Eating for Optimal Health

Eating for Optimal Health

Whether you are taking care of your body so as to age well, keep healthy & suffering from diseased states due to improper nutrition or by eating the wrong foods. You maybe into body building to have a sustained body for ultimate health – This article will keep your healthy eating uncomplicated for you.

To have a good, healthy nutrition plan is based on the concept of feeding your metabolism throughout the day with the best sources of fuel possible. This is actually a two part equation made up of metabolism and nutrition.
What is Metabolism?
Metabolism is the process your body uses to break down the food that you eat, convert it to energy, or store it. Your metabolism is based on several cues that you give your body by the way that you eat and the energy you use in your daily routines.
To achieve lifelong fitness, you need to raise your activity level to start burning more calories, while feeding your body the right amount of food to sustain itself. That means eating enough throughout the day to let your body know that there will be plenty of food around to sustain a higher caloric burn. Once your body acclimates to both of those signals, your metabolism will start to change. You will be burning more calories by increasing your activity level, but you will also increase the amount of calories you burn when you are not working out – while you work, watch television, and even when you’re sleeping.

Metabolism is the rate at which your cells burn calories. The goal is to feed your metabolism a steady stream of fuel throughout the day so that you avoid the peaks and valleys. When you get too hungry, your metabolism will respond as if there is not enough food to go around. It will dip lower and your body will start storing fat. When you overeat, your body isn’t able to discern which food it needs and which is excess so it sends all of it to fat storage and still doesn’t have the ready fuel it needs to keep your metabolism high.
Eating five meals a day, is like feeding logs to a fire before it dips too low to keep a steady burn all day long.
Nutrition concerns the quality of the food that you feed your body. The goal here is to make as many healthy choices as you can to keep your body running at optimal levels. That means consuming foods from all five food groups in the appropriate amounts, allocated throughout your five meals. It also means making the best choices whenever available, such as whole grains, fewer processed foods, and choosing good fats over those that are less healthy.
Eating five balanced meals a day, combined with regular exercise, lots of water and enough sleep, will have you feeling better and reaching your fitness goals in no time
What you eat is the most important thing we can do for ourselves to prevent illness and disease. Everyday our bodies come under attack from toxins in our environment, foods, water supplies and medications for which we have been given. These toxins become trapped into our bodies and are not able to be eliminated. Firstly, we need to address our eating habits and to alter them so that we eliminate as many chemicals, additives and preservatives as possible whilst including foods, which will heal and stimulate the removal of toxins through our lymphatic system.
Our lymphatic system removes all unwanted material from our blood stream where by it takes the rubbish to the excretory organs of the body such as the kidneys, liver whereby it is delivered to our bowels and urinary system. When this becomes overloaded the toxins are then stored in various parts of your body where they become trapped causing various diseases such as arthritis,
The lymphatic system relies on movement such as exercise to help with elimination and the intake of fresh foods such as fruit and vegetables. Your lymphatic system is your first line of defence in supporting your immune system.
First signs of overload of this system are acute and chronic bronchitis, sleeplessness, hyperactivity, learning difficulties, common cold, eczema and other skin conditions, lethargy and so on. If these conditions are not treated by being eliminated from the body by ways of nutrition or if they keep recurring by homoeopathy, herbal medicine where the elimination of these toxins is stimulated then this can lead to chronic illness/disease such as asthma, arthritis, heart disease, kidney and liver disease.

Foods, which are harmful and need to be avoided as much as possible, are:
Caffeine, Soda drinks, margarine, processed foods - such as pre-cooked meals such as ham, beef, metwurst, frozen meals, take-away meals, deep fried foods, fatty foods stored in plastic and avoid heating foods in plastic containers use glass or ceramic containers for the microwave.

Foods to assist your body: herbal teas such as chamomile, green tea, peppermint and ginger, an important food to include are oats.
Herbs such as turmeric, parsley, mint, garlic, sage, rosemary and many other vulnerary herbs are helpful in maintaining a healthy body. Fruits and vegetables to be included are in your suggested daily eating plan.

EASY TO FOLLOW DAILY EATING PLAN

Drink 2 – 2 ½ litres of filtered water per day - Water acts as a main messenger for vitamins, minerals and nutrients; secondly it cleanses the toxins that you taking in and these affect the quality of your cells. You loose 1.5 litres of water each day through perspiration and breathing so this also needs to be replaced otherwise dehydration take place and major organ damage is commencing.

As a fresh start to the day ½ -1 lemon squeezed into a glass of warm water first thing in the morning. This assists your gallbladder to secrete bile to help with your digestion during the day. Then it is important to clean your teeth, as the lemon will damage the enamel coating on your teeth.

Breakfast: It is necessary to have 4 – 5 pieces of fruit per day, so what better time to have it than breakfast. These can include mango, 4 –5 strawberries, kiwi fruit, banana, rock melon, honeydew, pineapple, apple and apricots. Add to this a tablespoon of L.S.A. and psyllium husks mixed, organic muesli or cereal, then a small tub of Vaallia yogurt. You may like to begin with a bowl of porridge; oats are very healing for the nervous system.
Another way to have this is to put it all in a blender and you can drink it on the way to work.
A cup of herbal tea such as green, white, dandelion or a cup of plain black tea

Other suggestions for some variation can be:
Two poached, scrambled or boiled eggs. You may like to include some cooked tomato, asparagus, and mushrooms and bake beans.

Mid – morning snacks can include:
A piece of fruit, tub of yogurt, a handful of almonds or some homous with watercrackers or vegetables sticks such as carrot, celery cucumber, broccoli and so on

Lunch:
This can include a variety of foods such as:
Lettuce, tomato, mushrooms, celery, grated carrot, onion, alfalfa, chickpeas or soya beans, and avocado and may be some cottage cheese or feta cheese.
If it is cold weather you can include a cup of homemade vegetable soup.
For some variety and not wanting to loose weight include – Pitta bread, a grain roll, or bread that is fortified with Soya and linseed. Some fruit/yoghurt

Note: It is better if wanting a spread to use a small amount of butter in preference to margarine and butter is a natural product which is metabolized by the body whereas margarine is man-made and is not easily metabolized or utilized by the body. However spreads such as tahini, almond and other nut or soya bean spreads are much more beneficial for your health

Dinner:
Fish – this can be eaten two to three times per week, preferably at least one fish meal per day as this reduces the risk of cardio vascular disease and cancer. You then may include one red meat meal per week preferably lamb as this is still the least contaminated meat. Chicken and turkey can be included once or twice per week preferably organic.
If however you are vegetarian it is important to include soya beans, tofu, and bake beans, nuts such as cashews, peanuts or brazil nuts these can be used whole in the stir fry or made up as a sauce over the vegetables. It is important to include at least 4 – 5 vegetables see below for examples. You may say WHY? Organic it is the hormones given to the chickens and cows that then in turn will bring about hormone disturbances in YOU.
This is why suggestions are becoming very strong to move away from Dairy products because of these issues.
Go for non-genetically modified, organic Soya milk and products.

Vegetables to include: Sweet potato, cabbage, carrots, parsnips, swede, spinach, beans, peas, pumpkin, broccoli, brussel sprouts and zucchini. Nori otherwise known as seaweed is available in various forms powder, sheets that are used for sushi, this can be include in soups or made up as sushi.
Or you could have a Salad such as at lunchtime.

Pasta or Brown rice, hokkein noodles can be included once again if you are not trying to loose weight.

Note: When storing fatty foods such as butter, peanut butter store in a glass container as when stored in plastic containers the fat content in these products leaches an oestrogenic like substances from the plastic into the food. Therefore have hormonal disturbances within our bodies.

Go for organic meats where possible and if not keep your meat intake down to a minimum and mainly eat fish and lamb.

Avoid: Adding salt or sugar to food, processed foods this meaning pre cooked, tinned, frozen, cold meats, caffeine and Alcohol. Dairy Products are also to be avoided as the cows are injected with a hormone called Bovine, which is a growth hormone; this in turn has an adverse affect for us for the acceleration of certain cancers and for its toxic effects.

by Julie Doherty N.D