Is Your Food Supporting or Sabotaging Your Success Everyday?

Do you sometimes struggle to get through the afternoon?  Do you wish you could take a nap or need a coffee or crave a sugary snack?  What are your mornings like?  Do you have energy in between breakfast and lunch?  How long after breakfast are you hungry again?  Do you even eat breakfast?

Have you ever made the connection between what you eat and how you feel?  Have you noticed that one morning if you eat eggs for breakfast that you may feel differently than if you eat a bagel? Are you saying duh or are you saying huh?

Many years ago, I would have said huh? Until the winter of 1996, when I got really sick with flu like symptoms and I began to get better but wasn’t getting well. My doctor at that time suggested that I remove wheat from my diet to see if that could be causing my illness.  This is when I first made the connection about what I was eating and how it impacted the way I felt.

After 2-3 days of detoxing and feeling really bad, I became super clear.  It was amazing.  At the time, I was eating a lot of processed food.  I had been eating low fat/fat free unconsciously relying heavily on extra sweeteners, usually white sugar, and refined, processed carbohydrates like white flour.

Once I got well, I went to the Chef training program at the Natural Gourmet Institute for Food and Health. This was a revolutionizing education for me.  It changed the way I think, live, eat, raise my child and view wellness. This is where I learned about the idea of eating foods that are as close to the way nature created them as possible, with all of there edible parts (whole foods) and what happens when they are processed and what that does to our health on a short and long term basis. I followed up that education by attending The Institute for Integrative Nutrition where I learned more about how what we eat and other choices that we make daily impact our health and was trained as an Holistic Health Coach.

So back to you now, does this resonate for you at all?  Just to be clear, I am not talking about food allergies. It may even be subtle. I am talking about everyday foods that you eat that may be causing you to feel less well than you could.  I’m talking about foods that are zapping your energy and maybe clouding your brain.  You may not even realize it because you’ve lived this way for so long.  If you’re open to it, let’s look at some things that you can do to improve the way you feel by eating differently.

1. Pay attention to what you eat and how it makes you feel:  If you typically eat cereal for breakfast, how does that work for you?  Do you have energy in the morning? By what time do you feel like you want lunch?  On a different day trying have eggs for breakfast.  Is there a difference when your breakfast has a good source of protein?  Did you have them with or without toast?  Does that make a difference? What if you have pancakes with Maple Syrup? Is it real maple syrup or pancake syrup?
2. Get to know what works best for you:  Each one of us is different and we all have different needs.  By paying attention as described above you will quickly start to recognize that what we eat impacts how we feel and you will have a sense of what foods you should choose and which to avoid or eliminate in order to feel your best.
3. Avoid eating processed foods: By this I primarily mean foods made from white flour and white sugar but also chemical additives.  This will negatively impact most people because they will raise your blood sugar up and then drop it down. For both short and long term health benefits eat as many whole foods as possible (foods the way nature created it with all their edible parts).
4. Freshly prepare your food at home as often as possible: With rare exceptions, this is the only way you will know what is in your food.  If you are buying premade or prepackaged foods, you can’t be sure of the quality of the ingredients.  Is there white sugar in your Chinese Food?  Probably.

These are just a few suggestions to get you started and moving in the right direction. If this sounds tedious to you, I promise that the long and short term results are worth it. Visit www.TheConsciousPlate.com to learn more.