormone disruption and other disorders that underpin obesity, diabetes, heart disease and a range of other serious health conditions.
HIIP also suggests avoiding foods manufactured, grown or raised with harmful chemicals and antibiotics. HIIP recognizes the social norms that have developed around the use of alcohol and the challenges associated with contradicting these, but recommends minimizing or eliminating alcohol consumption given its toxic effects and the net negative health consequences of its use.
When You Should Eat
In addition to eating properly, HIIP advocates carefully managing and even maximizing the time when you are NOT eating, with meaningful periods between meals. In contrast to popular recommendations to eat many times during waking hours, HIIP prescribes brief daily fasting periods and less frequent meals as a key strategy for maintaining metabolic health and stabilizing body weight.
What Makes Eating a Challenge
HIIP believes that the modern food environment is largely at odds with human physiology and our evolutionary past, and that this conflict has resulted in our obesity crisis. The challenge of this environment is substantial, and includes:
• the pervasiveness of low cost calories, especially in the form of refined carbohydrates and low fiber manufactured products,
• the engineering of industrial foods that appeal to our biological programming to seek out and receive immediate gratification from sodium, sugar and fat,
• the lack of portion control in food servings,
• the relatively limited availability of healthy foods in locations such as work, school or while traveling,
the lack of transparency around food origins and contents,
• the presence of toxins in our water and food supply,
• the absence of proper nutrition education in our schools (along with generations of flawed nutrition recommendations),
• the inclusion in foods of complex chemical ingredients that are not easily understood by consumers,
• and our time-starved, less active lifestyles that have reduced our capacity to plan, shop for and prepare meals.
What Makes Eating Easier
As part of a holistic, lifestyle approach to weight management, HIIP deploys a number of strategies to help its members become “nutrition literate” and develop the skills to successfully navigate the modern food environment, including:
• structured dietary guidelines
• nutritional therapy
• research-based education
• behavioral training and new habit formation
• coaching support
• mindset and food relationship training
• community engagement and support
• meal planning and tracking tools