LHBI – Looks Healthy But Isn’t!  I just made that up!
Food is a tricky thing.  You can have all the knowledge in the world, all the desire to eat healthy and feel good, maybe even have serious dis-satisfaction with your body, your energy levels, or your health, and still find it difficult to maintain positive eating habits.  That’s because “old habits die hard”.  Seriously.  Think about your worst food habits, there’s always a pattern:

• binging after dinner
• munching on snacks at the office
• starving in the middle of the afternoon
• eating off your kids plates
• evening wine and crackers
• too many beers after work
• scheduled stops Starbucks/Panera/anywhere you can buy a snack and drink

There’s not a lot of original, different “bad habits”.   I’ve been surveying this in nutrition groups I’ve led and when I ask “what’s your worst eating habit”, its just a small handful of answers over and over. And that’s a good thing, because identifying your bad habits is the first step to changing them. I’m going to do a group in May on habits and eating patterns.

For now, realize that you really really do have control over what you put in your mouth.  Make a plan, shop, schedule your cooking/prepping/packing time just like you schedule everything else.  Don’t even allow the thought that you’re too busy enter your mind.  Everyone has the same amount of time.  The busiest people tend to get the most things done because they live by their lists.  Make your health a priority.   You really do have control over what you put in your mouth, you just have to exercise that control.  That said, here’s another “looks healthy but isn’t” break down.

I LOVE Seaweed Salad, and I was so excited when I first saw it at Wegmans.  What sounds more healthy than Seaweed?   (If you want to improve THYROID function, you should incorporate kelp/seaweed into your diet), but then I took a look at the ingredient list, along with seaweed: sugar,  disodium inosinate,  disodium guanylate, yellow #5, and blue#1.  5 ingredients with serious side effects.  Disodium inosinate and Disodium guanylate both often contain MSG, but even without MSG, they have this side-effect list:  headaches and migraines, weakness, sweating, nausea, and flushing.  We went over blue #1, the other day, but here’s the info on yellow #5:  banned in Austria, Norway, and much of Europe;  side effects are allergies, skin reactions, asthma attacks, broncho-constriction, blurred vision, migraines, anxiety, and cancer.

If you’ve been following along for the past month, and have had the opportunity to read the side effects of food additives in common, healthy seeming, convenient, processed, foods,  are you making the connection between these side effects and your health, weight, and mood, or your child’s health, weight, and mood?    Anyone on medication for headaches, migraines, nausea, anxiety?…..What if you just changed your foods. These side effects are very, very real. These additives cause serious damage to our bodies and our minds.

Cook and eat Real Whole Foods.  Know what you’re putting in your body because you build your health, or tear down your health, with each meal.