How much would you pay to have an extra healthy year added to your life?

Thinking about it, I would happily drop tens of thousands of dollars for 365 days of extra quality time on Earth. And that makes me wonder: Why did it take me so long to hire experts to optimize my diet?

Well, it’s better late than never, I suppose. In this article, I’d like to share my recent experience from hiring five nutritionists and dieticians on Upwork to critique my diet and suggest improvements.

Overall, it was a positive experience that I can happily recommend. I plan to repeat this exercise once every two years for the foreseeable future.

Why Hire Five Nutritionists on Upwork?

There were two main reasons behind this move:

1. Many aspects of nutrition remain highly disputed today, which means it’s a good idea to get multiple expert opinions.
2. Everyone is unique, so it’s better to get experts to focus on your specific situation than to rely on generalized guidelines from the internet.

Upwork makes it easy to get multiple opinions from qualified experts at a reasonable price. I paid about $300 in total for my five nutritional recommendations, with prices ranging from $15 to $100. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the more costly experts gave the most valuable feedback (the two freelancers I would hire again are Michelle and Brenda).

But it’s important to also consider the time consumed by this exercise. I spent about 10 hours writing a document to describe my current diet, interacting with the experts, and deciding which changes to make based on their feedback. Putting a reasonable value on my time would bring the total cost to about $800 (still totally worth it).

The Process

Hiring on Upwork is quite convenient. You simply create a profile, post a job with a decent description of what you want, and wait for freelancers to apply. If you already know some good candidates (like the two experts I recommended earlier), you can invite them directly.

You will probably receive far more applications than you need, and selecting the right freelancers can feel intimidating. Luckily, if you go into the exercise knowing that you’ll make several hires, much of this pressure falls away.

I should also mention the importance of putting some effort into the job description. After all, if you don’t formulate the right question, you’ll never get the right answer. You can find my attempt at posing a good question in the appendix below this article.

How the Upwork Experts Improved My Diet

As you can see in the appendix, my diet was already quite healthy before my Upwork experiment — a wide variety of whole foods with almost no sugar or other empty calories. My biggest problem was the occasional emotional eating binge during stressful, frustrating, or overwhelming times (although I restrict the binging to relatively healthy foods).

After the five Upwork experts gave their feedback, I took several months to try different strategies. Eventually, I settled on the following changes:

1. Rebalancing Macronutrients

It turns out the nutritionists and dieticians I hired were not big fans of low-carb diets. Hence, the main recommendation was to replace some of my fat intake with complex carbs and a little more protein.

Legumes were mentioned several times, given that they are protein-rich complex carbs. Thus, the first major change I made was a big boost in my consumption of beans, lentils, and chickpeas. Beans and lentils now form the bulk of the chili con carne I often have for lunch, while chickpeas became a staple in my new evening salad and the occasional snack.

I also increased the amount of whole-grain carbs in my lunches (mainly rice, pasta, quinoa, and barley). My favorite whole-wheat crackers also got an expanded role, adding some crunch to my breakfast and evening salad.

In exchange for all these extra carbs, I reduced my intake of meat and nuts. The result is a more balanced mix of carbs and fat, resulting in about 45% of my calories from carbs, 35% from fats, and 20% from proteins.

2. Correcting Micronutrient Deficiencies

The experts found a deficiency in calcium and a mild vitamin B12 shortage. Cheese received several votes, although one expert pointed out that it should not be eaten with meat (like I was doing in my lasagne) because the calcium in cheese blocks the absorption of iron from meat.

In response to these recommendations, I now eat plenty of feta cheese with my evening salad and no more cheese on my lasagne. I also started using kefir in my breakfast, which is an excellent source of calcium.

For vitamin B12, I take a teaspoon of chlorella powder (which contains over 2000% of the recommended daily B12 per 100 g) with my daily green smoothie.

3. Tweaking Macronutrient Timing

Several experts recommended more protein at dinnertime. The feta cheese and chickpeas in my evening salad cater to this recommendation on four days of the week.

On the other evenings, I eat a rather strange omelet involving two eggs mixed with half a leek (chopped) with a filling of canned mackerel in tomato sauce (a healthy favorite here in Norway) and some cucumber on the side. This surprisingly tasty concoction has plenty of protein and also packs vitamin D, which helps with the dark Norwegian winters and calcium absorption.

4. Snacking and Calorie Cycling

To my great relief, the experts didn’t have a problem with my occasional healthy food binges. One even pointed out that this behavior has a name: calorie cycling. Usually, calorie cycling is a diet strategy where caloric intake is restricted on some days and unrestricted on others, but I seem to follow such a cycle without ever restricting calories.

Snacking was one area where there was little agreement. Some experts wanted me to stick to three meals, while others insisted that healthy snacking is perfectly fine. However, there was good agreement that high-protein snacks are best for curbing cravings.

After some experimentation, I came up with a snacking regimen that works quite well. My first craving of the day is quenched with a green smoothy, a teaspoon of chlorella, and an apple. Further cravings pull forward my main meals as required, and any remaining cravings are satisfied with high protein snacks, mainly chickpeas, walnuts, or eggs.

5. Cutting Out and Cutting Back

Although my diet contains very few unhealthy elements, some experts still suggested that I cut back on meat (especially the little bit of bacon in my lasagne) and avoid butter. These heavy sources of saturated fat are linked to a range of degenerative diseases.

Thus, I dutifully cut out the bacon and replaced half of my meat intake with more veggie mince and legumes. I also completely dropped butter in exchange for more olive oil.

6. General Health Guidelines

In addition to some solid nutritional recommendations, several experts also threw in a couple of broader health tips to help meet my longevity and craving management goals.

First, the good old idea of mindful eating made a few appearances. I always try to eat mindfully and gratefully, but it was good to get a reminder.

The importance of sleep also got several mentions. Chronic sleep deprivation or an irregular sleep pattern can induce overeating and create cravings for unhealthy foods.

Meditation also came up as a mode of stress management, motivating me to finally establish a fixed meditation regimen. (I can warmly recommend the Daily Calm and Daily Trip on the Calm meditation app.)

I also learned about the importance of the waist-to-hip ratio and blood pressure as measures of general health. I’m now the proud owner of a blood pressure kit and a dedicated ribbon for waist and hip measurements.

How I’ll Structure My Next Diet Evaluation

I’ve learned several useful things that promise to make my next diet evaluation simpler and more efficient.

Give more details about my general health. This includes age, gender, weight, height, activity level, blood pressure, waist-to-hip ratio, and any existing health complications. Several nutritionists asked for this information after accepting the job.

Go for quality over quantity. Next time, I’ll probably go for three or four more expensive experts, preferring qualified dieticians. As mentioned earlier, the time required to complete this exercise turned out to be more costly than the direct payments to the freelancers.

Properly analyze the results. Taking a few hours to compile the recommendations of different experts into an actionable plan was a very valuable exercise. I only managed to work myself up to do it several months after receiving the recommendations, so I’ll need to do better next time.

Ask questions after the analysis. The freelancers were happy to answer a few follow-up questions after delivering their reports. However, some important questions only came up after my belated analysis of the results. Next time, I’ll analyze right away and ask any questions that come up.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I’m very happy I went through this experiment. I rather arrogantly believed that my diet was already close to perfection, but the nutritionists I hired pointed out several important issues. After integrating their suggestions into my life, I’m confident that I got tens of thousands of dollars worth of healthy life years in exchange for my $300 in direct payments and 10 hours of productive time spent on this exercise.

So, why not hire your own nutritional team on Upwork? I’d be hard-pressed to name a better investment in your long-term health.

— Appendix —

Description Attached to My Upwork Job Posting

Goals

My diet is already in a good place. It helps me stay at a healthy weight with ~13% body fat and makes sure I never get sick. Still, I would like to get a professional opinion on how my diet can be made even better. With this in mind, please suggest improvements to the diet described in this document with the aim of reaching the following two goals:

1. Maximize my healthy lifespan (I’m currently 36)
2. Minimize any emotional food cravings and their effects on my health

The second point is sometimes applicable when my life gets a little stressful. It happens about five days per month on average, although it’s pretty irregular. In the past, stress used to drive me to the occasional ice cream or chocolate binge, but luckily I’ve managed to eliminate this behavior from my life. Nowadays, when I’m plagued by cravings, I just eat my healthy breakfast, lunch, and dinner in close succession and snack on healthy foods as required afterward. I never try to resist or suppress my emotional food cravings because doing so drains my willpower and distracts me from my work. When I overeat one day, it’s natural to eat less the next day, so I stay at a healthy weight.

Breakfast

I enjoy a big breakfast that provides almost half of my daily calories. It consists of the following ingredients:

• 200 g plain Greek yogurt
• 80 g seeds: hemp, flax, sunflower, pumpkin
• 100 g assorted nut mix: peanuts, almonds, cashew, hazelnuts, raisins, and a small amount of sweetened papaya
• 150 g frozen berries: blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, black- and red currents
• 50 g granola and 30 g All-Bran
• 10 g of amla powder

Sometimes, I’m not all that hungry in the morning (about twice per week). On those days, I eat two eggs scrambled with one chopped-up tomato seasoned with some salt and pepper.

Lunch

On weekdays, I eat frozen lunches cooked in bulk once per month. My three main lunch dishes combine to give me the following ingredients from a typical meal:

• 80 g pork mince
• 40 g veggie mince, mainly soy protein
• 10 g bacon
• 400 g of a wide range of vegetables: carrots, broccoli, mushrooms, onions (red and white), bell peppers (green and red), eggplant, baby corn, water chestnut, turnip, tomato (canned), beans (canned), lentils (canned), chili, garlic
• 50 g brown rice or whole wheat lasagne
• 20 g cheese
• 30 ml milk
• 5 g butter and olive oil
• 5 g seasoning: salt, pepper, curry, turmeric, cayenne pepper, brown vinegar, lemon juice
• 20 g raisins and apricot jam
• 100 g cucumber on the side

On weekends, I usually have fish for lunch. About half of the time, this is an omelet with two eggs and a 170 g can of mackerel in tomato sauce with 200 g of cucumber on the side. I use about 10 g of butter and olive oil in the pan for the omelet. The other half is either 1) 250 g salmon baked with 200 g canned beetroot and eaten with 100 g barley rice and mango chutney or 2) 250 g pollock fillets in a whole-wheat crust with 400 g mixed vegetables (carrots, broccoli, baby corn, water chestnut, turnip).

Dinner

My staple dinner is one medium-sized crushed avocado on some seed-sprinkled gluten-free crackers (40 g) with 20 g of cold-smoked salmon on top, seasoned with salt and pepper. This applies to most days of the week, but I occasionally make some baked sweet potato or just have some fresh fruit.

Snacks

On an average day, I would eat an apple, a banana, three carrots, and three cherry tomatoes as snacks. About three days a week, I need a little more, and I make one cup (250 ml) of something similar to my breakfast containing chia, flax, and hemp seeds, the same nut mix, granola and All-Bran, fresh blueberries, and almond milk.

I almost never eat any empty calories and don’t use sugar. The only time I eat something clearly unhealthy is when we have some cake or dessert on a special occasion. When I occasionally need to take snacks to a social event, I usually opt for chocolate- and yogurt-covered nuts.

Liquids

I drink plenty of water: two glasses directly after getting up, a glass before every snack, and some sips from the water bottle that’s always by my side throughout the day. In addition, I drink one or two cups of Rooibos tea with a slice of lemon each day.

Another healthy staple of mine is a green smoothie containing spinach, kale, cucumber, celery, apple, ginger, and orange juice. This is made once every three months and frozen in containers for convenient daily consumption. I drink about 100 ml per day with another 100 ml of orange juice. The orange juice is pressed (not from concentrate) with pulp and no added sugar.

Meal timing

Breakfast is my only meal with a fixed time: 7:30–2 hours after I get up. Before breakfast, I have two glasses of water and one cup of tea. The rest of the day, I eat as I get hungry. Lunch can be as early as 10:00 or as late as 13:00, with dinner spanning an even wider range. I try to avoid eating after 19:00, but I still snack after 19:00 about twice a week. This flexible meal timing ensures that I don’t spend any willpower on food and just eat whenever my body wants to.

If I have a stressful day that leads to food cravings, I would typically eat quite a lot in the first part of the day. Overeating late in the day disrupts my sleep, which I value very highly, so this rarely happens.