The way you eat significantly impacts how your body handles it.

1. Before you eat, take a moment to take a breath and get in touch with your body to prepare yourself for the food. Before eating at all, drink apple cider vinegar with an 8 ounce cup of water and lemon juice to light up your digestives. It contains acidic acid which slows down digestion and release of glucose into your bloodstream. 
2. The order of your eating should be vegetables first due to their high fiber content; then protein, then carbs, then dessert. If vegetables are eaten first, the fiber creates a protective shield that prevents the starches from going into your bloodstream. Avoid the bread basket! Bread is a starch which breaks down into glucose and goes directly to your bloodstream and causes a spike and inflammation. These spikes cause fatigue and sluggish metabolism and an increase in cravings. 
3. Eat slowly and pay attention to how you feel. Ghrelin, your hunger hormone, rises before a meal, when your stomach is empty. It decreases when your stomach is full and sends a signal to your brain to stop. If you ignore this signal, it will dissipate and at that point you are emotional eating because your body has what it needs.
4. After eating, move your muscles to help them absorb the glucose. Managing your glucose spikes also improves your mental health because the cells in your brain also use glucose for energy. 

Incorporate Fats: 

Vegetables should be prepared with a fat of some sort so their nutrients can be fully absorbed. Extra virgin olive oil, almond oil, nuts, seeds, hummus, and avocado are great fat options. 

Cooked or Raw: 

Some vegetables need to be cooked in order to be properly digested. For example, tomatoes should be cooked thoroughly so the lycopene can be released and carrots should be cooked so the beta carotene can be digested. Also, cruciferous vegetables like cabbage, broccoli. and cauliflower should be cooked so they can release indole, which is a compound known to prevent cancer. Spinach releases more iron, vitamin A, E, and zinc when cooked. Meanwhile, water dense vegetables like cucumbers and celery are better eaten raw. The key antioxidant called Fisetin dissolves when cooked. Steaming and roasting are the healthiest ways to cook vegetables. Boiling vegetables pulls the nutrients from the vegetables and leaves the end product with minimal benefits. 

Meat can be boiled to remove fats but they can also be broiled. Roasting meat is okay but be sure to use a grill pan so the meat isn't sitting in the fat juices for too long. 

Your food should be from local farmer's markets or other reputable grocers. Shop the perimeter! Packaged foods should only be purchased for emergency situations where food that lasts longer is necessary. Stop calorie counting and instead focus on quality. Quality foods are pure, unprocessed, and contains all the nutrients the plant produced. 

Your portions should not be based on calories. Eat slowly and eat until satisfied. It takes about 20 minutes for your body to know whether or not it's full. 1 tablespoon of vinegar per meal can reduce the glucose spike by 30% and insulin spike by 20%. Vinegar contains acidic acid that helps glucose levels and slows down how quickly the molecules of glucose goes into your bloodstream. It also tells your muscles to soak up glucose as it arrives. The less glucose spikes you have, the less you age. However, be sure to mix with water to avoid burning your esophagus.