Day 18: Food

Food Food Food… we could spend 2 months on food.

Food can be fuel.  Or food can be depleted of any nutritional value.  When you choose high-fuel food, you have energy, stamina and get-up-and-go for hours.  With depleted food, you’ll feel tired, weak, lethargic and cranky.

The irony is that the more depleted you are, the more you crave high calorie foods (foods that have high calories but have little or no nutrition).  It becomes a vicious cycle – junk food creates more junk food cravings.

I also find that many food cravings are created by allergies.  You may think that if you are allergic to a certain food, you would not want that food.  However, the opposite is often true.  When you have a food allergy, it is very likely that you will crave that food.  In the end, you’ll end up feeling sick and extremely weak but will want more of the same food that originally caused the reaction.

(www.DropYourAllergies.com)

What do you do if you think you may have a reaction to a specific food?  Glad you asked!

The best way to test for an allergy is to remove all wheat/grain, sugar, high starch veggies (specifically corn, potatoes and carrots), fruit dairy and red meat from your diet for a minimum of 2 weeks – 30 days would be optimum.  Then, one at a time, add one type of food back into your eating plan. Give it a week to see if you have a reaction.  If you get a headache, stomachache, feel tired/achy or have a rash type of reaction, you’ll know you are allergic to that food.

There are ways to clean up your system in hopes to remove your allergy.  That is a process I recommend working on with a person individually as every person’s needs are different.  For our purposes here, if you are allergic to a specific food, remove it from your diet permanently.  Wait a couple of days after you’ve stopped eating that food before introducing something else new back into your diet (let your body cleanse itself of the previous problematic food before trying something else).

What foods should you eliminate?  Another great question!

Remove white flour foods permanently.  The flour has been bleached, ground to the point there is no nutritional value and quickly converts to sugar in the blood stream.  Choose multi-grain options or other types of flour (i.e. spelt, rice, etc).  These flours will have more nutrients and will not cause as many blood sugar issues.

Read labels and avoid any foods with MSG (Monosodium Glutamate), a food additive added to MANY foods to cheaply add flavor to otherwise low-quality food.  It is shocking to see how many foods have MSG added.  MSG can lead to headaches, tightness in the chest, and pain in back of the neck and/or forearms.

Eat food that looks like it did when it was grown.  I’ve never seen a licorice tree – especially a licorice tree that produces licorice in a plastic bin or bag.  If it has been chemically produced or altered, it’s not what you want to put into your body.  The more natural foods you can eat, the better.  I recommend you eat 50% (or more) of your diet in raw fruits and vegetables.  They retain the highest level of nutrition and are closest to their natural state.  If raw, fresh vegetables and fruits aren’t available, your next best option is frozen.  The food hasn’t been processed as much and will have more vitamins and minerals still intact.

One other key to fruits and vegetables.  They have a label, too!  That little sticker with the item code on it will give you information as to how the items was grown.  If the code starts with a “4″, it was grown without any special treatment (with pesticides and chemicals).  An “8″ at the beginning of the code means the food was genetically modified (meaning you DON’T want to eat it).  The best option is a “9″, which means the item is organic and has been grown free from harmful pesticides and fertilizers.

That’s a great start for today!  If you can master these items, you are well on your way to eating healthier and feeling better.

Until tomorrow friends,

Tara