We have all heard it many times; “you are what you eat.” Well, as cliche as it is, it’s true. You can try to make positive changes in many ways. I have always found that slow changes over time are the most successful. For example, as each year has gone by in my life, I eat less (for lack of a better word) crap. You are by all means not reading something from a granola eating vegetarian. Not that there is anything wrong with being a granola eating vegetarian. My point is this, if I can make positive changes in my life, anyone can. I still smoke cigarettes occasionally and I still have a burger and a beer when I feel the need to do so. But I don’t eat anything processed if I can help it. I don’t eat anything with dyes in it (like red dye #40, blue dye #3, etc…). I also don’t eat anything with high fructose corn syrup. The corn lobby put out a commercial trying to suggest eating high fructose corn syrup was not a big deal. “Hey, It’s just corn syrup made from corn. It’s not bad for you.” Don’t believe it. High fructose corn syrup is very difficult for your body to digest. A friend of mine started a diet (I actually hate that word “diet”) without eating high fructose corn syrup and lost ten pounds in two weeks. Than he began eating more vegetables and taking long walks. He then lost another ten pounds two weeks later. So he lost twenty pounds with a better selection of food and combining it with gentle exercise.
So I have digressed a bit but I think you get the point here. If a meat eating, beer drinking, cigarette smoking guy can make small but positive and healthy changes over years and years, so can you. It’s very easy. You just have to take it in small steps. For example, I used to eat about a pint of Häagen-Dazs a night (sometimes along with a hamburger a day). Well after my doctor told me I was ready for a heart attack, I changed my eating plans. I eat a hamburger about once a month or every 3-6 weeks. I eat ice cream much less as well. I grew up with a typical Italian-American mom who loved sweets. And like many of us, I relate sweets with all those loving feelings of home, mom, and my tummy feeling yummy.
Now, when I want sweets, I try to bake something like oatmeal cookies with cranberries or I try to eat fruit. Some say that if you add vitamin D and a good Omega 3 and Omega 6 combination, you may lose you great desire for desserts at night. This has always been one of the most difficult things for me to pull back on in life; sweets. It is easier for me to pull back on the beer and cigarettes than trying not to swallow up a box of cookies at night. I can go ( to the shock of friends and family) months without having a beer, a cigarette, or a burger. But going a few days without sweets is VERY, VERY difficult.
Let’s take a look at a few small things that you can do to make a good start for a change in your eating habits so you eat well.
For breakfast, how about having a very dark, multi grain piece of toast with avocado on it instead of cereal. Follow this up with an apple. Another good idea (and I think one of the best) would be to have a bowl of steel cut oatmeal with no sugar added but maybe some yogurt and raisins or cranberries. The steel cut oatmeal is great for cleaning your colon and increasing your immune system and the cranberries help fight urinary tract infections and gut and also help fight heart disease and cancer.
When eating, if you are in the United States as I am, we are used to large portions of food. Some restaurants give such large portions, you would think it was for a family of four. The reality is this, eating small portions is better for you. So instead of three huge meals a day (breakfast, lunch, and dinner), we should be eating many meals a day but much smaller meals. Add lots of water and you’re in good shape.
Speaking of water, you should be drinking at least eight glasses of water a day. Stay away from bottled water. It’s not necessary, some chemicals from the plastic have been known to get into the water especially when the bottle is heated in the sun, cooled up, and heated again in the sun (which is typical in the shipping process). Tap water has been known to be just as good and what you do when you buy bottled water is this; you support a system that actually wastes more water than you’d ever know to create the plastic that makes the bottle as well as all the small aquifers around the country that are being depleted so large corporations can continue to get their cheap source of water and send it to you. But the local people who live by these sources of water need it for themselves and thus end up loosing their water source.
There is a line, not a fine line but definitely a line between being a fanatic about being good to the environment, eating well, and passing the good word along AND just doing the right thing. I see no problem in drinking filtered tap water I put in a bottle as opposed to buying bottled water. It’s not a big deal. I also think it shouldn’t be a big deal to read the ingredients when you shop for food to make sure you are eating well and not eating junk, chemicals, and preservatives.
It’s like learning to play an instrument or learning a new language. You do a little at a time and then the next thing you know… it’s all second nature. Take the time to make small steps. Never go back to the way you were. Always go forward. Take the small steps and changes you make as concrete and as a new part of you. If I am at someone’s place for a get together and they serve something I normally would not eat, I eat it because I don’t want to be rude but I will take a smaller portion. There’s not need to shove your ideas and opinions (even if you think they are facts) in other people’s faces. I find that helping other people change by example, by doing it myself , is the best way.
Who knows, maybe some day I will quit smoking for good. As of now, my girlfriend just got me into this fake bologna. It’s called Smart Deli Bologna. When I add a slice of cheese and mustard, I really can’t tell that it’s not really bologna. Amazing. So now I don’t really eat any “lunch meats” deli style sandwiches anymore. You see. Small steps.
So without rambling on anymore, here are some great places to start for eating well.
Food – coming soon
Water – coming soon