Canada is one of the fattest countries in the world and local nutritionist Adam Hart is doing his part to change that.
In his new book, e3 for Life, he shares the key to a successful, happy, healthy life: Don't take away guilty pleasures, but add in the good stuff.
"My book is based on the idea of making it easy for the common person to get in touch with what it means to be abundantly happy and healthy," said Hart.
"Imagine attaining health and happiness without making drastic changes to your lifestyle or diet."
Hart is a nutritional expert, whole foods chef, coach and author with more than 10 years of experience, but he wasn't always on the healthy lifestyle path.
A decade ago, Hart was 40 pounds overweight, pre-diabetic and suffering from attention-deficit disorder, daily depression and anxiety attacks. After years of struggling and researching to become fit, Hart discovered what he believes are the "essential secrets to eating for maximum nutrition without making drastic changes to one's diet or lifestyle."
Hart said his struggle to attain this healthy lifestyle makes it easy to relate with people's need for positive reinforcement - instead of eliminating certain types of food, Hart focuses on introducing new ones.
"If you look at diets, the nutritional idea behind a diet is they restrict you in one way or another," Hart said. "If there's restrictions involved, there's the mental process where the mind will battle you against that and eventually you'll just want more of what you can't have."
His solution is to integrate healthier foods, bit by bit, into the daily routine.
"The model I've created behind this is the 80-20 rule and that's what's featured in this new book," he said. "For me it's based on eating 80 per cent of my diet which is whole, plant-based foods and the other 20 per cent you can eat whatever you want whenever you want with no restrictions."
Hart said the there are only two food groups - whole, plant-based food and processed food.
The plant-based food includes fruits and vegetables and nut and grains and is ideally what people should eat 80 per cent of the time. Processed food includes commercial food, fast food and meat and dairy.
He said meat and dairy are in the processed category because in modern food, there's a lot of antibiotics, a lot of hormones and excessive amounts of nutrients.
"I'm not saying to eliminate them [processed foods], but I'm just saying to look at the other side as a way to start to really feel what it's like to live from a very healthy place," said Hart.
"Whole foods, which are foods that have not been broken down, altered or transformed in any way, offer superior nutritional value compared to the often over processed foods found within the 30,000 to 60,000 choices in our average local grocery store."
Through his book, his courses and his programs Hart tries to make it easy for people to know what the foods are and how they can be used. Hart is also working hard at developing a line of food products for sale in health food stores.
Hart said his book isn't so much focused on losing weight as it is on feeling great.
"Everything for me is all about a feeling - it's all about getting us to feel what it's like to feel healthy because at that point the body just automatically just starts to do its own thing for you to support you," Hart said.
"It's based on the idea that with a healthy lifestyle, weight loss just becomes automatic -your blood sugar gets under control, you have less sugar cravings, you're not eating as many carbs and the weight just all of a sudden starts to disappear on its own."
Zephyr Café on Cleveland Avenue will host a book release party for Hart's new book on Dec. 18. There will be a short speech, a DJ and some of Hart's famous "Raw raw brownies."
His book is on sale at local bookstores and online at Amazon.com.
