"I'm tired of feeling like trash" *eats garbage*
A guide to feeling your best
Food used to be a resource to get us through the day feeling physically well. Now, most food choices are made to feel emotionally well. Shifting our perspective is the most profitable thing food manufacturers have ever done.
For the past few months, I’ve had the most “fun” eating than ever before and yet I feel physically awful. Lethargic and bloated were never words I would use to describe myself. I went years without drinking soda, rarely ever ate fast food, if at all, rarely ever ate sweets and baked goods and now those are normal parts of my life. I feel the sickest I’ve ever felt after meals, my energy levels are at an all time low and I’ve gained more fat than I’ve ever previously carried.
My plan to feel good again is to think of food from the perspective of physically well versus emotionally well. Eating the sweet thing or the baked good may feel fun and make me less bored in the moment and yet an hour or two later I feel icky and sick. The fast food may be convenient and inexpensive and yet the accumulation of these substances becoming the flesh that I live in has my digestive tract feeling SICK right now. That’s the biggest thing out of all of this, I feel icky and sick and there’s no way I could live my life this way.
From an aesthetic perspective, I would not be comfortable being average Joe Shmo for the rest of my life and even so, this isn’t as much of a motivating force as the way I literally feel in my body.
Eating to feel physically well is not complicated, it just takes intentional time and some label reading. Here’s the recipe from most important to least important:
Meat, of any kind as long as it’s purchased raw and unseasoned/unmarinated (grass fed-pasture raised and wild caught fish are the optimal choices and yet do what you can)
Fruits
Vegetables
Eggs
Grains
Legumes, fancy word for beans
Nuts
Seeds (especially chia and flax seeds)
Dairy, especially yogurt, if your body responds well (check for the least amount of ingredients as possible and no added sugar)
If you are already really sick or have an autoimmune disease, stick to the first three of meat, fruits and vegetables and eliminate nightshades from the vegetable category until you’re healthy again. Once healthy, eat from all the categories until you find what makes you feel sick.
For hydration, water and no sugar added fruit juices “not from concentrate” because the extra water of “from concentrate” dilutes our digestive enzymes and personally makes my stomach hurt.
For sauces, Primal Kitchen brand or any sauce that has five or less ingredients and no added sugars. Have fun with any seasonings you please as long as it doesn’t include added sugar.
The extra, unnecessary ingredients and loads of sugar are companies attempting to hook you emotionally with a disregard of how you are going to feel physically. They are literally trying to get you addicted and like monkeys, we get hooked and disregard how we feel physically too.
An advanced technique to feel your absolute best and avoid any kind of stomach pain is to eat in this order: beverage, fruit, meal, vegetables/salad, and wait thirty minutes before introducing beverage again. This is also the best way to aid digestion and maximum nutrient absorption.
Eating to feel emotionally well is eating past 8:35 pm, eating sweets and baked goods, eating fast food and eating food that comes in boxes. The incredible thing is that eating to feel physically well leads to feeling emotionally well in the long run.
Don’t get it twisted, I understand that we are emotional beings and so I think it’s good to eat for emotional health once or twice a week. The issue is when eating for emotional health becomes our normal. The percentage of food we eat for emotional well-being should never be more than or even come close to the percentage of food that we eat for physical well-being.
Also understand that I am speaking to the people that want to be the best version of themselves. This is for people that can’t stand living below their potential. There is a particular type of human that senses the shriek of their souls when they are living anything other than excellence. This is for that person.
Self evaluate and observe how often you eat for emotional well-being as opposed to physical well-being. Are you eating to satisfy a craving, to make things convenient for yourself or are you eating to FEEL YOUR BEST? I’m tired of being tired and as you know, this is the year we reclaim our lives in the name of Jesus Christ.
For the kingdom we shine our light before men so that they may glorify our Father in heaven!
