CUTTING OUT THE CRAP MAY NOT BE THE ANSWER TO YOUR HEALTH PROBLEMS
by Allison Manzi
Now that I have your attention, I hate to tell you I’m not going to give you some Scientology-esque reasoning behind eating Reese’s for dinner. I’m not even going to advocate a regular splurge to keep your sanity (another topic for another day). If you’re focused on cleaning up your diet primarily for health reasons, ie. a comatose immune system, poor energy, bad skin, and looming chronic diseases, then simply ditching the Doritos might not do the trick.
By all means, avoid putting chemicals and harmful foods in your body. PLEASE. But I find so many of my clients simply eliminate when it comes to eating better. Well, eating better doesn’t always mean just eating “less bad”. A common cultural habit. Our standard american diet (yes, the acronym is SAD. You can laugh. It helps me cope, too) is already so painfully nutrient-deficient.
Cutting out the “junk food” helps. The Slim-Jims, the Oreos, the diet soda… goodbye! But I find a lot of clients cut out lean proteins and healthy fats as well, or sometimes just having less of the white starches. Come on now, pasta isn’t “healthy” just because it’s not a deep-fried cheeseburger. Relativity is not a line of defense when it comes to nutrition, even though it’s one of our favorites. “Well, I don’t eat THAT badly”. Compared to whom? Your 200 lb boyfriend who has two whole pizzas and a liter of coke for dinner? Your co-worker who can barely fit in their roller-chair and is days away from a heart-attack? Well, congrats.
Maybe you recognize these patterns and decide to clean up your diet. We always head straight for the “detox” and start stripping away our diet. But we’re already lacking! For better health, we need to focus instead on INTOX. We need to flood our system with nutrients it’s been missing. The reality is, if we give our body the proper weapons and supplies it needs, it can filter out the occasional beer and cupcake, no problem. Its meant to! But we can’t strip the army of it’s guns and expect it to win a war. Lets change our perspective on adding better nutrient rich foods. This is important for a few reasons:
- Your cravings for junk will decrease naturally as you properly satisfy your body. Quite often, we experience hunger because our body is still “starving”. Not for calories, but for nutrients. Imagine drinking 2 jumbo sized colas, probably 5,000 calories. You will still be hungry shortly after! You’re body will continue to ask for food in order to obtain enough nutrients to function, leading you to over-consume calories you don’t need
- Nutrient rich foods are often high-volume, or have low caloric density. In other words, most fruits and vegetables are full of water, packed with vitamins, and are low in calories. They’ll fill you up for a 10th of the calories of nutritionally empty foods.
- When you focus on abundance and consuming as much “good stuff” as you can, you can switch out of the deprivation mentality of most “diets”. This does a lot for your psyche and how you feel about the way you’re treating your body. Instead of punishing your body, you are rewarding it with vitamins, vitality, and energy. Take my word for it, a little self love goes a long way. Deprivation isn’t sustainable, so we already know we’ll have to stop at some point. We’re already programming ourselves to quit. And we’re right! Our body can’t handle that pickles-only diet for long. I’d be shocked if you ever felt like you needed to stop caring for your body.
- You won’t get sick so often! If we get a cold, we need medicine or antibiotics. More chemicals that harp on your body. If we have tummy troubles from a starchy diet, we’re less likely to exercise or move around, another hit to our health. If we have poor energy, we’re more likely to chug caffeine and energy drinks, or bank on a sugar rush to pick us up at 2pm. Proper nutrients can rid you of all these unhealthy crutches.
Conclusion
Good health is a state of mind. It is a balanced, loving relationship with our body that is established via our choices. Focus on increasing the nutrients you consume. More vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds, healthy fats, more organic high-quality foods. You will naturally fall away from the junk because a well-nourished body has no need or desire for it. Your energy will improve, and you will see a snowball effect of other healthy habits come into play, like better sleep and more frequent exercise. Step into the mindset of abundance and self-love, instead of deprivation and punishment, and watch the magic happen.
