Mindful eating

Are you in tune with your body? Do you eat without thinking, reaching for the nearest muffin, chocolate bar or meal in a basket? Or maybe you forget to eat. Do you feel unwell most of the time? Are your energy levels where they could be or do you feel tired and run down most of the time?

Very often in today’s world, we wait until something catastrophic happens before we do something about our health. If we are counting on our physicians to tell us when something is wrong, we are offloading the responsibility onto them and it might be too late. Each one of us is responsible for our own health. This is not to say that we are to blame if get sick, it just means that we need to be proactive, taking control and looking at prevention. Physicians are good at prescribing drugs and performing surgery. They are not in the business of caring for our health, but our ill health. Waiting until something bad happens is a bit like taking a self defense course after you’ve been assaulted. The horse has already left the barn.

My point is, why wait? If you can accept that food is not only fuel but food also prevents and heals disease and that, by the same token, junk is a drug that can cause disease (as can eating certain foods), then you can begin to view eating differently. When I began to improve the way I was eating and what I was eating, I searched for, and found, foods that I liked that were good for me. I am finding new foods all the time. We are lucky there is an abundance of food available to us. It is a matter of finding the ones that are good for us and that we like and incorporating them into our diet. Gradually the good stuff replaces the bad. I don’t advocate eating what you don’t enjoy, but there is a lot to be enjoyed that you may not know existed.

Mindful eating means you are making an informed decision, a conscious choice about what goes into your body. If it’s healthy, you decided it’s worth it to eat well; if it’s harmful, you’ve decided it’s worth the risk.

What about food as fuel? Mindful eating means you are choosing the right foods for your body and for your activity, your lifestyle. If you work out, you need to fuel your body for the work ahead. This is the time for breakdown foods, foods that your body will break down for energy. Breakdown foods are plants, fruits and sea vegetables and water. After a workout, you need to replace lost glycogen stores and possibly rebuild and repair muscle tissue. Depending on the type of workout, this is the time for buildup foods, foods that build the body’s tissues and cells back up stronger than they were before. Combined with adequate rest, this is how you get stronger. You also need to replenish glycogen stores. A 4:1 ratio of carbohydrates to protein is ideal after a hard workout.

Grains are neutral as they fall into both the breakdown and buildup categories because they provide energy in the form of carbohydrate, and protein. Carefully chosen, grains can provide sustained energy throughout the day. Water is also neutral, necessary for both elimination and circulation. Both breakdown and build up foods are necessary to life. A diet that emphasizes buildup foods while neglecting breakdown foods is going to cause problems of accumulation. When breakdown foods are in excess, there could be problems of deficiency, and, in severe cases, malnutrition. Of course, too much junk and not enough whole foods can have the same result: problems of deficiency and malnutrition, regardless of a person’s weight.

Take note of the signals your body is giving you. There are too many to list but a few common ones include: excessive gas or bloating after meals, feeling tired after eating, irritable, strong sudden cravings, hunger up to 3 hours after eating, addiction to coffee with sugar and/or colas, frequent headaches, migraine headaches, constipation, diarrhea, brain fog, to name a few. These are symptoms, your body telling you everything is not okay, system(s) are out of balance. Very often, rebalancing those systems by eating the right foods and eliminating the offending foods is all that is required. Left unchecked, they can lead to more serious disorders, illness and disease. Seems like good motivation for eating mindfully and listening to your body.