People assume a nutritionist eats a perfect diet. I don’t. I eat the perfect diet for me, and the only reason I can say that with any confidence is because I know exactly what my body needs. I’ve tested my DNA, my food intolerances, my gut. So when I eat, I eat with intent.
Here’s an example most people have never heard of: riboflavin. It’s vitamin B2, and my DNA results show my needs for it run higher than average. So I don’t leave it to chance, I build my day around it.
Breakfast is usually a small avocado, followed by buckwheat that I’ve soaked overnight in coconut milk. If I haven’t got a ripe avocado to hand, I’ll warm through some broccoli instead, I always keep it in the fridge for exactly this reason. Broccoli, alongside spinach and beet greens, is one of the foods I lean on for riboflavin.
Lunch is a large salad, followed by a protein, usually mackerel or an egg, since I keep my protein mostly plant based and reach for fish or egg rather than meat, and then a sweet potato. For the riboflavin itself, I turn to medicinal mushrooms rather than the ordinary supermarket kind. Lion’s Mane, Cordyceps, Reishi, Turkey Tail, Chaga, alongside almonds I’ve soaked overnight and sunflower seeds.
Dinner tonight is lentils, I always start with fibre, followed by a poached apple. If I want dairy, I’ll have a plant based version, like a coconut yoghurt. It’s not the same every night, but the principle holds: I’m not eating randomly, I’m eating according to what I actually know about my own body.
I also keep sugar to a minimum, for my thyroid, and salt under control, for my blood pressure. None of this is guesswork. It’s the same principle I use when I build a plan for a client: not a generic diet, but the diet their body is actually asking for.
That’s the real secret. Not perfection. Precision.
Prevention rather than cure.
Milvia Pili
Functional Nutritional Therapist
