Nutrition
September 10, 2008
Even though life and your diet should be taken serious, and your body is a very fragile, ecosystem of bacteria, water and minerals; food is also one of a few things in life that is meant to be enjoyed. There is an 80/20 % rule that governs the intake of food. If you eat the correct things and make the right decisions 80% of the time, 20% you can enjoy and treat yourself. Nutrition can be very complex or very simple. I prefer starting off with the complex, that way you get a full understanding of how nutrition works in the body. After that you can scale down and have a more relaxed approach.
How is your relationship with… food?
Food should be fun, it should be something you enjoy and not obsess about… something you experiment with when you get the time, and it should be one of the pleasures in life… is this true for you? If you think about food all the time, obsess about calories, or worry about what happens in your body when you eat certain things, you might not have a healthy relationship with food… It might be worth talking to somebody about it. Please see our counselling section for more details.
Nutrition gone wrong
Anorexia, bulimia, Yo-yo dieting, Cardio vascular disease, type II diabetes, obsessive behaviour, depression, anxiety, energy slumps.
Emotional baggage around food can have a major impact on the way the body breaks it down. Going back the fact that everything is energy, every thought, every sell and everything you can touch or see. The energy of thoughts and emotions can change the shape/form of an atom…, therefore having a hamburger with the belief that it will make you put on a pound, actually has an effect on what the hamburger does in your body. Believing on the other side that the bread will give you energy, the lettuce and tomato will give you the vitamins you need, and the beef/chicken patty will help your cells grow… a difference in perspective does a lot to the energy of the food.
Lies people believe
How many times have you heard the phrase “I have a slow metabolism” from people that struggle with their weight? Do you know how the metabolism works? Did you know that you can train your metabolism to work the way you want it to? What if I told you it can be done in as little as 2 weeks! There are so many misconceptions about food, most of them can be proved as true by the person who thought of it, but again that does not mean it works for everybody!
Knowing your body is probably the most important thing. Every”body” is different and what works for 1 person is not always meant to work for another person. The best advice anyone can ever give you is to trust your instinct and listen to you body… get to know your body inside out… you are the only one who really know what you need. Nutritional programs should be worked out to suite the individual in every way… their preferences, life style, activity level, medical history and composition. Nutrition by itself can change the body in a big way, but pared with exercise and the right mindset, changes can be massive.
Supplements and organic food
Unfortunately it is true that you need to eat about 8 oranges today to get the same amount of vitamins as you would have had from 1 orange about 40 years ago!! Pollution, genetic growth, pesticides etc all influence the quality of the food we eat. Increased stress in our daily lives does not make this picture any prettier. Organic foods might be a healthier option if you are worried about the effects of the chemicals on the nutritional value. Nutritional supplements is also a good way to go, but make sure what you need first, don’t just take whatever you can find as this could cause an imbalance in your body.
