|
Whether you are trying to get pregnant/thinner or over cancer, this article can point you in the general direction of health.
Only you can decide to make these changes, and only you can stick with the flack if those around you think you odd. All around you will however notice the difference, as when you are happier everyone benefits.
One aspect missing in many apparently naturopathic takes on life is the fact that we are all here as humans. Passion and the joys of being a social creature are a great part in whether we feel included in the world around us, and thus whether we have a happy thus healthy time here.
We could have the most pure diet, the best supplements and functioning body in the city, BUT without a tribe to belong to, at least to drop in and out of at will, we will be very dysfunctional as people. We need the sense of continuity that touching base with our past gives us from time to time. Whether this is phoning a sister, having friends with a similiar accent/upbringing, or just flipping through old photos occassionally - we all belong through the time continuum to others.
We tend to choose friends who bolster up aspects of who we believe ourselves to be, thus when we start changing, it is possible that they, and we, no longer feel quite as comfortable with each other. The life style changes outlined here may thus be more life-changing than you had intended.
Your taking charge of yourself may be the trigger to tear friendships and even apparently stable relationships apart - as they want to stay doing what up till now you felt happy doing. It may appear as a judgment in their eyes that your not doing these things, means you are seeing them as somehow “less than”.
This may not be an expected part of beginning your own self healing journey, yet is an integral part of it - change in all levels of your being calls for it. This (often complete) dislocation is temporary, until a new batch of people arrive. It is often what has been holding you back. This inner knowing that you are not in the right place. This sense of change is always more than just what you put in your mouth.
The inner changes are what you have been really seeking. To change is to grow - so go forward with trust in the rightness of your journey.
1 - Most important thing is to eat SOMETHING regularly.
There are those who think that the process of food in and out is like banking - if you put credits in, they are there when you need it; so if you don’t deposit (stop eating) and keep withdrawing (going about your day without refuelling) your body sorts out the difference and thinness happens. The decreasing bank balance concept does not take into account our ‘food factory’ and how it works.
Most, especially as they age, find that they need to actually look after themselves. What may have appeared to ‘work’ when younger no longer can. Resiliance has left, leaving a system that needs care and consideration.
In denying self real food, ‘dieting’ and eating irregularly creates a great stress on the inner metabolism leading onto a ‘silly mode’ application.
Here food is stored for later, as who knows when the next lot will come through? This thus enhances the weight/ fat/ fluid/ cellulite.
When not eating at least a little every three hours, blood sugar levels drop, energy, thinking and mood all change, and most reach for a sugar hit - or caffeine/cigarette to keep going. All number of other problems then come on line - all whilst we thought we were sorting out the ‘fat’ issue.
By avoiding all the things that you usually - eat - because they are quick, easy, and you feel like it - and shaking up the actual content - you can eat a little every few hours - grazing - and NOT put weight on, but actually TAKE IT OFF.
By eating often, more productivity in work, less reactivity personally and more health is discovered - as the body is designed to be topped up regularly - leading to proper functioning. I am assuming the reader realises that we all are living very artifical lives, and that I am suggesting a balance being restored, from where a maintenance programme can begin.
If you stop and think for a moment - our grandparents were very big on morning and afternoon tea and supper breaks - ‘smoko’ - to keep running a farm, a busy house of kids etc. We have in modern days turned this into a caffeine/smoke break. Often without the solid sustaining meals in between. What is needed is a walk outside into [fresh/unrecycled air] and a small protein hit.
The three hour rule is easier to cope with when you know you won’t ‘get fatter’ - I would defy anyone to get fat on this food choice diet. The gluten and sugar (plus alcohol) are what really upset the liver’s ability to detoxify and function correctly. These have been removed from this plan. Wok veggies and lots of fish, rice and some fruit, nuts and seeds - eaten in moderation - are unlikely to cause weight gain.
2 - Temperature of food/fluids eaten.
If we were little kids and our parents gave us cold stuff, we would get colic/gut aches and generally not be happy. Some of us don’t realise this, and actually do exactly this - and wonder why we are having to deal with sick kids - mucous, asthma, glue ear and other colds, flus and infections. Think of the little inner furnace. It needs supporting, not dampening down with cold. Why is this information not freely available?
Common sense . . . Old wives tales . . . . .
Because we seem to be going through a phase as a culture to have a scientific need to ‘prove’ things. Because we have grown up believing in ‘experts’ - as if mothers were not good at observing and handing down family truths/wisdoms. Our grandmothers would just wonder why we didn’t listen to them in the first place.
Our inner furnace works best when we respect it. This is especially so if we are young, elderly or ill or recovering in some way - or just really stressed (and how do we get like this if not not looking after self first?). If we put a little warm, nourishing sustenance in frequently, we feel better, as we are better. Our little furnace is being respected, and can work as designed to.
We are less cranky, less ‘edgey’ and less prone to reaching for . . .
We pay attention to the oven’s temperature in the kitchen before putting in the baking - why do we not respect our own inner fire? Wasting our digestive strength by requiring it to warm ingredients to body temperature before ‘baking;’ is one area you can really easily change.
Even if it is just drinking a hot cup of (preferably noncaffeine) something before eating that salad (raw and cold) first. Even putting on extra clothes, and keeping feet and the air we breathe (especially at night) warm will assist the body to work efficiently - like insulating your house.
Attending to the temperature of what goes in your mouth, and not putting the inner fires out will do more for weight regulation and health restoration (like stopping ‘catching’ things and recovering from weakness) than anything else. If you do not, there is more chance of cold created body responses and weaknesses as a result - more mucous produced, more fluid and fat wobbling about and more likelihood of Candida, food sensitivities and intolerances/allergies and poor digestion.
Often it is when more water is drunk - but out of the cooler/fridge that digestion starts to wane. The actual water is important - AND SO IS ITS TEMPERATURE. If it is very cold weather, it may be tepid water is easier and more palatable.
Here is an example from clinic:
Stephanie’s mother brought her to see me as she was on her 4th dose of antibiotics, and still was ill with a dreadful sinus infection, still with green nasal mucous. Rather than just sending her home with supplements - garlic, Vitamin C and liquid Zinc and Chinese herbs, I spent some time explaining how a well body works, and questioning how this could have broken down - she was a normally very healthy girl.
They both then remembered that the infection had happened after the introduction of a new lunch box - it had a drink bottle that was filled and frozen, to keep everything in the lunchbox contents VERY cold. The slush was refreshing to drink - BUT the inner digestive forces were unable to cope, and the body’s protective functions also went down - leading to an infection and over production of mucous.
Antibiotics were killing off the opportunistic bacteria, BUT the body’s healing forces were unable to rally and repair, let alone bounce back because of the continued invasion of that which was weakening the yang/ protective forces within - all that unnecessary cold.
Once the food’s temperature was adjusted, the supplements worked, she healed, and there were no more hassles. The lunch box worked just as well outside the freezer. It is often a missed piece of the jigsaw that completes the picture. If you watch little kids - they are constantly exposed to sweet cold treats - juice and ice blocks. By simply banning these, a large component of illness - weakened digestion, is removed, and the infections, asthma and snotty nose all depart.
This is more important the weaker, or colder you feel. We naturally seek warmth when we are cold or ill. This can easily be overriden by listening to theroretical naturopathic dictates about how we need raw foods etc. It can also be ignored when you have inner heat and feel better/gravitate towards cooler ingestibles.
How did you get this? By living on the edge - lots of heating choices - not sleeping early and enough, taking little water (pure) to clean out the effects of coffee, preservatives, sugar and salt in all consumables, and by not resting and relaxing, as money had to be made, life had to be lived. . . .
One of the reasons we may feel better with cold drinks/foods is that we have ‘sick’ heat in our bodies. Ingesting external cool calms this down temporarily. Just as if we had not enough oil in the motor of the car - everything overheating WOULD create drama. Usually the heat we generate sickly within ourselves has an emotional component.
What we call ‘stress’ is usually stuck and frustrated inner energy that has to go somewhere, and attacking our gut is a favourite passion. (Irritible bowel, heartburn, reflux, stomach ulcers and indigestion are good beginnings).
So, wanting cold and feeling better with cold doesn’t mean your body really needs it. These are signs that you have created an imbalance, and there are more appropriate ways of correcting these.
3 - Following the body clock
This means eating when we are able to digest, and not eating when we are not. This sounds too simple, UNTIL you learn that we are all callibrated to metabolize in the daytime, and to switch into regeneration mode after the sun goes down. There are seasonal variations. As most do not make it home till after it gets dark, and as there was such an apparent shortage of time at the ‘business’ /breakfast end of the day, the food deficit has to be made up when we are least able to digest it - at night time, when we should be resting.
The most complicated and largest meal - as we have the time to both prepare and consume then - happens when we should be shutting down for the day - and going into recharge mode. Our digestive strength is at a lull after 6 pm - right about when we start shovelling all sorts of things into our stomachs. We of course thus do not want to eat on arising, as we are still FULL of the improperly digested results of the nightly binge.
HEALTH DOES NOT COME OUT OF A BOTTLE
As we have thus tried to reset ‘normal’ into what we feel like doing, it is no wonder that eventually our body rebels - fat not leaving when we try so hard/sleeping quality/energy/digestive and eliminative disorders follow. We start feeling out of kilter as we are out of kilter. We may want to just go to the chemist/health food shop and choose to take a pill from a bottle but we would do better to look at what we are doing to contribute to the disease within.
Petrol in the car AFTER the journey doesn’t work. We can, in a sort of fashion, function without proper nutrients. We have signs of disease though - lack of quality nutrition is a large component of the headaches, energy and mood alterations that all try to self medicate away with coffee, sugar, alcohol and prescription drugs.
The easiest way out of this dilemma is to prepare and plan in advance.
Regardless of how many you have to cater for - breaklng down the day’s food intake into even and nourishing proportions is simple. Think FOOD TO REBUILD, not FOOD FOR TASTE & COMFORT .
Dividing what needs to be eaten into 5 portions - and start with a cooked breakfast - HOW? cook the same amount at tea time, and eat half of it.
Recycle tea for breakfast and/or lunch, or as snacks in the daytime, by adding nuts, cheese, eggs, avocado ..... Think of constant quality refuelling as the way to get through a day, rather than filling up, AFTER it was needed. You will not then be reaching for the coffee/sweets/smokes and whatnot, and will feel vastly more alive - vital even!
Think outside how your mother saw food.
Banish pots, and get a wok.
4 - Stop eating out of habit
These commonly consumed foods are probably creating the majority of your ‘health’ complaints. Whatever you feel you can’t do without you are addicted to, and also reacting allergically to. Wheat and dairy are the cornerstones of our diet. Without them - what would you eat? What is there?
Stop thinking of food as calories, carbs and type x diets.
Stop listening to experts who have medicine and science at their disposal.
Their version of what food is ‘safe’ and what is preferable varies with the decade they are standing in. Go back to what has kept our ancestors going. Whole food; grown and eaten as naturally as possible and in moderation; coupled with lots of outdoor exercise; eight hours at least of sleep - having no electricity meant sleeping and awakening with nature also - and a place in the community to be included and part of the wider social whole.
5 - Moderation and variety.
We do not need very much each snack/meal. If we eat a little often, our body needs are adjusted, and every aspect of our functioning can relax, as food sources are assured. This has HUGE payoffs on all the markers of illness that you probably use to gauge your life by. Colds and infections will be a distant memory - when a body is well, it has no need to get ill - the immune system works, and you breeze through all the work and preschool coughs and colds - as do all the other well people about.
Headaches, gut aches, constipation, mood swings and temper outbursts, plus substance/taste cravings may disappear as the underlying nutritional deficiencies that have driven these in the past are now defunct.
Moderation means a little often. Not loading up for half a day. Every aspect of the body works better if quality and consistency are the eating goals. Variety means not eating the same types of food choices for EVERY breakfast, or always having . . . for lunch. Change will keep you interested and healthy. You do not get the chance to become slightly sensitive to foods if they are rotated at least on alternate days - preferably having (as an example) chicken/egg free days; potato/tomato /capsicum/eggplant free days [are all the same family]; fish free days.
Remember that what goes in our mouths is just one aspect of good digestion. We do need people to cook for and eat with. We are social creatures and do better with feeling included, needed and loved. We all require touch, especially from a loving other, and when this is missing, we become like a cat with its fur on end. Prickly. This then creates vibrations of stress that pervade our entire systems - not quite ‘fight or flight’, but a type of raggedness that calms down with good company.
In practice:
|
Healthy Living 
