Garza-Hillman - Approaching the Natural

Copyright 2012 Sid Garza-Hillman

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Control Number:
2012954524

Printed in the United States of America

First Edition

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Book design by inkfish

Distributed by

Publishers Group West

1700 Fourth Street, Berkeley CA 94710

Phone 510.809.3700

www.pgw.com

6 Petaluma Blvd. North, Suite B-6

Petaluma, California 94952

Phone 800.779.5582

www.roundtreepress.com

ISBN: 978-1937359355

To lovely Lisa.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank a few folks who played an integral part in helping me write this book. To my patient editor, Stephen Sande, and to Chris Gruener at Cameron/Roundtree Press for getting behind this effort. To Biz Stone for the foreword and for his own good works. To Joan and Jeff Stanford, for providing the venue in which I could launch my nutrition practice. To Jeff Stanford specifically for all the great conversations that helped me hone and refine my approach. To Kim Hillman, brilliant designer and perpetually supportive sister, for making this manifesto look purty. To the great writers Ryan Harty and Julie Orringer for providing encouragement and inspiration. To Scott and Hillary Schneider for taking on additional horse lesson carpooling (long story) that bought me some additional writing time. To Elissa Denker for being a great sounding board and a profoundly courageous person. To Terese Kelley for all her encouragement and ass-kicking. To my wonderful children, Luna, Rnn, and Rinah, for being patient with me during this process, and bravely drinking the green drinks. And, most of all, to my brilliant, beautiful, and unbelievably tolerant wife, Lisa, for taking a giant leap across the halfway mark of shared responsibilities during the long hours of writing.

Small Is the New Big

My wife and I originally intended to elope in Florence, Italy. When I quit my cushy job to start my own company, we realized Italy was not going to happen. Instead, we discovered the Stanford Inn, a beautiful eco-resort catering to vegans and dog lovers on the Mendocino coast, about three hours drive from our little place in Berkeley, California. We decided to elope at the Stanford Inn. Jeff Stanford officiated the ceremony himself. It was perfect.

Over the years, we have continued to visit the Stanford Inn at least once or twice annually. On one of our recent trips, a guy named Sid introduced himself while Livia and I were enjoying dinner at the Ravens, the vegan restaurant attached to the Inn. Sid noticed I had ordered a glass of scotchLaphroig, neat. Suddenly we were discussing peaty scotches with enthusiasm. Sid insisted I try a few of his favorites from what was an extraordinary collection for a vegan restaurant way up in Mendocino.

After a few tastings, I finally got around to asking Sid what his role at the Inn wasassuming he was the sommelier. To my surprise, Sid told me he was the resident nutritionist. Not only that, he was a practicing health coach dedicated to teaching people how to live a natural lifestyle. Thats when I realized there was something special about Sidhe wasnt preachy about living a healthy life and that set him apart. Sids positive and practical approach is his secret weapon.

Far too often, were told that going vegan or eating healthy means giving up the good stuff. Sids philosophy turns this around and makes us realize that were not giving anything up. In fact, the opposite is truewe are gaining something wonderful. A healthy approach to living should be effortless and enjoyable. Unfortunately, this is rarely the way its presented. Most experts proffer some variation of no pain, no gain. That phrase is 75% negative. Sid offers us another waythe good way.

Decades of psychology have essentially shown us that positivity works better than negativity. Imagine your dentist asks you, How often do you floss? and your answer is, About two days a week. There are two ways that dentist might react. If she says, You are a bad patient. Im disappointed with your lack of diligent flossing, this makes you feel bad. Guess the easiest way to prevent your dentist from saying that to you again? Never go back to the dentist. Your health will most certainly degrade.

Suppose instead that when your dentist asks, How often do you floss? your answer remains, About two days a week, and she responds with, Great work! Lets try to get that to three or four days a week the next time we meet. You feel good. Youre a great patient with the potential to be an even greater patient. Good on you! That positive reaction makes a huge difference. But theres something else going on herethe power of small steps that can take you to your big goals.

When you set a goal like, Lose fifty pounds, the chances are low that youll get there. If you do get there, the chances are even lower that youll stay there. However, if you set a goal of, No sugary drinks today, then its almost impossible not to gain momentum. Breaking big goals up into tiny, realistically achievable habits removes will power from the equation. Imagine that. Instead of battling your will power, you are taking tiny steps forward, building momentum, and feeling better every day, every week, every month, and every year. Before you realize it, youre living a natural, healthy, and happy life.

Big goals, broken into tiny habitseven if you fail at them from time to timewill add up to a whole greater to the sum of its parts. In the following pages, Sid will enlighten you. Even this book is little, friendly, and fun. You almost cant help but read it. Youll get to know Sids affable personality present in these pages. Sid has taught me that approaching a natural lifestyle is a gift, not a struggle. It is my sincere hope that you enjoy this manifesto, and more importantly, enjoy a natural life.

Biz Stone

Co-founder, Twitter

A few years ago I had an idea for a diet book. It was to be about two hundred pages long, and on the cover would be incredible claims like The diet to end all diets! and 100% guaranteed weight loss! Upon opening the book the reader would find the following instructions on the very first page:

1. Eat fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and beans

2. Drink clean water when you are thirsty

3. Exercise every day

The remaining pages would be blank.

Man, what a huge waste of paper that book would have been, and honestly I am probably the only person who finds the idea amusing (that happens a lot). At the same time, after twenty years of studying nutrition, I could not escape a continually nagging suspicion that the subject did not have to be all that complicated. Perhaps it was my philosophy background, but while studying to become a nutritionist I kept asking big picture questions. Is the human animal really that different from every other animal on Earth when it comes to nutrition? Do we really need to measure, count, weigh, not to mention process and isolate, what we put in our bodies? Was there a variety of natural, nutritionally dense foods we could consume and be super healthy without having to rely so much on a bunch of supplements? The more I studied, researched, and learned, the more I became convinced that humans are seriously overthinking the subject of food, nutrition, and health in general.

Once I finished my studies and began my practice, I decided to distill what I had learned into a super accessible and fun format that literally anybody could understand. My intention was to appeal to those who wanted to get healthy, but who were frankly not that interested in the minutiae. I figured that if anyone were as curious as I was about the particulars of human nutrition (the functions of individual vitamins and minerals, digestion, the mechanism of energy creation, molecular biology, biochemistry, and the rest), they would most likely already be reading the same types of books as I.