Would you like to reduce your risk of disease, reduce your risk of illness, feel better and perform better? Here's a simplified way to think about eating to help you meet these goals.

1.Eliminate added sugar. If you could do anything to change your diet, this change would give you the most bang for your buck. Many of our diets are loaded with sugar from sources such as soft drinks, sports drinks, energy bars, snacks, and even breads. Start with the obvious choices such as soft drinks, sports drinks and desserts and then start reading labels. Look for high fructose corn syrup, glucose, evaporated cane juice, and turbinado. Food distributors are becoming more and more crafty about the way they hide descriptions of sugar in their products. Even more natural sources of sugar such as honey or fructose (fruit sugar) should be moderated.

2.Eliminate processed complex carbs. These include the processed flours and starches found in cookies, chips, crackers, and other similar snacks. White bread is another common source. Here is an example:

3.Eat loads of green leafy vegetables including kale, spinach, kohlrabi, bok choy, broccoli, arugula, and cabbage.

4.Go natural. Try to buy products that contain natural, unprocessed ingredients. If you have to have breads and pastas, choose the whole wheat types. Avoid man-made ingredients and ingredients that you can't pronounce. These include harmful ingredients such as nitrites and nitrates. In general try to eat things in the most natural state possible.

5.Add good fats such as avocados, olive oil, and coconut oil to your diet. In addition, nuts such as almonds, cashews and Brazil nuts contain healthy amounts of fat and protein.

6.Get protein from clean sources such as grass-fed beef and wild caught fish.

7.Go as organic as your budget will allow.

8.Try The Whole30 diet. This is a diet of elimination. It can be very difficult to do, but you only have to do it for 30 days. The idea behind the diet is to eliminate all foods that potentially could cause digestive issues in food allergies. Many of us have intolerances to foods that we have not diagnosed and these intolerances can cause lack of energy, poor sleep, gas, bloating, and skin conditions. The diet essentially eliminates dairy, legumes, and grains. It consists only of natural, unprocessed foods. After the first 30 days, you can add things like dairy back in. After undertaking this process, you might discover that you have difficulty digesting some types of foods.