diet-secrets-1-1280x720.jpg

This is Step 6 of the article I wrote, 7 Step New Health Pyramid, which you can read on this Page >>

By Reena A Jadhav

We truly live in the best of times – and the worst of times.

We have never had so much abundance and variety available. Mounds of delicious, addictive, affordable foods from all over the world are tempting us 24/7/365.

But the price of this abundance and excess is, guess what? Obesity and chronic disease.

Think about how the animal kingdom eats – horses eat hay, birds eat seeds, bees eat pollen. You don’t see bees chomping down hay or horses licking pollen off flowers. They instinctively know what their bodies need and are happy eating just those foods. (Have you ever seen an obese bee?)

We have the same innate intelligence… however, we also have a problem: a brain that fears starvation and wants us to stock up. Our brain also loves dopamine rushes which – unfortunately – food provides in abundance. This creates a deadly combination of addiction and overindulgence (for me it was sugar, chocolate, flour, and butter).

Living in our world of rich Starbucks aromas and cheap Krispy Kreme donuts we are all paying a heavy price for overindulgence.

So you need to ask yourself, “is this food my fuel – or my funeral?”

And there’s a bigger, hidden issue. (Yes, another problem.) We don’t know what’s healthy and what isn’t. Do we?

One day coconut oil is good for you, another day it isn’t. Yesterday eggs were causing cholesterol but today they don’t. It’s enough to make us all throw up our hands in confusion as the so-called “experts” change their minds.

Fake health news is everywhere. Companies fund studies (with top researchers of course) to support the “health” benefits of their poisonous products. Greed has beaten integrity and it’s impossible to know the real truth around research any more. No, a glass of wine daily is not healthy (not that you want to hear that!).

And then there are the thousands of additives, chemicals, and GMOs, plus of course glyphosate, which all lace supposedly healthy foods with poison. It’s like having an evil stepmother at every store, feeding us their poisoned apples with a smile. Berries may seem like manna from heaven – but only if they don’t come gift wrapped in glyphosate which will obliterate your microbiome and create disease.

False advertising is rampant, tricking us into thinking we are eating healthy. There is nothing natural about “natural flavors”. Packages have big bold words about health – and tiny print that reveals toxic chemicals (like carrageenan). Eating healthy can feel like a lot of hard work.

Foods created in a lab – designed to be addictive – are everywhere. Addictions drive so many of our daily food habits. From that morning Starbucks run to the packets of chips you just can’t put down, we don’t stand a chance against all this masterful manipulation!

As if that’s not enough, we’re not all the same. One person’s medicine is another person’s poison. An apple a day may keep the doctor away for you but it creates inflammation for me (fact – per my FIT test). Our bodies actually tell us quite clearly when something doesn’t agree with them, but we’ve lost touch and no longer listen to their whispers. At least, not until they start screaming out loud – and then we take pills that we’ve confused with “cures”.

Eating out of season is yet another confusing experience for your body. Our physiological needs change with the seasons – yet we eat exactly the same all year round. We fly in blueberries from Mexico and lychees from China. We eat pumpkin in summer and plums in winter. Worse, we eat complex, heavy, hard to digest meals as the norm rather than the exception as they are so easy to procure. What would have taken half a day to cook (and hence only cooked weekly or monthly) is now available any time, anywhere.

Take a moment to read those points again. Then pause to consider this: your right to healthy food has actually been taken away from you.

If you want to eat to create health, you are going to have to break out of your current state of acceptance and trust. How many of these dangerous beliefs do you have?

  • Believing that all fruits and vegetables in the grocery store are equally healthy (they are not, buyer beware!).
  • Believing that the newest fad diet (right now it’s Keto) must be the cure-all because so many famous people are touting it. (It never is – just yet another marketing ploy to sell more of something.)
  • Believing the claims of the labels on your food (no, you can’t trust them – you need to read the fine print and ingredients list).
  • Believing that manufacturers have your best interest at heart (of course not – they care about their profits and bonuses way more than your health).
  • Believing that your doctor knows about nutrition and has the answers to everything (there are still MDs out there saying that nutrition has nothing to do with cancer).

Are you wondering if I’m a conspiracy theorist who made all this up? Let me assure you that what I’m sharing was distilled from the 75 interviews I conducted with renowned MDs on the Healthier Podcast. From Dr. Mark Hyman to Dr. Zach Bush to Dr. Joseph Mercola, these doctors are all desperately trying to get this message out: buyer beware of your food choices today!

If you are overwhelmed with what to do next, here’s my very simple plan that I started following two and a half years ago. I completely reversed all my symptoms (28, remember!) and experienced food as medicine first hand. Ok, ready to eat to heal? Here’s how you do it!

  1. Get Personal
    Figure out which foods are medicine – or poison – for your body. (It doesn’t matter what works for anyone else!) The shortcut for this is food sensitivity tests. I’ve done Viome, FIT, ALCAT and the common insurance covered food allergy test. The harder way is to keep a food diary and start with an elimination diet. Then as you add food items back in, see which ones make you lethargic and tired or symptomatic (gas, bloating, rashes, headaches). Exclude those completely.
  2. Buy Quality
    Eat only what’s grown organically, locally and in season, at least five days a week. There are wonderful local farmers’ markets in each town and that’s a Saturday morning date I never break. Once you start eating local produce you’ll never go back to packaged grocery store produce – it just doesn’t taste the same, not even the organic produce. It’s harvested too early, coated with wax and has been sitting around for a month before you buy it. Freshly plucked vine-ripened foods have a whole different taste and texture that you will crave once you try them. (This is a healthy craving!)
  3. Cut the Packages
    Eat less than 10% of your daily food out of a package. If it’s bought in a package it’s been processed. If it’s processed it’s not creating health. See how long lettuce lasts when not packaged vs packaged. There is something that’s added to packaged organic foods that makes them last so much longer. Because adding chemicals, that sounds like a great idea, right? And I’m not putting that inside me if I have an option.
  4. Cut Down
    Eat less. Give your body 4 to 6 hours of breaks in between eating meal. Time to process your food. To clean out the junk. To take some rest and recover. Overeating is an epidemic – portion sizes in America are out of control. Restaurants have been using larger portions to attract more customers and the outcome has been obesity and addiction. No one needs a venti latte or a “supersize” meal. We are not exactly running marathons daily. (More likely sitting in the car or on the couch.)
  5. Get Fasting
    Fast one day a week to help your body “reset” itself. Traditionally, most cultures used some kind of fasting. Now we all seem to be eating non-stop! But science now supports intermittent fasting as a path to longevity. Really, we shouldn’t need science to tell us that eating less (but high quality) food will make us live longer! It’s common sense – which we have all but given up on (preferring to worship at the altar of research, letting some ‘expert’ tell us what to think).
  6. Go Simple
    Eat simpler meals. Don’t combine too many different foods in one meal – instead, eat larger quantities of fewer types of food. Make it easier for your body to digest what you’re eating and you’ll feel a surge of energy after meals instead of looking for a pillow.
  7. Go Raw and Natural
    Try to eat half your meal as raw salads and fruits which have structured water to charge you up. In winter eat more warming soups, in summer more salads.
  8. Read, Read, Read
    If you’re going to buy packaged food, read the ingredients list first. If you can’t pronounce it, or it sounds like a chemical, take a breath – and put the package back. It takes a little getting used to but then it becomes a habit. My 13 year old doesn’t buy anything without first reading the label. Now we’re so efficient that in an instant she knows whether to even read the label or not – she just looks at the number of ingredients and puts it back on the shelf!

Your diet should be a priority, not an afterthought. What you eat creates your reality. Your joy – or misery – is linked to your food. So why not eat to LIVE – to create a longer happier healthier life?

It’s worth the time and money.

You’re worth it!

And we are here to help you with our programs.

 

Health Bootcamps

 

Follow Reena on Twitter @reenajadhav Linkedin www.linkedin.com/in/reena or Facebook Reena Jadhav

Never miss her articles, subscribe to our blog alerts here >


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.


Disclaimer


WishingWell, Inc is a non-profit 501 (C) 3 parent of HealCircle, HealthierPodcast, HealCircle, HealerPedia and HealthBootcamps brands. We are on a mission to end chronic disease and create a “New World of Health.” Our foundation status ensures we are not motivated by profit over people. This is why we don’t sell products, get paid for recommendations, or sell ads on our podcast.

HealCircle is a platform for doctors to offer actionable affordable health programs. It is also a community and program for healthier habits. Our community includes doctors, healers and integrative practitioners dedicated to helping you heal naturally. We charge a nominal fee for our Bootcamps in order to cover our costs of running the bootcamps and the doctor’s time.

Please read: We are thrilled you are here but the Programs by HealCircle, content and any products are intended for informational purposes only and not for diagnosis or treatment. You must seek advice from a licensed physician before acting on any information provided on this website. This website is not intended to create a physician-patient relationship between you and HealCircle or its practitioners. Please contact us anytime at help@healcircle.org for any questions or to just connect and share your thoughts!

All rights reserved. Please read our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy carefully, by using our Website, you agree that you have read and consented to our Terms of Use. By entering your email address you are also requesting and agreeing to subscribe to our email list. We respect your privacy and do not share or sell your information if you do subscribe.