Welcome to 2013! Have you considered your goals for this year? Education? Lose Weight? Find a Partner? Get a Job? Volunteer?
Did you know that your body has several goals in mind? Is it surprising after the holidays that your body wants a good CLEANING on the inside? And what about REPAIRING all the damage done from lack of sleep, stress, poor diet and injuries? Finally, part of staying alive and aging gracefully is rebuilding. Your body replaces and rebuilds in many ways, for example, our skin is replaced about every 35 days.
So coming from your nutritionist, it is no surprise to have me say that what you eat will provide the primary tools for your body to do what it needs to do this year. That is because our food is what will allow your body to accomplish the goals of CLEANING, REPAIRING and REBUILDING. So which foods do which jobs?
Plant foods, especially and primarily vegetables and fruits do the work of cleansing the body. While they do contain many vitamins and minerals, plant fibers are difficult for the human body to break down and digest and it is this very quality that allows these foods to serve as an inner brillo pad, scrubbing and removing accumulated toxins and refuse from the body. This is one of the reasons most people feel very good initially after a cleansing, detoxifying vegetable focused diet because of the cleansing effect. It energizes, cleans and lifts the body. For the same reason, very few succeed with vegetarian or vegan diets because there are no significant building and repairing nutrients in a diet made up only of plant foods. Eventually, the body is unable to repair or build and symptoms reflect it.
It is important to understand that your body needs more than just cleaning. It also routinely needs to BUILD and REPAIR. Vegetables and fruits cannot offer the nutrients needed to build and repair. Only protein and fat can be used to build and repair which includes making new cells, new hormones and new enzymes, for example. Your ability to heal the body, stay youthful in appearance, have beautiful skin, restore muscle or bone and have a strong immune system will require high quality animal proteins and healthy, natural, undamaged fats to accomplish these functions.
Using this information, you can see that there are times in life where cleansing and detoxification would warrant a diet focused on vegetables while reducing protein and fats temporarily to allow the body to cleanse. Our Total Body Cleanse is an example of an approach to cleansing in a safe and effective manner. When we have injury or illness (the need to repair) or are working to build muscle for athletic endeavors and stay healthy during normal daily activities and stresses, it is essential that the diet include a balance of animal protein, undamaged natural fats and good carbohydrates in the form of vegetables and fruits. Our recommendations toward a cave man or paleo type of dietary path will provide exactly this. Eat Well and Live Well in the New Year!