Holding Your Adjustments Better Through High Energy Nutrition

Hippocrates, often referred to as “the father of modern medicine”, said that all living systems are either growing or dying.  If you want to be more alive than dead, then do your best to eat foods that are more alive than dead.

High Energy Nutrition

 

If you want to be more alive than dead, then why not eat foods that are more alive than dead? Health and wellness have always been about increasing one’s adaptability and function, NOT just not dying! Think of it, what’s your philosophy on nutrition? Do you think in terms of “I better make sure that I eat well so I don’t have a heart attack or stroke and I better take my calcium so I don’t get osteoporosis…”?  Living a life of prevention is living not to die.

 

Let’s define a couple terms – food and poison.  Food is a liquid or solid, usually of plant or animal origin, that contains or consists of essential body nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals, and is ingested and assimilated by an organism to produce energy, stimulate growth, and maintain life.

 

Poison is a substance that causes injury, illness, or death, especially by chemical means, or a substance that inhibits another substance or a reaction.

 

If you and I took a trip to the local grocery store and we had a list of groceries we needed for our Super Bowl party.  Some potatoes, a couple frozen pizzas, some ice cream, a turkey and some corn chips –and we loaded up our cart and got checked out.  Then one of us reads the ingredients on the side of the boxes.  We might be surprised to find that a lot what’s inside these “foods” isn’t really food at all based on these definitions.

 

So, are the substances you take into your body causing you to be more alive or more dead?

 

Let’s define another term, bioavailability.  Bioavailability basically refers to how absorbable and usable a food is. You’ve heard of the saying “You are what you eat,” but that’s not necessarily true. I used to take full spine X-Rays and many times we would see undigested supplements in the area of the middle intestines. If it gets beyond the stomach without being broken down, that capsule is doing minimal good at best. For example, if you’ve been taking a multivitamin for at least a week and your urine looks like Mountain Dew or if it glows in the dark chances are that is expensive urine and those nutrients aren’t being absorbed like they should! So it can be helpful to think of how constructively usable a food is before consuming it.

 

The best kind of nutrition is nutrition that is readily available for nourishing the body. Sound confusing? Consider the difference between a vitamin supplement that is the result of isolating, heating and synthesizing versus one that is in its original form with the enzymes and minerals as found in nature.

 

If you were to consume a vitamin that is in a pure vitamin form (which doesn’t exist anywhere in nature) your body is forced to either eliminate it (expensive urine) or go through the extra work of recruiting enzymes and minerals to create meaningful molecules that are able to be metabolized. Additionally, only your body knows what normal is for you. Maybe it’s 125 over 85 blood pressure. Maybe it’s 97 degrees Fahrenheit for you and not 98.6. It’s best to feed your body real food and then let it decide what it wants to do with it. Your body is the best war general there is for taking food and using it for surviving and thriving as long as you’re providing it with the right kind of troops, troops that are already ready to do battle. Why would you go to war, and then recruit?

 

Feel like you’ve been left in the dark? There’s more…

Here’s a quote from Judith DeCava’s book entitled The Real Truth about Vitamins and Antioxidants in 1997: “From World War II onward, nutritional information has been based on research studies funded by the interests of the pharmaceutical companies which are the manufacturers of all isolated and synthetic vitamins. Merck and Hoffman-LaRoche produce the isolated vitamin fractions used in virtually all nutritional supplements whether found in a drug store, health food store, or doctor’s or nutritionist’s office. Whole food complexes are just not as profitable.”  

 

What’s worse is that it’s these same companies that have written the health textbooks and planned the ingredients of the foods and lunch menus in the public school for the past 30 years or so.

 

Maybe that strikes a chord with you. You’re not alone. But that is the truth and that’s only the tip of the iceberg. The good news is that your body is replacing its parts all the time through cellular turnover and you can do something about your future eating habits. Start taking action today by feeding your brain and belly the information and food you need to be a better you. To learn more about how to eat better I recommend the book Back to the Basics of Human Health by Mary Frost and to learn more about quality whole food supplements just call and let us know.

 

One of the most overlooked areas of nutritional science is a person’s ethnicity. Everyone knows that Americans are more overweight than the rest of the world. We also have one of the most diverse groupings of ethnicity here. Our practice is in Rancho Bernardo and Rancho Bernardo mainly consists of white people of European descent. So let’s pretend we have George here and his ancestors have been “off the boat” for about 200 years to the best of George’s knowledge. As far as George knows, he is ¼ German, ¼ English, and ½ Norwegian. George likes to eat out at least a couple times a week and when he does it reflects the same type of meals he prepares at home. Half the time he gets a burger and fries, while the other times he usually gets Chinese or Mexican food. Up until maybe 50 years ago, George’s ancestors had only eaten ethnic foods a couple times a year and now George does at least a couple times a week.

 

The problem is that George’s genes have been conditioned to digest certain kinds of foods for hundreds of years and it can be very difficult to metabolize what his body sees as foreign objects –because they are. Over time, foods that don’t get broken down properly can leave an acidic ash which the body’s innate wisdom tries to get rid of. But when the liver doesn’t work properly because of long term abuse in processing or handling poisons the body isn’t able to eliminate it. These acids are pushed away from the vital organs for survival and either goes out the skin or gets embedded in the fat cells which get larger and larger.

 

George would be wise to cut back on ethnic foods for a while, make sure that he’s not consuming poison in his diet, nourish his liver so that it can break down the fat without starving himself and ensure a healthy long term weight. Poor George, that doesn’t sound like an easy task ahead. The good news is that after a few weeks he will begin to crave healthier stuff and maybe even be a little repulsed at the taste of some of the things he’s currently eating. Of course, the same is true for people of other ethnicities.

 

Try to get a good balance of fats, proteins, and carbohydrates during each meal. Generally speaking, carbohydrates will give you energy pretty quickly and proteins take longer to kick in but will give you energy for a longer time. Fats don’t give you much energy, but they will sustain you. So if you feel like your batteries are running low an hour before lunch, consider eating more fats for breakfast.

 

Buy organic if possible. For some foods at certain times of the year, the difference between regular and organic can be night and day. For example, usually an organic tomato will have 8 times the lycopene (a phytochemical that is known to help prevent cancer) of regular ones.

 

Remember, health is about improving your adaptability and function. I love what Thomas Edison said many moons ago:  “The doctor of the future will give no medicine but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease.”