Read up. Wellness, your way.

When it comes to our overall health and well-being, we often hear about the importance of eating a balanced diet. But what does that really mean? While it's certainly important to consume a variety of foods that provide essential nutrients, the way we combine those foods can significantly impact our health.

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Hopefully, you've taken my online quiz and have received Your Healthy Diet & Longevity Score on our website, Dr.CherylWellness.com. That's where you can see how many of the ten healthiest foods you're eating every day and how many of the ten health habits you're practicing to be as healthy as you can be today.

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We dive deeper into The Score in my membership, but in this blog post, we'll explore the importance of food combinations and how to create the perfect winning combination for optimal health and well-being.

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Feel Full for 4 Hours

Have you ever eaten what you thought was a “healthy” meal but then found yourself hungry after only 2 hours? It could be because the foods you ate were not properly combined. You can eat a bowl of oatmeal with berries in the morning, which is definitely a great start to a healthy breakfast, but if you’re missing a key food combination in that bowl, you’re going to experience hunger and cravings sooner than we’d like.

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If our goal is to crush hunger, we have to become really good at knowing and understanding effective food combinations. I always make it a goal for my patients to feel full for at least 4 hours after a meal. And to do that, we have to make sure we have everything on our plate at every meal that will keep us full and satisfied with no energy slumps or cravings until the next meal.

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Not to mention heal our overall bodies and minds. Feeling full is only part of the goal here. When we eat properly combined meals, we are also essentially giving ourselves the best medicine that’s out there. So how do you know the best combinations? That’s where The Score and The Plate come in.

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The Score and The Plate

To make it easier to create winning food combinations, I developed The Healthy Diet & Longevity Score, my prescription for quantifying the food and habit choices we make in our day-to-day lives that impact our health the most. Within The Score framework are the 10 foods that are most effective in healing our bodies in the long run.

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Next, we have The Plate. The Plate is my framework for the food combinations we should be aiming for at every meal. I usually tell my clients to take a paper plate and draw a line down the middle of it. Half of that plate should be filled with mostly fresh fruits and vegetables at every meal. Then, on the other half of the plate, draw a line dividing that half in half. One quarter we fill with whole grains, and the other quarter we fill with healthy plant proteins and healthy plant fats.

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Of course, I always tell my patients that they can also throw in a little bit of their favorite food to top off their plate, too, because we don’t want to live a life where we feel deprived and never get to eat the foods we love and bring us comfort.

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So, to break it down again, here’s the winning combination for a plate that keeps you full for hours:

• 50% fruits and vegetables: Broccoli, spinach, kale, carrots, peppers, blueberries, strawberries, apples, etc.
• 25% plant proteins/healthy fats: Beans, nuts, tofu, nut butter, avocado, seeds, olives, etc.
• 25% whole intact grains: Quinoa, wild rice, brown rice, barley, oats, etc.
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The Plate: A Summary of the Winning Combination

Ready to transform your health? The winning combination for optimal health and well-being is a balance of whole, minimally processed foods that provide the right balance of nutrients to our cells. To help visualize this, use The Plate as a guide, and focus on incorporating whole fruits, fresh vegetables, plant protein, healthy plant fats, and whole grains into each meal.  This is eating more of the foods that heal at each meal. To learn more about creating meals that heal, check out the Dr. Cheryl Wellness Membership for exclusive content full of tools and resources to eat and live well.

By focusing on the food combinations and whole, nutrient-dense foods, you can crush hunger, balance blood sugar, optimize your health and well-being, and feel your best every day. Still need to take the quiz and learn Your Score? Go to drcherylwellness.com and click “Get My Score?”