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Before we move on to the details I want to add a final note on my philosophy. Let’s review the main points –
This week the message is on purpose. With everything in life, we must have the right motives. What are your motives for changing your eating habits and learning about nutrition? Is it to live longer? Avoid sickness? Look your best as you age? Avoid disease? Recover from illness? Avoid living on medication? These are all worthy motivations.
I think that many people are seeking happiness and peace and looking for it in a healthy lifestyle. You cannot expect to find peace and joy in anything except Jesus. Happiness and peace can certainly be a by-product of making healthy choices, but ultimately our joy comes from the Lord.
There are people that steep themselves in the study of nutrition and in the end have no happiness, as in the case of Nathan Pritikin, his life ending in suicide. Perhaps it was because his lowfat plan had flaws or perhaps because without the proper fats his hormones and brain function suffered. But I think his motivation was wrong, his whole sense of worth was wrapped up in nutrition.
People put diet up on a pedestal and expect that it is going to make life great, but when things don’t go as planned they lose faith in the diet and give up, turning to bad foods. We can’t let diet be the basis for our happiness.
Especially in the world we live now, with so many genetically modified foods and chemicals in the food supply. You can be doing everything you know to do and still be ingesting harmful things. This is why we have to first put our trust in God.
Why, then, should we seek to educate ourselves and live a healthy lifestyle?
I think Sue Gregg answered this best, in her book, “The 15 Minute Meal Planner” – “So we can better minister the life that is in Christ to a hurting and hungry world. Eph. 2:10 – ‘For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do GOOD WORKS, which God prepared in advance for us to do’”.
So take a good look at your motives before we move on. God looks at the heart.
How does your food treat you? How does your body tell you what to eat? Do you get heartburn, does your heart rate go up, do you feel slugish and tired after eating? Do you have specific cravings, do you have to have your morning caffeine to avoid headache? Start paying attention to these things. I believe our bodies will tell us how to eat if we will pay proper attention. It’s not always straight forward, but you can use signals that your body is giving you to learn more. For instance, I have heard if you crave chocolate you really need more magnesium.
Every body is different. I don’t suggest that everyone eats the same. I will tell you what works for me. You have to find what works for yourself. For example, there are different metabolic types. You can read more about that here and here. Some people can handle more carbs, some need more protein. I am one that needs more protein, but my husband seems to handle more carbs. There is a book called, “Eat Right For Your Type” by Peter D’Adamo. You may have heard of the Blood Type Diet, this is from this book. They outline 4 different diets for the different blood types. I have not read this book as its idea is based on evolution, but perhaps there is something to it. I am type O and have learned that I need more protein and that’s what the book says. While my son and husband are both type A and aren’t into meat and this seems to be in line with the book, as well. I have started asking people their blood type if we get on the subject of food. It seems that As are pickier, while Os are not picky at all. My daughter is not picky at all and loves meat, wouldn’t you know it, she’s an O! So there may be something to that book after all.
There is a book I have heard of that I want to read called “Your Body is Your Best Doctor” by Melvin Page and Leon Abrams. It sounds like it’s right on target with what I’m talking about here.
So start tuning in. I think that listening to your body is the best way to be accountable with your diet. When you are tuned in you reach a point where you won’t stray or cheat because it’s not worth how your body will feel afterward.
I’m not talking about skin cleansers here. I’m talking about taking an active role of participation in matters of health. Proactive is the opposite of reactive. In the simplest terms, the prefix pro means forward and the prefix re means back. We are acting in both cases, but the difference, is if we act before (looking forward) or after (looking back). Unfortunately our culture is trained to be reactive. We wait until an issue arises before we make changes. Instead, look forward, learn to anticipate and make changes now.
Society tells us that if you have a family history of medical conditions you can expect the same issues in your life. Society tells us that at a certain age you can expect to live on numerous medications; that you’ll live with arthritis, and suffer from osteoporosis, the list goes on and on. Society tells us that runny noses, ear infections, and colds are common childhood occurrences. Don’t sit back and accept medical conditions as your fate. The sooner you make healthy changes the better. You can avoid many medical issues if you start making the right food choices.
One way to be proactive is to learn to read the labels on foods you buy. Now hopefully a bigger part of your shopping cart will not have labels because it is whole food! J But on packages, start to get in the habit of checking out the label. First look at the serving size. The food companies want to make those serving sizes as small as they can so that the sugar, fat, cholesterol, and sodium look like less than they really are. If you have a scale you can measure out a serving and see if that is really your serving size. A chip package, for example, indicates that 1 ounce is a serving, but typically people eat more than 1 ounce of chips in a serving. So keep that in mind when reading the label to see what it contains. The breakdown of fat, cholesterol, sodium, carbohydrates and protein is on a per serving basis.
Next let’s take a look at the list of ingredients. It’s not a good sign when you can’t pronounce half of them. J If you don’t know what an ingredient is you might look it up online. Start educating yourself about what is going into your body. Ingredients are listed in descending order of amount. So if the item lists flour as the first ingredient then it has more flour than anything else listed. Two big bad ingredients to be on the lookout for are high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and partially hydrogenated oils or shortening (soybean, cottonseed, etc.), these are trans fats. According to Drs. Michael Roizen and Mehmet Oz in their book, “You On A Diet”, back in 1960 Americans didn’t consume any HFCS, but now we eat more than 63 pounds of it every year (that’s per person)! They say you should say no to foods that have HFCS in the first five ingredients and foods that list trans fats altogether. If you want to read why HFCS is so bad click here. If you want more information on trans fats, click here.
Never assume you are buying a whole food, even things that seem obvious, like milk and cheese, for example. Read those labels and you’ll be surprised by what you find. Let’s take sour cream, for example. It should be just that, cream that has been cultured and so has a sour taste. Daisy brand sour cream does list cream and nothing else, but other brands list numerous additives, such as thickeners. Skim milk is another example, many companies will add extra ingredients to make it taste better. It’s no longer a whole food.
Don’t be fooled by marketing tricks on labels. Many packages tout their contents as “Natural” or have natural names, like “Flat Earth” or “Kashi”, or use words like “enriched” to get our attention. The bottom line is that packaged food has come a long way from the whole food it is trying to seem like. Remember the motto – If God created it, it is good for me, if man has changed it, it is bad for me. (By the way, Flat Earth is just a cover for Frito-Lay and Kashi is really Kellogs.) These companies care more about their profits than your health.
Reading labels is a tremendous way to be proactive. A big part of your success will depend on awareness, once you are aware you can make informed choices.
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