There are some very interesting symptoms that crop up this time of year. Weight gain, upset stomach, enhanced digestive distress. My question is, why would anyone want to punish themselves with these symptoms when they can be, for the most part, avoided with a few easy steps?
Let me put it this way, most digestive issues are caused by poor digestion (including weight gain). Did you know that by chewing your food 20 -30 times before swallowing activates all digestive enzymes and HCl to begin to fully digest your foods? Without chewing your food properly,, your stomach cannot break it down. It’s similar to when you have a pound of ground beef that is either frozen and you need to cook it or fresh. When it’s fresh you can break it apart and do whatever you like (meatball, empanadas, chili, burgers). However, when it is still frozen, you can only cook the surface and wait for it to slowly break down to the middle to get to the rest of it. So step number one is start with chewing your food well.
Step number two: Eat only when you are hungry. I KNOW how good everything looks this time of year, and how good it smells. But when you are not hungry and are eating just to eat, what does that do to your body? You know that your body can only use so many calories at a time and after that it stores the rest as fat? Who wants to store and create more fat? Unless you are a cave man and need to get ready for the winter, no one. Or maybe a bear getting ready to hibernate. And since you do not want to begin the vicious cycle excess fat creates with insulin resistance, excess estrogen and cortisol imbalance, let’s not go there. and if you are all ready there, there is a wonderful Dr. named Dr. Hall in Ocala, Fl that specializes in hormone imbalances, that has studied what it is all about for the past 22 years and takes insurance. He is the first physician I know of that truly cares and gets the whole blood/saliva correlation.
Step number three: Be positive with what you are putting into your body. If you are cooking and thinking negatively, or eating and feeling sad, resentful, guilty, angry, or depressed, what is that food going to represent to you? Nourishment and health or grief and sorrow? Would you feed that to your best friend? I don’t think so. So why feed it to yourself. Is your body able to digest sour, spoiled food or does it reject it? The same thing happens with the feelings we put into it. That is where much of the digestive issues come from these days. If we don;t learn to resolve issues we have, our stomachs won’t learn to heal either. It is very symbolic, but true, and medically proven. You just have to take the time for yourself and your health.
Digestive enzymes in the form of chewing first, food for nourishment and celebration, happiness, peace and gratefulness. These are the keys that we need to keep in our lives to keep us healthy. Baby steps. Happy Thanksgiving.
