Are you eating for your health or for how you look in your clothes? Answer a few of these questions to find out what your priorities are and who dictates your health. The fashion industry, or how you feel?
- Do you buy foods because they advertise the words “light” and “low fat”?
- Do you order only a salad for lunch because you think it’s diet food?
- Do you fast for a day or two after you pigged out the night before?
- Do you feel you need water pills to make you feel skinner?
- Do you use laxatives after you ate food you think is fattening?
- Do you think avocados are fattening?
- Do you think baked potatoes are fattening?
- Do you avoid all fats, including plant oils?
- Do you exercise without eating carbohydrates before you train?
- Do you step on the scale to measure your diet progress or failure?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, you could be choosing your foods for the wrong reasons. We need to look at our food as chemistry that will be working with our biochemistry or body. And it’s our consciousness of health that will keep us on the right track and not be swayed by sales propaganda used to sell a product.
Do you buy foods because they advertise the words “light” and “low fat”?
Here’s where nutritional education is extremely important. Many people have receive such poor information over the years by food companies that want to stay in the so called “health revolution”. These companies have altered their ingredients so as to use the latest buss words like, “light” and “low fat”.
Using artificial ingredients, dyes, partially hydrogenated oils and artificial sweeteners to substitute for what some people believe to be fatten are not only dangerous to the body, but can work against your endeavor to look and feel healthy. These terms are misleading and geared for the uneducated buyer. So what if the nutritional label reads zero fat, zero carbs and zero protein and zero cholesterol….so does bleach. But you wouldn’t want to put it into your body. You feel like you’re getting away Scott free because the numbers are low to zero, but in reality, you could be doing more harm to your body by taking in artificial substances. Always read the ingredients and look for products that offer natural ingredients. The body can only utilize and recognize what is natural to it. So if you’re choosing your salad dressing because it says its “light”, check the ingredient list and see if the ingredients are healthy.
Do you order only a salad for lunch because you think it’s diet food?
So many people think eating just a salad at lunch is being healthy or will keep them skinny. It’s so important to have a health consciousness. You know, like spiritual consciousness or body consciousness. In choosing your food for lunch, you should ask yourself if you’ve had your protein for the day, or do you need more carbohydrates. Sometimes when you don’t eat enough food, your body goes into a starvation mode and hoards the fat thinking it will need it for a raining day. If you think you can out smart your body, you have to get up pretty early and have a talk with God. Now if your choice was made because none of the food looked good, safe, not up to your standards, then your making a conscious thought and must decided where and when you’ll be able to supple yourself the missing protein or carbs for that day. But thinking that just a salad is ok because you’re afraid of eating for fear of getting fat, then you’ve made the wrong choice.
Do you fast for a day or two after you pigged out the night before?
I always laugh when someone tells me at a party, “I’m eating so much, but it’s ok ‘cuz I’ll just fast for the next two days.” You’re body is going to use what it can, and store what is doesn’t have time for and waste a lot of energy detoxifying itself from the trauma it receives from an out of control party guest. Most miscombined foods will rot and putrefy, turn to gases and poisons and cause you a lot of gastrointestinal uncomfortablness the next couple days. The stomach is 104 degrees and with all the acids pouring into your digestive tract to handle the food, the combination becomes lethal. However, the peristalses ( intestinal muscle reaction of pushing food through the intestines) proceeds whether or not your food has been digested. Without scrubbing, cleansing and enzymic foods to following the food extravaganza to help flush out the obnoxious mess, then you have to wait until it finally rids itself. But just like an extra rinse cycle in your washing machine, it’s important to learn to use your foods instead of abusing them. Fresh pineapple, papaya, kiwis, strawberries, mangos and grapefruits are very high in the enzyme bromelan and papain. These fruits are excellent to eat when you want to cleanse the intestines and large colon.
Do you feel you need water pills to make you feel skinner?
Probably one of the most dangerous and misused drugs is Lasix. A drug known as a water pill that is used for edema ( An excessive accumulation of serous fluid in tissue spaces or a body cavity). Many people, mostly women, will use this pill when they are close or having their menstrual. Extracting the water out of your tissues may temporary make you feel less uncomfortable, but when it’s because you ate too much, you are not going to lose any weight. Weight is muscle and bones. Water molecules adhere themselves to carbohydrates. If you pigged out on too many carbs, then cut back on the carbs the next day and eat more cleansing fruits and vegetables. Believe it or not, watermelon is an excellent diuretic food and the vitamin B-6(peridoxal-5-phosphate) will also work as a safe supplement in adding you to shed some H20. But water is water and fat is fat. You lose a little water, drink a glass of water and you’re right back were you started. Using Lasix or any diuretic to!
Feeling skinny is extremely unhealthy and should be avoided.
Do you use laxatives after you ate food you think is fattening?
Laxatives work by forcing fluids into the bowels to create a softening effect. In doing this, you can put yourself into grave danger by extracting your electrolytes. People who use laxatives to lose the food they ate, lose a lot more than just the food substrate(the material or substance on which an enzyme acts.) If you think rushing your food out of your body with an EXlax or Correctol is going to prevent you from gaining fat, you are horribly wrong. You are better off eating cleansing foods and less carbs for a couple of days and maybe up your cardio a little. But thinking you can quick fix a pig out with a laxative is the most uneducated choice one can make.
Do you think avocados are fattening? The body is made up of proteins, carbohydrates and fats. It’s the kind of fat you put into your body that makes it fat. Not just any fat. Certain fatty acids are extremely beneficial to your body and actually help you to lose fat. Avocado are made up of protein and fats. However, this kind of plant fat is actually good for you. Especially because it hasn’t been altered by denaturing processing in order to extract the oil for other purposes. Now, just because an avocado is good for you, does not mean eating five a day is better. Even healthy food can over load the system and cause harm to the body. But understand that the body does have a balancing mechanism. You need more carbohydrates than proteins and more proteins than fats. Essential fatty acids balance your hormones, keep your skin soft, your hair nice and immune system strong. Every body is different, but their is not one body out there that can exist without any fats. So choose the health fats and keep your body in balance.
Do you think baked potatoes and whole grains are fattening?
A baked potato or a bowl of whole grains/rice, is a complex carbohydrate. Eating before you train, or to sustain you in a long day at work, for a mid-afternoon snack, these little bundles of minerals and carbs are perfect little meals that can keep us going up to 4 hours. One average size potato is about 21 grams of carbohydrates, where 1/2 cup of whole grains could be up to 44 grams and will turn into glucose for energy. This kind of energy can actually help your body burn fat. For instance, at the gym, when you are feeling energized, you train better and harder and therefore can burn up more than if your were feeling sluggish and tired trying to force your way through a work out. Bake potatoes have no ingredient list and neither do whole grains.. Man did not make these carbohydrates, he must grow them. They are pure and natural and the body accepts them without confusion. What is fattening is what people chose to put on them!
Do you avoid all fats, including plant oils?
When you avoid all fats, you are setting yourself up for an imbalance. And in actuality, the right kind of fats will help you shed some unwanted fat. The key is in what kind of fat you use, buy, and how you use your fats. I will only purchase oils that are from organic sources and have been cold pressed under strict refrigerated control. They are put into a black bottle to keep the light from denaturing it and Kept in the refrigerated state. I treat my oils like medicine. They are not to used with heat and I take from the bottle what I need and put the lid back on fast and very tight. Oxygen and heat are the biggest destroyers of these precious fats. These little guys can save your life. People who go completely fat free are making uneducated choices. You have to have the essential fatty acids(omega 3,6 & 9) in your body to balance your metabolism. All of these come from plants. Flax seed, pumpkin seed, sunflower seed, sesame seed, borage, olive, etc… Learn to use these oils by pouring them onto your foods, mixing in a protein shake or just taking a couple of tablespoons a day to assure you’re getting your proper intake.
Do you exercise without eating carbohydrates before you train?
One of the most dangerous actions is to exercise without carbohydrates in your system. You would never go on a long trip without fueling up your car and checking the oil and fluid levels. Yet people will get up and go to the gym without any food to power them through their work outs. These same people believe that their body will burn fat instead for fuel. Wrong. The body’s not that stupid. It needs amino acids for glycogenic fuel and glucose for energy. In twenty minutes of concentrated thinking, the brain uses more glucose than the body does in a full hour of working out. What does this tell us. The brain is a very demanding organ. If the body doesn’t have the right amount of glucose or fuel, it will beg, barrow and steal from other organs, muscles, ligaments and tendons. The heart is a great source of tissue to eat up for the brain. This is why anorexic die of heart attacks. The walls of the chambers in their hearts become so thin from a process known as catabolization. It’s almost like the body become a cannibal and begins to eat itself up in search for fuel. All that hard work you put into building muscle can be thwarted by not sufficiently carbing up before you exercise. All because you think you’ll burn fat for fuel if you don’t eat. This is very wrong and dangerous.
Do you step on the scale to measure your diet progress or failure?
When ever I’ve counseled a person, the first thing I make them do is throw out their scale. This stupid little metal box is not God. The scale can not tell you how much weight you have lost or gained. Listen closely. If you take a piece of meat and drop it into a glass of water is will sink to the bottom. If you take the fat from it and drop it into a glass of water it will float. Weight sinks, fat floats. One pound of meat can fit into your hand, one pound of fat is like a pound of cotton balls. If you are becoming leaner, denser or firmer, you are most likely are going to weight more. But if the scale says you weight less, it could be that you lost muscle and still have the fat. This little box has cause more dieters to crash and it’s all a mental game because it’s not accurate. If you want to weigh your fat vs. your muscle, have your body immerse in water in a fat composition test to see how much fat you have. That’s one of the best ways to measure your progress and throw the damn scale out the window. I have to laugh every time the doctor puts me on it. He has no idea what I’m made up of. A lot of fat and little muscle or a lot of muscle and little fat. How is the scale going to tell him that. It’s so antiquated and yet, every gym and doctors office continues to tract their progress that way. I say do the pinch test. grab a handful of fat and skin and check every other week to see if your grabbing any less or more. If you get use to assessing yourself and become more in tune with your body without a little box telling you some kind of a number, you’ll find you have more control over your life and eating choices.
Be your own truth seeker. Ask yourself why you are eating what you’re eating. Try to categorize your answer. For your health, don’t like the way your body looks, or emotionally you feel a void. Take your power back by making conscious decisions about what foods you put into your mouth. And know that if you are completely honest about it and decide that it’s because you feel hurt, lonely or scared, that’s ok too. At least you’ll be getting in touch with your feelings and ultimately be able to separated your foods from your emotions and make educated choices for yourself.