First off I need to explain that I had strictly looked at each thing I put into my body to truly optimize my health - every morsel had a wonderful purpose. Food was my medication and I used it to create healing and reduce toxicity in my body. My new way of eating was not a dreaded task, but rather a delight as I saw my health transformed and my body become renewed!
Some encouraging stats:
- Blood pressure went from 140's over 90's to 110's over 70's (wow)
- lose of 10 pounds
- Due to the very high nutrient diet I had gone through a powerful detox and was able to completely drop one of my anti-depressant medications within the first week of the treatment
- Energy increase to amazing levels - needless to say my body was very happy with me.
Until Thursday.
Enter my cheat day. I filled my body with pizza, chicken wings, a veggie burrito, and ended with my all time favorite: Taco Bell. I understand that this day of eating sounds crazy, but I was able to eat like this in the past with no issue. It is no wonder that my body was so toxic before!
From the first meal of the day my body felt HORRIBLE! My digestive tract want into total disorder, my emotions where off, and my energy dropped greatly. Another disparaging discovery was that what was once a great source of joy - fattening foods has now become a source of great pain. My body has been spoiled for incredible high quality foods and when I didn't comply with it's new demands I suffered in every way possible.
Surely I could train my body to eat crap again, but why would I? I have felt such a wonderful and God given transformation with proof of my body's reception of the new diet. The most horrible truth is that food is no longer a source of guilty pleasure. My whole being understands that FOOD MATTERS, and that Garbage in really means Garbage out!
Be fooled no more: Let food be your medication, and your medication be your food!
Bless your body.
Thomas is right on target! As a nutritionist who works with individuals whose eating is often triggered by stress, I want to say that Thomas's reaction was not "just emotional eating." It is, but it has a real physical basis: Stress hormones create a couple of situations in the body that stimulate a desire to eat. First they create a dumping of stored carbohydrate, protein and fat into the blood stream...as if the body needed to perform a major physical task - to flee or to defend itself. Usually, in this day and time it doesn't. Instead these nutrients are circulated to the liver which perceives them as "extra" and coverts them to fat. In the meantime the stores in the body are left empty and the person becomes hungry a while after the incident.
ReplyDeleteThe next thing that might happen is that the person may have learned that certain foods do a better job of making them feel better...high fat, high sugar foods often raise the level of pleasure hormones and pain-killing hormones and can often quickly be absorbed. Interestingly, what I believed happened with Thomas, is that he has been deriving such pleasure and hormonal/brain chemistry changes with his food choices in the last couple of months, that the pizza and other heavy foods couldn't give him the same pleasure anymore. I would be curious if Thomas has also found some other ways to deal with his stress, so that food isn't the answer anymore.
Your post is the same thing I've thought about recently: a good way for ppl to change their eating habits is to challenge them to eat a week or 2 of all organic, raw food, grass-fed beef, hormone-free, antibiotic-free, non-processed foods. Then after that test it out by eating a week of all junk food or whatever they used to eat. Then quite likely the difference in energy levels will be very noticeable and we'll never turn back again. ~Gal. 4:9 :)
ReplyDelete@Drew - I totally agree. Once you have had the best you cannot go back.
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