One of my main goals in life is to help people connect these dots: food, health, weight. If you read my blog, you know I’m not referring to calories, or fat grams. I’m referring to nutrients in food and chemical reactions that happen when our body uses those nutrients. When you care more about: what’s in your food, what it does to you, and how it makes you feel; than you care about calories, then I know you’re on track to be lean and healthy, forever.
What you fill your mind with is what’s going to rule your mind. For instance, if you’re swayed by any of these advertisements (make sure you check out the last one – it’s my favorite), you’re going to continue along hoping that if you can just starve yourself for a sufficient amount of time, you’ll end up skinny and happy. It doesn’t work that way. Look back over your own history: low cal dieting and tons of exercise are a VERY temporary way to take off pounds,always to the detriment of your Thyroid, Adrenals, Sex Hormones, Neurotransmitters, and Muscles. Do it with Low Fat products, high in carbs, and there goes Insulin and Blood Glucose levels also. Your body wants Nutrients to Run Correctly. That’s all it wants, honest. Eat to make your body as healthy as possible and your weight will become healthy and stable. That’s all it takes, really.
Here’s some interesting bullet points (to fill your mind with) on why Real Whole Foods are so important.
*To make hair, nails, cartilage, growth hormone, glutathione (our #1 antioxidant), insulin, prolactin, and a whole bunch of other parts of our body, we need to have plenty of Sulfur. Sulfur is the 3rd most common mineral in our body after calcium and phosphorus.
*Research points to sulfur deficiency in obesity, heart disease, cancer, and many “wasting” conditions. Sulfur is also a crucial ‘ingredient’ in joints, and all joint supplements are sulfur containing: chondroitin sulfate, methyl sulfate, glucosamine sulfate…
*Garlic, onions, and cruciferous vegetables (brussels, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli…) are loaded with sulfur. So are egg yolks, fish, meat, and poultry.
*Many studies show that garlic, onions, and other allicin (sulfur containing) foods are incredibly protective against cancer and heart disease.
*The National Cancer Institute found that individuals who ate the most allicin vegetables (red onions, scallions, garlic, chives and leeks) had a nearly 50% lower cancer risk than those who ate the least.
*A large-scale epidemiological Iowa Women’s Health Study looked at the garlic consumption in 41,000 middle-aged women. Results showed that women who regularly consumed garlic had 35% lower risk of developing colon cancer.
*Acetaminophen depletes sulfur levels in the body. Sulfur is used to both break down and escort out (via urine), acetaminophen. Breakdown happens in the liver. We have large stores of the antioxidant Glutathione in the liver, or we’re supposed to. Acetaminophen drains those supplies. Acetaminophen is the Number 1 Cause of Liver Failure in the U.S.
Real Whole Food is made from compounds that our body needs to run correctly. Here’s some more cool facts:
*Our body makes Vitamin D3 when the cholesterol from INSIDE of us, rises to the OUTSIDE of us/on top of our skin, and is “mixed/hit with” with UVB rays from the sun. Vitamin D SULFATE is made. Vitamin D sulfate is WATER SOLUBLE, so it sinks right back down through the skin, into the blood where it goes anywhere in the body that Vitamin D is supposed to go.
*Here’s a UVB map of the United States for March.
****Vitamin D3 supplements are UN-SULFERATED. That means NOT water soluble. ( Our blood is water, right?) The liver must make LDL to transport UN-sulferated Vitamin D3 through the blood.
*Both cholesterol and sulfur protect the skin from radiation damage, the kind of damage that can lead to skin cancer. Remember, cholesterol is an ANTIOXIDANT. That’s one of the reasons our liver makes so much of it.
*Here’s a great podcast with Senior MIT Researcher Stephanie Seneff on Statins, Cholesterol, and the “Real Demons” of heart disease.
If you want to get slim, healthy, and be loaded with energy, you need to learn how the body works and what food does to you. Invest in yourself, invest in your loved ones. Become a Real Whole Foodie.