Choices for Healthy Eating

I had studied food nutrition in A-levels and always had a fascination with how our body absorbs and replenishes its nutritionalneeds, from the moment my teacher said “You Are What You Eat”, this definitely made me think, I would definitely like to be something made by their natural surroundings rather than manipulated call worse and drugged into what processed Food has become. the question we should be asking is why are we so drawn to process food? yes it’s convenient but convenient for whom?

I’ve come to realise that food is only one side of life if you really care about your life and want to get the most out of it, you have to really care about not only what food you eat but also the environment e.g. the kind of job you do, where you liveand the kind of friends who choose to have,  as even though we like to think that we don’t have a choice about this, but we do!!! the first step is to realise that you are the pilot flying the plane, and of course there’s going to be lots of storms and difficult obstacles that will constantly challenge you, but these storms other things that make you realise who you really are, trust yourself, of course listen to others advice as this will help you make conclusions of what you want, but remember these are back seat drivers that are trying to steer you on your flight path, just be aware even though they may not realise it, their advice they giveing you is of course tainted with their own issues & hidden agendas.

Thinking about food is no different than thinking about what kind of friends you want to be with, isn’t it strange that sometimes you find yourself with friends you don’t even like, but somehow you’re drawn to them even though they don’t make feel good about yourself,  I find these tend to be people who come across very confident, have all the latest gadgets, so cool, fashionable and pretty and portray that they are in control of their lives, and whenever you see adverts about food these are the kind of people they betray, I feel like there is a kind of conditioning happening when you watch these adverts, they somehow subconsciously put into your mind that you could be just like one of these people if you just buy their goods. but just like the friends you are drawn to be with that don’t make you feel good about yourself, and through the conditioning of adverts the kind of food you get drawn to, also don’t make you feel good about yourself.

Like the friends who are giving you advice with their hidden agendas, so too is the food industry they have their own hidden agendas, and believe me they don’t care if you get cancer from this product in 10 year’s time they’ve made their money, so try to be really aware that if you buy some think process like for example a cake just remember they have not put high-quality ingredients inside and have added a lot of preservatives so that it has a long shelf life. but if you make your own cake you know what’s gone in it, and the most empowering thing about making your own cake 😉 is change the recipe to suit what you really like not what you been conditioned to like.

I hear you saying OMG change the ingredients of the recipe, the idea of this may seem daunting, but remember you are the pilots steering your life and if satnav tells you that this is the best route sometimes you know a better way, It’s always daunting and scary to do something new moving jobs changing careers, but remember it’s just the fear which makes the experience unpleasant the fear of the unknown holds us back in so many ways. 

Looking back through my 20s I was deathly drawn by these adverts with the amazing life, and was easily drawn in by all these fad diets and deftly lost a lot of weight during the Atkins diet and yes I may have look good on the outside, but I dread to think what it was doing to my insides, and once off the diet I quickly put all the weight back on so I never found any of these so called great diets to ever really give any long term effects.

In the same way as changing the ingredients in the recipeI was trying to change the ingredients in my life by trying to have a balance of exercise and food, I stopped starving my body and have mainly managed to keep my weight under control by regularly working out in the gym on the  treadmill, but this didn’t seem to be enough and I was still finding it difficult to balance between exercise and food and wanted to find a way to keep my body fit at the same time nutritionally nourished. I realise I needed some more information and I began reading books on food and found a books which deftly gave me an understanding on the scientific aspects of how food affects the body and what we can do to increase our immune system and life quality, and became very interested in the work of Dr Joel Fuhrman he has written several books one of which is called Eat to Live (2003) and a more recent one Super immune (2011), he is a GP in the United States and very much caters his practice in helping people with their illnesses through their diet.

His book goes in depth into nutritional research as well as past patient experiences and how they managed to radically change their lives.

with the desire to understand about how food affects your body and your emotions which Dr Joel Fuhrman  definitely covers this in a wide range of research work as well as his personal patient experiences, he also goes in depth about physical aspects and how the right kind of exercise and the right nutrition can give a balance in your life.

He talks about how to regulate your weight not by using these short-term fab diets e.g. the Atkins diet, he very much talks about how there is no miracle or quick way to cheat and quickly lose weight, and how these diets may give a quick short-term result but how they have consequences in the long term, and this book is more about eat to live which is a perfect contrast to the other food diets.

He has a food pyramid which I very much try to stick with, and have it on my fridge as a reminder.

Following his information has definitely changed my outlook, and understanding on food. I definitely feel I have more energy in my early 30s than I ever did in my 20s and I couldn’t recommend any book that has as much depth in nutrition in such a shrew manner

Erika Nicolle, 200hr YTTC Weekday Nov 2013