Nowadays we clearly,
we are suffering from a “high fact diet.” There’s lots of nutrition information, but very little wisdom that truly nourishes.
It’s time
for a whole new approach to food and health, for a way to understand eating
that’s evolved, intelligent, crispy and fresh.
And it all begins with the most
important missing ingredient in our nutritional understanding – you.
The
field of nutrition has left out the heart, mind, and soul of the eater.
Of
course we are a body, and we need to understand the biology of it, yet we are
so much more than a collection of chemicals. As we invite all of us to the
table when it comes to nutrition, something profound and beautiful
happens. We get in touch with our inner nutritional wisdom, we feel
sweetly empowered, and our metabolism takes some new and interesting turns.
Stated in the most simple and practical way – what we eat is only half the story of good nutrition. The
other half of the story is who we
are as eaters. That is, what we think, feel believe, our levels of stress,
relaxation, pleasure, awareness, and the inner stories that we live out all
have a real, powerful, and scientific effect on metabolism.
Advances
in the mind-body sciences over the last 30 years have been proving what ancient
wisdom traditions have been saying for eons – that the mind, body, heart, and
soul exist on an exquisite continuum, and indeed profoundly impact one another.
Nowhere does this play out more clearly than in the phenomenon called “stress.”
Can
you recall what your body sensations are when you eat during a state of anxiety
or stress?
Most women report such symptoms as heartburn, cramping, gas,
digestive pains, overeating, and intense hunger. During stress the body
automatically shifts into the classic fight-or-flight response. This feature of
the nervous system evolved over millions of years into a brilliant safety
mechanism that supports us during life-threatening events.
In
the moment the stress response is activated, heart rate speeds up, blood
pressure increases, respiration quickens, hormones that help provide immediate
energy such as adrenaline and cortisol are released into the circulatory
system, and most importantly, the digestive system shuts down. It makes perfect sense that when you’re fending
off an angry gorilla, you don’t need to waste energy digesting your food. All the body’s metabolic functions are geared directly for survival.
So,
you could be eating the most healthy food in the universe, but if you aren’t
eating under the optimum state of digestion and assimilation – which happens to
be relaxation – you literally and metabolically are not receiving the full
nutritional value of your meal.
What’s more, our calorie burning ability
actually decreases during long term, low-level stress. The implications here
are profound. As a nation, we tend to move too fast – we’re stressed, anxious,
in fear around money, terrorism, health, weight, love, life… And all this
stress changes our nutritional physiology in a real and powerful way –
diminishes it, lowers our ability to absorb nutrients, to calorie burn, and to
heal.
So
a life of relaxed living, trust, faith and joy becomes a key ingredient for our
nutritional health.
________________________
What are you waiting for?
If you've been reading this blog for awhile but just haven't
taken action, it is time. It doesn't matter what you do, but do something to
overcome the doubt, fear, or inertia that's keeping you stuck in stress eating. Click here to start >>>
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