Kimberly Snyder

A varied diet that features lots of whole, fresh foods can give you the nutrition you need, but should you be using a supplement as well? Read on for recommendations from top nutritionists and dietitians to see if supplements are right for you.

Don't make supplements a substitute: Before you reach for a supplement, evaluate your diet to see how you can improve it. "Whole foods contain dozens and dozens of nutrients, including not just vitamins and minerals, but also antioxidants and phytochemicals, which would be impossible to fully replace with supplements," says Cynthia Sass, registered dietitian and author of S.A.S.S. Yourself Slim. Focus on eliminating processed foods and increasing the amount of fruits and vegetables you eat in order to get the most out of your food. "Eat the rainbow" with these colorful, antioxidant-rich recipes.

Multivitamins can work: "Even the healthiest eater can struggle to get in every vitamin and mineral needed each and every day," says registered dietitian Erin Palinski. She recommends a multivitamin to help ensure you are filling in holes in your diet. If you take a multivitamin, however, make sure you choose a "high-quality, whole-food-based multivitamin/multimineral," says Kimberly Snyder, nutritionist and author of The Beauty Detox Solution.

Get specific: Besides a multivitamin, certain supplements can target specific holes in your diet to suit you better. Supplements like probiotics, for example, can be useful to "help ensure you are absorbing your nutrients most effectively," Kimberly says. Nutritionist and Karma Chow founder Melissa Costello recommends supplements containing B complex, iron, and vitamin D3 because those may still be missing in your food or your body may not be able to absorb all nutrients. "Most of us have poor digestion so we cannot fully absorb all the nutrients from our foods and our soils have been so depleted that the nutrients are not as present in foods today," she explains.

Do you take supplements? Which ones do you recommend?

The term "clean eating" is tossed around frequently, but many people still aren't sure what it means. I spoke with three nutrition experts who agreed on the basics of clean eating: natural foods like produce and whole grains are vital, processed foods pollute the body, and extra sugar is detrimental to your health. However, each expert I spoke with offered her own unique spin on the eat-clean mantra.

Take Back Control
Naturopath practitioner Dr. Holly Lucille, ND, RN, says that clean eating is a form of disease prevention: "There are so many things in this world that are out of our control, but what you eat isn't." Lucille believes that we should take any and every opportunity to reduce our exposure to pesticides, herbicides, and hormones, which can "disrupt your endocrine system, [and] spur on weight gain and inflammation." She insists that reducing the exposure to these endocrine disrupters offers your body the solid nutrients it needs to fuel biochemistry.

Combine the Right Foods
Nutritionist Kimberly Snyder doesn't believe that high-quality, organic ingredients alone make up a clean-eating program. Instead, she says that the order and combination of foods we eat can lead to "toxicity buildup" in the body. For example, she believes "eating fruit on an empty stomach is 'clean.'" She feels this allows the fruit to be digested quickly so the body can metabolize all the nutrients. But the reverse is something Snyder shies away from. She believes that when you eat fruit after protein "the fruit starts to ferment prematurely" — interfering with the body's ability to absorb the essential nutrients. You can learn more about her theories on food combining in her new book Beauty Detox Foods (available for presale).

Read Those Labels
It may sound obvious, but healthy living guru and dietitian Cynthia Sass, MPH, RD, knows that something as simple as really reading the label of any packaged food can inform clean and healthy choices. "If anything you eat comes in a package, read the ingredient list first. It should read like a recipe you could whip up in your own kitchen." Once you get a glimpse at the slew of chemicals and man-made additives that go into even the most common processed foods, your tastes might even start to change naturally.

If you're normally skipping breakfast, here's your final wake-up call to stop. Eating breakfast not only aids in weight loss, but also gives you the energy you need to tackle your day. Skipping breakfast "is a killer," warns registered dietitian Erin Palinski, a spokesperson for ZICO Coconut Water. "Not only are you depriving your body of nutrition after not eating for an extended period of time, but you're also making it more likely that you'll overeat at lunch and/or dinner." If you're tired of the crash you get from not eating enough or eating too many refined carbs early in the morning, your breakfast habits need a revamp. We asked a few expert nutritionists and dietitians to weigh in on eating healthfully in the morning; read their tips (and delicious breakfast ideas!) below.

Eat soon: Even if you save your relaxing breakfasts for weekend mornings, you should still try to incorporate some breakfast time into your morning routine. "It's important to eat within an hour of waking," says nutritionist Melissa Costello, author of the Karma Chow Ultimate Cookbook. "Just a cup of coffee and a banana or energy bar [while] running out the door will sabotage our health efforts by creating sugar highs and lows, which will leave us craving sweets." Instead of waiting until the last minute, control cravings by eating shortly after waking, Melissa advises.

Eat light to heavy: Nutritionist and author of The Beauty Detox Solution, Kimberly Snyder's advice to her clients is simple: save the heavy foods for last. "This is a tremendously important part of maintaining energy throughout the day. If you eat heavy foods first, your body struggles to digest them and other foods get trapped behind. You end up wasting huge amounts of energy on digestion," Kimberly warns. "The fix is simple — eat foods light to heavy, both throughout the day and at each meal, which preps your body for optimal digestion."

Make it a carbs, protein, and fat mix: Worse than not eating breakfast is eating the wrongs types of foods. You need a meal that will keep your energy up and help you stay full throughout the morning, so go for foods that are a mix of complex carbs, proteins, and healthy fats, Melissa says. "This will help balance [your] blood sugar for the day." Need some breakfast help? Get a few nutritionist-approved breakfast ideas after the break.

Every day we're scouring the web for the top beauty tips, and Twitter is just brimming with them. Take a recent tidbit from celebrity nutritionist Kimberly Snyder, who is known to her holistic approach to beauty. When asked by a follower her recommendation for a natural body lotion choice, Snyder replied, "Try coconut oil! Use a bit at a time to let it absorb." Great advice; not only does coconut oil hydrate the skin, but it contains antioxidants to block out free radicals, and it also has lauric acid, a natural antimicrobial. There's nothing nuts about that.

Thanksgiving dinner is all about decadent dietary splurges, yet if weight loss or weight maintenance is on your mind this Thursday, there are still ways you can have your stuffing and eat it too. We asked Kimberly Snyder, a celebrity clinical nutritionist and the author of The Beauty Detox Solution, what she recommends you should load onto your Thanksgiving plate, so you can feel good about your dietary choices.

Here are Kimberly's three tips:

• "You can enjoy the heavier foods at Thanksgiving, since it is a special meal and time of the year, but be sure to still load up on veggies. They will act as a natural form of portion control for the heavier foods."
• "If your family or friends do not usually serve salads or veggies, offer to make or bring some. Try to include green, non-starch baked veggies such as zucchinis, broccoli, or cauliflower."
• "Sweet potatoes, full of beta carotene and fiber, are a more nutritious choice over white bread, sliced breads, or buns that may be on the table. It is a good idea to load up on sweet potatoes, and skip all the bread."

If you end up overindulging after all and are looking for a quick way to get back on track, Kimberly recommends her Glowing Green Smoothie to jumpstart your metabolism.

Source: Lenka Drstakova

Celebrity nutritionist Kimberly Snyder, who works with Drew Barrymore and Olivia Wilde, among others, just wrote a book called The Beauty Detox Solution. In it, she advocates a holistic approach to beauty that focuses on diet and wellness rather than simply skin care. So if you're curious about what foods Snyder says can wreck your skin, and which ones can help it, just keep reading.