Not Just Another Fad.
January is symbolic of so many things, a new year, new opportunities, new adventures, and for far to many of us a “new commitment to lose weight”. While I do commend you for wanting to “get healthy” it’s about more than just losing weight, there are a whole slew of reasons you might need to do this to begin with. Sure, over consumption of calories is a big part of it, but none of the fad diet and crash lifestyle changes take into consideration why your body might be craving those extra calories.
The very first thing I tell my patients is that I do NOT care how much you weigh…. And here’s why, when our body is depleted of nutrients it will hold on to every tiny thing it can as it comes in… and that usually gets stored as fat. We do that because our body doesn’t know when we will see that nutrient again. After our body stores this nutrient, it is hard to get out of storage and it requires key nutrients to get it out, which we are often also depleted in. This is why changing how we fuel our bodies is so important.
If you recall I stated “garbage in means garbage out” this is exactly what I’m talking about here. This is also why it is so important not to cut “food groups” out of your diet, no one is allergic to carbs, proteins, or fats. Your body might not be as good at digesting one of them and need to change how much and what type you eat, but you still need to eat all the categories of food. This looks like a wide variety of plant sources of carbs like fruit and veggies, as well as healthy grains like rice and quinoa. The same goes for fats and proteins, eating a variety of meat from all types of animals, veggies, and a good mix of beans, nuts, and seeds. While that might be a dietary change for you, it is not meant to be restrictive. Once your body fills the needed store of vital nutrients in the diet it can stop holding onto the, once very limited, supply it saw.
To take this one step further, if you remember our discussion from last time, we mentioned how all foods need broken down once they enter the body. With the exception of Vitamin D and B3 (niacin), our body requires this break down through the gut to get our essential nutrients. Without them coming in, we cannot make them on our own. Imagine, you’re driving done the road and your gas light comes on… but you fail to stop for a fill up, how far would you make it without fuel? Not very. Our body does the same thing, and it starts setting off the warning light by giving us cravings, “go fill up”, and outward symptoms like the “red flashing gas light” as a warning. If we continue to ignore them, we get sick, have fatigue, brain fog, and worse…. chronic illness. The worst thing is that conventional medicine says, “let’s put some tape over that red flashing light and get you a little farther”, and you’re given a medication to treat your SYMPTOMS… at least until you get another. Please here me when I say this, conventional medicine is great for emergencies, highly complex situations, and is “convenient” for the time being but, it should not be taken as the only solution when we don’t address the root of the problem. This is the foundation of integrated medicine, balancing a nutrient dense lifestyle with possible other interventions that might need considered.
How do you know what deficiencies your body might have? You can find out a couple of ways, your health care provider can check a wide range of nutrients, but the best way is to start eating a balanced diet. That means hitting all the food groups with each meal, your body is very smart and will sort them out, with the exception of Vitamin D… we will talk about that one later. As your body starts to organize and resolve your shortages, your cravings will change, listen to them closely! Each craving will tell you something important. Here are a couple of examples:
- Sweets cravings: magnesium, chromium, carbon, phosphorous, sulfur, and Tryptophan. You can find them in a variety of fresh fruits, nuts, and seeds
- Bread/pasta cravings: Nitrogen which is found in dark leafy greens
- Oils, fatty food, and Soda: Calcium, which is found in broccoli, spinach, Kale, figs, dates, and plums
- Coffee and tea cravings: Phosphorous, sulfur, Salt, and iron and can be found in fresh veggies, nuts, and seeds.
- Pre-menstrual cravings: Zinc and it can be found in pumpkin seeds, leafy greens, and root veggies like carrots and potatoes (sweet or white)
It might sound crazy to think that our body doesn’t crave the things you see on the shelf today, but remember those things were likely not around for our predecessors to crave… they couldn’t go to the store and grab a soda or candy bar to fix a craving before their period… they had to eat real food to fix real deficiencies.
The other amazing thing that happens when we focus what we eat on nutrition, over time out cravings go away, we eat more balanced, we have energy, and our body can burn the extra weight or gain healthy weight as needed. Our bodies are brilliant and have kept us going for many thousands of years.
This year focus on eating real food first, listening to your body, nourishing it as God intended, and heal things you didn’t know possible.
Until next time, God bless, keep growing, and remember, thriving is not about perfection.
