Food or Fad?

Did you make a New Year’s Resolution (NYR) this year? 46% of Americans routinely make one or more NYR’s and only 8% actually achieve their resolution. As you might expect, losing weight is the number one NYR and getting fit and staying healthy is #5.

Every day in my office a patient will invariably ask, “What diet should I be on?” Unfortunately, a “diet” is something we start and stop.There is usually some end-result to strive for and then once we reach that goal, the tendency is to slide back into our old ways. What I sincerely wish for my patients is that they embrace something more then a fad diet for some weight loss goal, and instead make a total lifestyle overhaul!

I believe that one of the most important concepts to learn is that food is fuel.

I believe that one of the most important concepts to learn is that food is fuel. Just like fuel for our cars, if we put the wrong stuff in our bodies, things break down and the fuel now becomes something that hurts us. If we take the perspective that everything we put in our mouths has the power to either heal us or harm us, I know we would make different choices. It blows my mind when a patient who has just survived a heart attack at a young age, looks me right in the eye and says, “I don’t know if I can give up hamburgers!” That very common statement shows the kind of control food has on our lives. In fact, studies show that there is a profound effect from food choices on the neurotransmitters in our brain and the chemical activity of our gastrointestinal tract. What’s even more compelling is that these signaling pathways are positively influenced once we start eating less man-made processed foods and more of what God intended for us through nature (fruit, vegetables, whole-grains, legumes).

Eat foods that will literally heal you and not harm you.

How much would you pay for something that promises to reverse heart disease, drastically lower the risk of stroke and cancer, eliminate most diabetic disease and significantly lower blood pressure and cholesterol? The pharmaceutical industry would kill (no pun intended) any effort to bring something like that to market. Guess what…YOU have the power to do all these things simply by choosing to exercise daily and eat foods that will literally heal you and not harm you. What foods have scientific evidence to support their healing powers? There’s nothing magic about all of this, my friends.  We heal our bodies when we eliminate the highly processed foods from our diet (fast foods, processed sugar and carbohydrate containing products, things with ingredients we can’t pronounce)  and we instead fuel our bodies with a broad spectrum of fruits, vegetables, whole grains like brown rice and quinoa, and beans and legumes. This simple approach and the results that it produces, motivates everything we do at Nourish Drink Cafe. Our goal is simply to make healthy eating easy, convenient and good-tasting. We have seen amazing transformation in the lives of people who walk through our doors and we feel honored to share in this journey.

OK, just as I give my patients some extra-curricular things to ponder, here’s your homework: Watch the documentary, “Forks Over Knives.”

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