Weekly Inspiration...Small Changes = Big Rewards

For this installment of Weekly Inspiration, I'd like to inspire you - or encourage you to start taking baby steps towards better health.  You can start by trying to be mindful about what you buy at the grocery story AND what you eat at home.  Diet has a HUGE effect, not just on our health, but our mood, our looks & our energy levels.  Eating lots of processed or fast-foods can wreck havoc on our overall well-being, and the worst thing about those foods isn't the fat content like you would think... read on.

One of my mentors, Naturopath Cheryl Marr always tells her clients:  ''We should try to go back to eating like our ancestors used to eat - If it didn't exist a hundred years ago, we shouldn't be eating it!''  This means reducing or avoiding processed foods and favoring home-made, natural alternatives.

Healthy Food

Processed foods are anything that comes ready-made, ready-to-eat and are almost always packed with 'food-like' substances like harmful preservatives, artificial favors, colours and even artificial sweeteners.  Our bodies are not designed to ingest 'artificial' ingredients and once ingested they often become toxic to our overall health & well-being.

Processed Foods

When your body has toxins to get rid of, it needs to work extra hard in order to get rid of them.  The more artificial ingredients you consume, the harder your body must work to clean up your system.  That means that instead of focusing solely on your energy levels, metabolism and well-being, your body is over-working itself further trying to stay on top of everything AND clean up any toxins!!

Food-like products have scary effects on our health!

Like a lot of other people out there, my own diet used to be heavy on processed and fast foods. I am here to tell you that changing your diet & lifestyle is possible!  Once you begin to educate yourself, improving your choices becomes a lot easier.

Start by incorporating small changes in your routine, such as: 

• Always read the ingredients of anything you buy. If it has 25+ ingredients or you can't pronounce half of what's listed you can't pronounce - leave it on the shelf!
• Try you luck at preparing a favorite treat yourself, from scratch!  When you chose what ingredients go into your food, you can enjoy your treats guilt-free!  Plus usually home-made tastes MUCH better than store-bought.
• Beware of food labels that say things like 'fat-free', 'sugar-free','diet' or 'light' - that means they've taken out any healthy, natural fats/sugars and replaced them with artificial imitations.
• Understand that everyone needs a healthy balance of protein, fats & carbs - your salad with low-fat salad dressing may be doing you more harm than good. Balance is key.
• Food colouring, artificial sweeteners (aspartame: Splenda, Equal, Twin..etc), preservatives, sulfites, high-fructose corn-syrup, saturated fats & MSG are bad for anyone & everyone. Period.  So try avoid those whenever possible.
• And finally, don't be afraid to do your own research!  Look up ingredients you aren't familiar with and their possible side-effects.  If you're baking a cake that calls for white sugar, look up substituting it for honey, brown sugar.  If it calls for Crisco or margarine?  Use real butter instead!  Taking a hands-on approach to your health is the first step.

 By simply being mindful of what you chose to put into your body and your family's plates, you can get on track and start feeling better!  Allowing for small baby steps here and there often gives us the courage to really whip ourselves into shape.  It's never to late to feel your best!