We are settling well into this new way of eating, although this holiday weekend may present some food challenges. I will have to work hard to prepare plenty of healthy food on Saturday so when the big block party occurs on Sunday, we will have alternatives and things to share. Here in my small town, we celebrate the 4th of July on the 3rd so that we can enjoy a big production fireworks display that will be booked in a bigger venue on the 4th. It's always a special time.
My thoughts and ideas surrounding food and diet have now changed quite dramatically. Before, I looked at food as a necessary, dangerous treat. It was either healthy or it was tasty, but not likely both. Even as a vegetarian, I wasn't really eating many vegetables. It was all carbs, dairy and eggs. I didn't think about nutrients. I only obsessed over calories. After all, eating too many calories is what makes you fat...or so I thought.
It's not really that simple. And "not being fat" shouldn't be anyone's goal, even though it was mine. It now seems so clear to me that the goal is to be healthy and improve the quality of my life. It's not about what size jeans I fit into. That is just a side benefit of being healthy.
I am coming off of about a 6 year time period of being sick a lot. Once I got chronic bronchitis for 6 weeks and then I began to get scared. Everything I read about it was not good and it looked like it could become a recurring problem. This past year, 2010, was my healthiest year in a long time, largely due to two factors. First, I was dieting and lost 38 pounds (of which I managed to regain 30 in the winter) and secondly, we moved into a newer brighter cleaner and well-ventilated home. I had no idea that our old musty (but fabulous) 50's split-level post modern home was making us sick, at least until we moved.
But now I am digressing. Now that I have been tracking my food for about 5 weeks I notice that I don't obsess as much about the calories as I do about the nutrient density of the food. If it's not contributing to my overall health, what is it good for? It may taste great and be tempting, but so does healthy food. It's amazing how much your taste buds can reawaken once you give them something truly good for your body. Anything that goes in my body that doesn't help it, hurts it. If I eat something bad for me, it is displacing something healthy that I could have eaten.
When you think about the medical industry and what the diseases of affluence are (diabetes, obesity, heart disease, MS, and others), it becomes obvious that we don't have cures for any of these ailments. There are treatments, procedures, and drugs, but they don't cure the disease and they circumvent the underlying issue, our diet. Medicine doesn't heal us, our bodies do. And in order for our bodies to do their job, we have to give it the tools (i.e., nutrients) it needs to make that happen. Given this rationale, why would you even consider taking away your body's ability to heal itself; or even worse, why would you consider giving yourself a disease by eating junk? Surgery can replace a damaged artery (temporarily), but it cannot repair it and make it like new. Only diet can do that. The same goes for all the other diseases and I am not claiming here that diet can cure MS, but studies do indicate that it is closely related to the cause and progress of the disease.
So with that in mind, I look forward to each new day in the hopes that I can learn more and try to repair and undo the damage that I have done to myself these past 40 years. It is never too late to make a difference.
No comments:
Post a Comment