5. The Reward for How You Eat
By implementing good eating habits into your life, you will become very good at identifying what foods are good for you and which foods you don’t tolerate as well. Since food sensitivities can and do change, it’s good to identify when something isn’t best for you or when it is. Enjoy the empowerment of not relying on others to tell you your needs. Enjoy knowing for yourself which foods help you perform your best.
The right diet for you is the one that makes you perform and feel your best. The right diet for you is as individual as you are. There are no arbitrary rules for this. It will likely change somewhat often. Listening to your body and noticing how you feel will guide your diet. Since you will eat all your meals when you have an appetite, feel good, make it yourself, and masticate it thoroughly, you’ll have a much easier time identifying any foods you are sensitive to.
Remove those foods until you feel well and your gut heals. You’ll know it has healed because you will feel better. This takes as long as it takes. You’ll be reassured that you’re ready to reintroduce previously problematic foods because you have good eating habits (the 4 steps to eating) and you feel good after your meals. Now you may add back previously problematic foods (one at a time) so you know if they are still problematic. Give each new addition one to two weeks before adding the next food since food sensitivity symptoms can manifest up to two weeks after you have eaten that food. Be aware that symptoms may not always include obvious gut problems. Sometimes you will experience fatigue, brain fog, moodiness, joint pain, slow recovery after workouts, a need for chiropractic adjustments (that don’t necessarily hold), and other less obvious but aggravating symptoms when you consume food that isn’t in harmony with your body. Additionally, you may discover that your body likes certain foods but not when consumed together. Or it may tell you that it doesn’t function well when you eat your carbohydrates at breakfast time. There are no arbitrary rules to any of this. It’s about listening to what your body is telling you. It takes practice to listen to and really hear what your body is saying. It is liberating when you learn the language of your body so that your body and mind are working in harmony.
I encourage you to adopt a healthy and freeing approach to food. There is no such thing as “bad food”. For the most part, the foods the planet offers us are inherently good. Really, as far as food goes, there are only two factors that should matter to you. First, what does your body like and dislike? Just because something seems nourishing when studied in a lab does not mean it benefits you. Second, what is the quality of the food you are consuming? If nature made it, it’s good (again, if it’s good for you). If humans created it, then it may need to be examined. We, humans, can get in the way and cause food to become toxic by how we grow, farm, prepare, and package it. So, take control of the food you are eating so that you know it has been grown without pesticides, raised in a healthy environment, and doesn’t have chemicals added to it. Prepare your food, so you know what went into it. Store it in glass containers so plastic chemicals aren’t leaching into your food (microwaving food in plastic will increase the toxic load of chemicals in your food, additionally, placing hot food in plastic containers causes more plastic to leach into your food). It really is that simple. These aren’t arbitrary guidelines; these are reminders to follow the laws of nature.
If you choose to learn more about nourishing food through books, videos, and so on then I’d like to give you a word of encouragement and caution. You will learn wonderful things that help direct you to a better diet for you. You will come up with creative ways to keep your diet exciting. Be aware not to be bogged down by the dogma that exists in the world of nutrition. Take words of condemnation about any food or diet very lightly. It’s dangerous to generalize about food and adopt dogmatic views based on one person’s perspective. Foods studied in a lab and diets studied on one or a handful of people do not consider your personal gut biome and all the unique inputs you experience daily that affect your body’s needs. Often when someone is promoting a diet that has worked well for many people it’s not the nuance that makes the diet successful, it’s the sweeping removal of junk food (man-made, processed, hyper-palatable, chemical-laden, high sugar, rancid oil, nutrient-deficient food) that makes it successful. Incidentally, the removal of junk food is the common thread in most diets. What if you just did that rather than something extreme? The final rule is always “How do I feel when I eat that”.
Any health issues that aren’t resolved after dialing in how and what to eat aren’t food related. Keep your good eating habits because they are helping you heal but know that there is more to be done and it isn’t dietary. The rest of this book will guide you to further healing so that you can achieve your goals.
Lastly, look for the truth about what you eat and what you crave. I had a client who experienced a temporary but intense period of stress in her life. She expressed that she wasn’t getting enough to eat. Upon examination of her diet, it was clear that she was getting three healthy, balanced meals and a healthy snack each day. She always ate until she was satisfied. Her food was nourishing her, but she was feeling undernourished anyway. A little peek into her life revealed she was feeling undernourished emotionally. She specifically felt a need to be nurtured. Not having total clarity about this caused her to blame her diet. This same principle applies to craving sweets (perhaps not enough sweetness in life), savory (perhaps not savoring life), lack of appetite (perhaps apathetic in life), inadequate time to eat (perhaps life is chaotic and too busy), and so on. Spend a little time examining all your needs when you feel compelled to blame your diet exclusively.
