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Staples

Years ago, prior to the healthy lifestyle changes, or what I like to call "the change", I had basic dietary staples. Among those staples were bread (usually white), crackers (assorted types), peanut butter, canned veggies, canned soups, boxed EVERYTHING (from mac n' cheese to cake and pancake mixes) with the biggest staple being minute rice. Anything that takes a minute to cook IS ALTERED FOOD, but I won't go into detail with that tonight... only to ask if you've considered how healthy ALTERED FOOD really is? If something is SO PROCESSED that it takes moments to prepare... how nourishing is it to your body? How healthy and fit can it make you? Could our obesity epidemic in America be linked to the very fact that we are not nourishing our bodies therefore our bodies are hording fat thinking they are being starved??? Just a thought, but I digress.

Over time I came to understand that anything refined was missing important nutrients that my body needed and on top of that my body wasn't working quite as hard to break down these foods which meant I wasn't burning as many calories with refined food. Well... I'm all about working smart and not hard, so it didn't take a rocket scientist to realize that if you are trying to lose weight, making your body burn more calories to digest the food you eat just makes sense! So gone was anything white or refined. The new staples ended up being whole wheat bread (which I ended up loving more than the white yucky stuff), brown rice, quinoa, and whole wheat crackers. I still consumed the canned foods quite a bit because it always seemed that I needed the shortcuts because I was always running short on time.

Reality check. Your life will BE and REVOLVE around whatever you put your time and energy into. If you put your time into building wealth, you will build wealth. If you put your time into nurturing your children, you will raise upstanding and stable children. If you put your time into learning to ride a bike, you will ride a bike. Again, it stands to reason that if you put your time and energy into living healthy and fit, you will be healthy and fit. Just as there are no shortcuts with raising your children and riding a bike, the same is true with your health. STOP TAKING SHORTCUTS! Even the extra energy you spend to actually CUT UP VEGGIES to make a soup means that you are not only eating more healthfully (instead of processed canned food) but you are burning more calories in the preparation of it. That's working SUPER smart and not hard.

Enter raw foods. Today my new staples are flax crackers (FABULOUS recipe HERE), nuts, seeds, veggies and fruit with the occasional whole wheat breads or rice noodles (being cooked, the bread and noodles are not raw). I have completely turned to a more holistic approach to eating, meaning that I'm looking at my food as fuel instead of for my gratification. I'm finding my gratification in controlling my health. That staple has been the biggest motivator of all the changes that I've made over the years.

I hope that everyone who reads this post will just stop and ask yourself the hard questions. How healthy is the food I'm eating? Where do I really put my time and energy and what does that investment yield? And finally, what are MY staples?

Comments

P4Lfitness Team said…
This post is awesome! More people need to take to heart what they are putting into their system. Thanks for writing this!

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