Wednesday, May 18, 2011

You Are What You Eat

Lately I have been really interested in changing my eating habits, but haven't done much about it yet. All my life, I've been very thin and can eat whatever I want without gaining weight. But we all know that being thin doesn't always equal health.

I've also been a very picky eater and don't eat a ton, but like most people, the foods I mostly crave are sweets and desserts. The other day I went to two different Subways with my friend just to get chocolate chip cookies I didn't really need! I have problems with anxiety, digestion, and get a lot of colds/allergies and I am starting to realize all of this has to do with my eating habits.

So I decided to buy a book called "You Are What You Eat" to find some tips on eating healthier. I chose this book because it wasn't a typical "diet" book, it gave tips on foods to eat for different ailments and stories of real people.

The first things on my list to buy are as follows: a water filter pitcher (I try to drink a lot of water and I don't even want to know what junk is in the tap water I drink.), sunflower seeds, more organic fruits and veggies, whole grain cereal, different snack foods with less sodium and sugar, lemon for water, ingredients for salads, soy milk, and maybe flaxseed oil.

I'm going to try to eat better throughout the day and I will keep you posted on my progress! Anyone else going on this journey to better health? Tell me your thoughts!

3 comments:

  1. Ever since I started long distance running in my freshman year of high school I started eating a lot healthier. At first I missed all the old food I used to eat, but after a while I found myself actually craving fruits and vegetables over junk food, and now it just comes naturally. But good luck on furthering your better eating habits! :) Yeah, my one friend is as thin as a rail but she literally eats nothing but chocolate and candy.. probably not the best, haha.

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  2. A few things.
    One, even more important than organic (well, no, there about the same level of importante really) is buying local. Local foods (typically ensured to be organic) are easy to find at a farmer's market near you. Buying local, while being organic and wonderful for you and your health, also keeps your community wonderful and healthy and takes away from the big name growers that tend to contribute to world problems such as deforestation and soil problems.

    Two, and I'm splitting this in half, so really 1.5, is that filtered water is actually really really really (let me emphasize, really) bad for you, although only if you're drinking a lot to do something like improve your health. See, your body tends to make everything work through the process of passive transfer. When your body needs to get something to your cells, it doesn't really have to work because if a cell needs something, it pretty much just sucks it in. This happens because areas of high concentration flow toward those of low concentration in order to create equilibrium.

    NOW, typically this is supposed to work in a way that puts the good stuff your cells want into your cells, and pulls out the nasty stuff.
    However, if you're drinking, oh, purified water on the other hand, the high concentration of minerals and salts in your cells wants to equilibriate (just made that word up) with the purified water outside your cells. However, your cells have little shields around them which are made up essentially of fat that keep the yummy stuff your cells want inside the cells, so instead of the salts and minerals flowing out, the purified water flows IN. Now, while it's not bad for quite the same reasons, waterlogged cells are a lot like a drowning person. Either way, it's not going to lead to a very healthy end.

    Finally, the second half of two (so, two) is that purified water in small quantities is a very good thing when you don't know how clean the water source you're drinking from is. And so I would suggest this. This is a "Water Bobble", and it's a portable water bottle that actually has a little water filter built into the cap, so you can fill your bottle up anywhere and still be sure you're not going to get cholera or rat poisoning or something else nasty (which is sort of the point of cleaning your water in the first place).

    Well, sorry about jumping out of nowhere like that, but hi, I'm Isaac, I saw a link here on Natalie's blog and was bored and thought this would be interesting and hey, haven't we had fun here?

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  3. Natalie, that is a really good point & good for you! :)

    Isaac, first of all welcome to my blog! I never knew any of that before - thanks for all your great tips and advice. I look forward to reading more comments from you. :)

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