GENERAL PRINCIPLES REGARDING FOOD AND EATING:   view ACCORDION

• 1. Listen to your body

  All humans are unique in the same way snowflakes or tree leaves are distinctly different. We share common physiological features, but many differences, and that uniqueness goes far beyond our fingerprints. Metabolically, we have some things in common, yet in many ways our bodies functions vary from one person to another.

  Your body knows what it needs for optimal performance. And, if you listen to it, your body will tell you what to eat to meet its nutritional requirements best. Over time, as you pay attention to how your body responds to certain foods, you will become very aware of what is good and what is not so good for you. Initially, it would be best if you listened to your internal senses to how certain foods and meals affect your:

  Mood: Are you more irritable, depressed, happy, or content?

  Appetite: Is your hunger satisfied, or do you want more than you need?

  Energy: Do you feel energized, tired, or sleepy?

  Mental Clarity: Can you think more clearly, or is it harder to concentrate?

  Cravings: Is your longing for unhealthy foods (like sugar) quenched or activated?

  Elimination (specifically your bowel and urinary habits): A quick examination of your stool and urine can tell much about your overall health and diet. For more information, see pg 156.

• 2. Intend to nourish

  A big part of developing an effective nutritional regimen is your motives. When you are selecting food to eat, what is your primary intention? Is it to eat…

  A) The most nourishing food that is available to you and that you can afford?

  B) What tastes best?

  C) what is most convenient?

  D) as cheaply as possible?

  The more you can answer question A with a definite “yes,” the more likely you are to get your nutrition right.

• 3. Develop your nutritional integrity

  To get the proper nutrition, you must set standards for acceptable foods and drinks for your body and stay faithful to your ideals. There are general nutritional practices that apply to everybody. For instance, the most basic one is to eat real food, not fake food — that is, foods that have been processed, like those sold in a preprinted package with a list of ingredients or at a fast food restaurant.

  I also strongly recommend avoiding any added sugar, “natural” sweeteners, or artificial sweeteners because these substances cause metabolic stress for your body. There is also no doubt that exciting your taste buds with a concentration of sweet flavor can develop into an addictive and damaging habit. Not only are sweeteners non-nutritional, but they also stimulate cravings for more and, therefore, lead to overconsumption. Purveyors of fake foods know this quite well, so they load every morsel with them.

• 4. Consider the quality of food

  As you become more determined to nourish your body with integrity, you will naturally become more committed to limiting and avoiding certain foods. We now know that most of man’s attempts to “improve” nutrition lessen its nutritional value. The food processing industry makes its profits by making food more attractive, better able to stimulate the taste buds, or adding weeks (even years) to shelf life. They accomplish this by removing nutritional components, adding unnatural chemicals, and changing food’s genetic structure before enclosing it in packages designed to entice people to purchase it. These manufacturing and marketing efforts have enriched the fake food industry, but these alterations have had catastrophic impacts on the health of those who eat it. Most processed foods are nutritionally inferior, if not toxic, to some degree.

• 5. Eat consciously -- eating is a sacred activity

  The way you eat can be as important as what you eat. When you eat consciously, you are much more likely to have good digestion, and you are much less likely to overeat. In addition, better digestion will provide more and better nutrition, resulting in more energy and better health.

  Eating slowly and chewing your food thoroughly significantly increases the nourishment you get from your food. Thinking you can accomplish more if you can eat while performing other tasks is a great temptation. In this case, multitasking is counterproductive. If you do something else while you eat, you will tend to under-chew your food, making it much more difficult to digest. You will also tend to make poor food choices, overeat, and increase digestive distress (heartburn or acid reflux. All of these consequences are detrimental to your proper nutrition and health.

  In addition, consuming food while you work, play, or are involved in any other activity will diminish your awareness of what you eat. This will make it nearly impossible to listen to your body, as discussed above, and render you unable to make necessary dietary adjustments.

  Remember that your body will utilize the food and drink you put into it to build, protect, and repair the various structures and tissues that keep it functioning. Consider the act of taking nourishment into your body as something sacred. There is great wisdom in giving thanks for your food and asking that it be used to nourish your body. It can help calm your nervous system and remind you to pay attention to what is on your plate.

  Eating consciously is complementary to the practice of listening to your body. Maintaining good health, peaceful energy, relaxed alertness, emotional poise, positive mood, and mental clarity requires good nutrition, digestion, and healthy elimination.

• 6. Eat in harmony with your body's metabolism

  Generally speaking, metabolism refers to all the chemical processes in your body and involves all the nutritional components — macro and micronutrients you ingest. However, the most significant impact on the functioning of your body comes from the way your body processes macronutrients (proteins, fats, and carbohydrates). Your body’s innumerable processes require energy — no energy, no life! And the fuel for this energy comes from the proteins/fats and carbohydrates you consume.

  The body’s preference in how it accesses and uses the energy stored in these macronutrients — I’m calling this the energy metabolism — varies from person to person and even changes throughout one’s lifetime. Eating in harmony with your energy metabolism means giving your body its preferred carbohydrate-to-protein/fat ratio. Your body requires all three, but it performs best when each is consumed in amounts that suit its particular metabolic style.

  Most conventional diet and nutrition plans only address a particular type of metabolism. This is why one person may obtain beautiful results from one plan, and someone else fails to make any progress with the same dietary regimen. Once you have determined where you currently reside, you can harmonize your food intake to match your body’s preference. For more information about metabolic balance, see chapter 9 (pg 175).

• Where can I find more information about nutrition?

  For more in-depth information about maintaining healthy nutritional standards, please read Holistic Inquiry (2023), by Dr. Lina Garcia