It has taken me a while to figure this out but as a people, we eat too much. I am only now beginning to put this in perspective for myself. Let’s face it. All the habits we have on eating, we have learned over a lifetime from the people we are surrounded by. We have been told things like, you must eat three squares a day. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.
At this point I am only talking about the basic survival meals for optimum health, as we have been taught over the years. I haven’t even gotten into the social eating we all live with each day. Someone brings donuts to work. Other snacks come by to visit. Let’s get some gas for the car and grab something to munch on, then there’s church functions, work functions, on and on it goes. Now that dinner is out of the way and it’s time to take in some TV, let’s grab something to snack on. The list goes on and on. Oh, did I mention the additives in the food that enhance this behavior? Let’s see just how far off track we have gotten.
The biggest surprise to me has been the hold that the chemicals in so much of our food have over us. Back when I decided to clean up a little, I did a juice fast. The first three days were really tough. I was drinking four to six very large juices a day. This was just so I would feel full, which is ridiculous, if you really think about it. When you juice you are getting 100% pure nutrition, so why would you be hungry? On the the fourth day the constant hunger began to leave. That hunger was in a great part caused by all the chemicals that are found in so much of the food we eat, such as MSG. Once I began getting the chemicals out of my body I began to eat much less.
I began to watch how the animals eat. Many of them eat only once a day with no side effects. They look good and are full of energy. They rarely get sick. They simply do not have the diseases humans have. On the rare occasion that they do get sick, they stop eating completely. After not eating for a while, they got better. What was going on here? I have a couple thoughts about this. I decided to experiment on myself, and this has led to some life changing discoveries.
1. Your body will heal itself if given real nutrition. It is as simple as that. Those nutritional building blocks need to be there. You need the vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, enzymes etc. You have to give your body these things.
2. When you eat a big meal, 85% of the energy that is used in your body to function, ends up trying to digest that big meal. This means less energy for the brain and other bodily functions. This is why we all want to take a nap after eating. And, this is why animals don’t eat while sick. They need that energy to fight whatever it is that ails them. Less energy for digesting = more energy for other bodily functions.
I decided to eat even less. Remember when I said that chemicals played a large part in hunger? There is something else to consider. The stomach in it’s normal state is about the size of your fist. It is pretty small. It expands as you fill it up. It contracts much more slowly. Eat a really big meal late at night and you will feel hungry when you wake up. That is because the stomach contracts slower then it expands, so the hunger signals are produced, it feels the need to fill up. Crazy huh? I have a juice in the morning. This gives me nutrition and a stomach that is not stretched. I have a juice at lunch. My stomach has not gotten stretched and there are no chemicals in the juice I drink, so I’m not hungry. I find myself with a tremendous amount of energy. Then at night, I can have pretty much whatever I want. Now, all that energy that I have is going to my digestive system and I am now ready to slow down and easily go to sleep. Eating that much less during the day is like rocket fuel. I feel tremendous.
My conclusion. Like our early ancestors, we don’t need a lot of fuel to get around healthily, just the right fuel. With the right fuel your body can easily take care of itself. As long as you don’t over-fuel yourself, your body will have more than enough energy to take care you. Give yourself a break, eat less and eat real food. This is so simple, yet so powerful. It almost seems too easy. The truth is, it really is that simple and easy.
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