PS Don’t Reward Yourself with Food

How often do we see this? Again, refer back to eat when hungry not when simply emotional!

Because you are not addressing the problem.

Food and movement for nourishment

I’ve been receiving quite a few diet questions lately and there has been a lot of discussion also on the topic of weight loss and whether diet or exercise is the answer.
So I will attempt to address a bit of that here now.

Firstly, diet should not simply be about weight loss. Despite what the magazines, tv and other media want you to believe. That goes for exercise too. What we want from both is nourishment. Health, wellbeing and vitality.

When it comes to food I believe things like vitamins, minerals (often overlooked) and satisfaction are much more important than simply macronutrients (carbohydrates, fats, proteins). Quality rather than simply quantity.

Try to eat good quality food from clean sources making sure that their is sufficient variety to meet your needs. How do you tell? Listen to your body! The Okinawans had a 80% rule, ie they ate til they felt 80% full and stopped. Imagine that, stepping away before they felt stuffed and bloated. Not much like the modern diet. And people wonder why they have such good longevity.

They probably also enjoyed their food a lot more as the quantity would allow them to really taste each bit as they were still hungry.

And this brings me to the next issue I want to address.

Most people these days do not eat when they are hungry! Yes read that again.
Then turn it around and you’ll have a pretty good diet guideline. Eat when hungry!
Sounds obvious right? But how many people do we see these days who eat when they are not hungry? When they are simply bored? Or lonely? Frustrated? Sad? Tired? Some other emotional or psychological state? Be honest!
And when in these states, what do people reach for? Not some greens I’ll bet.

I saw a statistic that 35% of the kilojoules consumed by Australians are discretionary foods (Australian Nation Health Survey). But if these ‘sometime foods’ or ‘I only eat them when abc happens’ are eaten all the time (ie abc could be tiredness or emotional disturbance) then that food really is your normal eating!!
So what have we got so far?

People eating focussing on carbohydrates, proteins, fats without enough focus on quality and source. Then they are also often eating when they are not hungry. Finally eating things like chocolate, biscuits, cafe food, chips, sweets etc.

Are we really surprised then that the state of affairs is that bad? Apparently 70% of Australian men are overweight. But there is more to the story than just being overweight. Many of these people are often also undernourished. As they did not give enough thought to the quality and source of their food.

Some people will tell you that all macronutrients and even food sources are the same. But it’s also what comes with or without the food that can also affect how the body utilises it. As well as any side effects. Because food is really medicine. Or it can be. That is why there is all this debate about pesticides and genetic modification. If you don’t like side effects with your pharmaceutical drugs, why would you want side effects with your natural ones?

Then there are individual differences like how we respond to certain foods etc.

So what works for one person may not work for another.

So as to which ‘diet’ is best? There is none. Again what works for one person will not work for another. So you need to find out for yourself what works for your body. Because when it comes down to it you are the leading expert on your own body. And it doesn’t matter how good a diet is if you simply cannot maintain it long term (we are not talking simply 30 days or 90 days) as a lifestyle. All these ‘lose x amount of weight in y amount of days’ quick diets are useless because what happens after the allotted diet time is up? Are you simply supposed to revert back to form? What did you actually learn from the experience and how will it change you? So you can try different diets but like anything take from each what works for you after self experimentation not simply because some guru or other, or even worse marketer, told you supposedly works.

Hope that addresses some of the questions. I had hoped to get onto some of the nourishment of exercise topic but will save that for next time now I think.

Don’t pull your shoulders back (or down)

Or suck in your stomach. Or chin up.

Why? Because these are all commonly used, sometimes with good intentions, but all wrong postural alignment cues. How can we use tension to relax? To get to relaxation, you just have to find and let go of tension. Not create more.

I see a lot of backs and shoulders and necks. Painful, on the way to getting there, or post surgery.

It’s almost never strength but pattern. You train the movement/alignment not muscles. Have you heard the one about the forest and the trees? It’s somewhere in there.

The magic is not in what but how.

And remember that medicine is only good if you take it. So pay attention.

I’m going to give you some other cues that may help.

Ready?

Head up, not chin up. Imagine you are wearing a crown on your head. Now don’t drop it.

And shoulders are like hips, they are meant to be mobile not held in any fixed position.

And learn to belly breathe.

If you can manage these simple yet powerful lessons and live them you are well on your way.

Relearn how to breathe for better health and performance.

Efficient breathing can improve performance, delay fatigue, and aid recovery.

Poor breathing can cause sensations of breathlessness.

 

Yet many supposedly deconditioned, stressed or unfit people are not breathing properly.

 

Studies show two thirds of people who undertake respiratory muscle training can improve their performance in endurance tests, with the mechanism being the freeing up of blood flow from overworked respiratory muscles to active limbs.  This results in more oxygen delivered where it is needed as well as more clearing of metabolites (waste products from metabolism). 

 

So you get more oxygen in and get it delivered to the places that need it most.  Win win.