"People do resolutions and they're done with them by the end of January," says Kimberly Snyder, the nutritionist behind Hollywood physiques like Channing Tatum's and Chris Hemsworth's. Instead of setting unrealistic goals, Kimberly focuses on the full health package. "We can do Atkins or Paleo and drop a lot of weight in a week, but that's not sustainable," she says. "I never have a client where my only goal is weight loss, I want them to have more energy and have better skin." Here, Kimberly offers her advice.
START THE DAY STRONGER
Begin with something measurable in the morning. If you want to make a difference in your energy, you have to start with the morning. Even if you can't change your whole routine right away, try and revamp your morning, which impacts how you feel the rest of the day. Start with hot water and lemon before coffee so that the first thing is nourishing. It's vitamin C, it's enzymes, it's good for your liver, and your liver is then detoxifying more the rest of the day. Make that your go-to before you reach for the coffee. Even if your coffee is on the way to work, at least while you're getting ready.
EGG WHITES ARE OUT
Some people eat hard-to-digest things in the morning like egg white omelets. If you want to eat eggs, I say eat them later in the day. Egg white is something that's a water-soluble protein called albumen, which us actually an ingredient in wall paper glue. It's concentrating the amount of egg white they would eat and putting it all together, and it's like glue in your stomach. So imagine you wake up in the morning and you have something that hard to digest. You're going to just not feel as good throughout the rest of the day. Then you start having sugar cravings. Even if you eat really well for lunch and dinner, it's sitting on top of that glue.
BLEND DON'T JUICE
I don't think green juice in the morning is the best choice. A smoothie is going to help regulate your blood sugar levels. It doesn't have those extra calories so it's going to give you sustained energy. Why take out the fiber when that's what nature grew, the fruits and vegetables, with fiber and juice? We're actually splitting open the plant's cell wall and making the nutrients available to you. If you were to eat those things, it would be a lot of energy for your body to actually break down fully enough. This is pre-digesting it, which is the beauty of blending. When you do have smoothies, chew them. If you down them—remember this is a whole food in your stomach. If you drink it too fast you could get bloated.
RETHINK PROTEIN
People are obsessed with protein. They're eating Greek yogurt in the morning—they're eating it too much. High protein kind of goes hand in hand with more caffeine, more adrenal exhaustion, faster aging. If you just eat too much protein, what happens is your liver and your kidneys start to overwork. Even when I have someone who's trying to get ready for a special event and they only have a month, we can still do it in a really healthy way. People don't realise that amino acids, which are found in protein, are heat sensitive. So let's say you're eating a burger and you think you're getting 15 grams of protein, you're really getting only seven or eight, and the rest is toxic material that can age you.
MASTER MENU-READING
Start with a salad. Don't get an elaborate starter or soup. Make a choice: Are you having a protein-based dinner or a starch dinner? Let's say you want chicken. It's chicken and broccoli, not chicken and potatoes, or chicken and rice, or fish and rice. I just get a whole vegetable plate. What you don't want to do is if it's going to be a really late dinner, don't eat animal protein at least an hour or two before bed. If you're going to bed at 11, you can't eat at 10.
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