INCREDIBLE INTELLIGENT YOU!
Author: Edwina Murphy-Droomer
YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT! LITERALLY!
Your body is built from water, protein, fat, and a little from carbs, vitamins, and minerals.
EVERY BITE, EVERY DRINK, MATTERS.
It is literally the energy, the information and the building blocks that make you, YOU!
aND qUItE fRAnkLY i tHiNK yOu MaTtER!
This being the case, it makes sense that you would want to understand what to put in your mouth to ensure you are creating the best possible version of YOU. As an example, if you are organizing to have a new home built, do you say to the builder,
“She’ll be right mate just choose the cheapest shit you can find from a big dodgy company that doesn’t really care if the goods are up to scratch or not.”
OR DO YOU SAY
“Let’s choose the best possible products that we can, from a company that uses ethical, sustainable, trusted, and where possible locally sourced products.”
Wouldn’t it be a good idea to apply this same logic to caring for our bodies?
But, I hear you ask, how the heck do I know what is good and what isn’t, everybody seems to have a different opinion?
My answer is always to GO BACK TO BASICS. Don’t get caught up in what is the latest greatest super food or diet shake. To cut through the confusion and the overwhelm once and for all, let’s revisit the what and why from a big picture point of view.
Let’s start with a quick revision of the various roles each of the macronutrients plays and why we need them. I know this can be a little dry, but understanding the bare basics really helps, I promise! Even better, have this conversation with your oh so wise teenager. This is an awesome way to find out what they are learning at school, whether they have a grasp on these fundamentals, and to bring what they are learning at school into real-world solutions that they can use to take control of their own health with confidence.
Protein: Some proteins have a structural role, they are a little like Lego blocks, that are known as the building blocks of life. Others play physiological roles, for example, proteins in the form of enzymes do everything from helping us digest our food to generating the energy that we need simply to walk around every day. There are other proteins that provide the machinery for muscle contraction and there are immunological proteins in the form of antibodies. And last on this list is the regulatory proteins that function as hormones and control things like growth and development and mediate responses of the nervous system. With diabetes in plague proportions now we are all familiar with insulin, an example of one of these regulatory hormones is insulin, which regulates blood glucose levels.
Carbohydrates: are in essence, your bodies fuel, just like your car needs fuel to run, your body needs fuel to make it go. Carbohydrates are found naturally occurring in foods like nuts, grains, fruits, beans, milk, and vegetables. There are three main types of carbohydrates:
Sugar is the simplest form of carbohydrate and occurs naturally in some foods, including fruits, vegetables, milk and milk products. Types of sugar include fruit sugar (fructose), table sugar (sucrose) and milk sugar (lactose).
Starch is a complex carbohydrate, meaning it is made of many sugar units bonded together. Starch occurs naturally in vegetables, grains, and cooked dry beans and peas.
Fibre is a complex carbohydrate. It occurs naturally in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and cooked dry beans and peas.
Fat: Fats transport the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K into the body and help with their absorption. Some fats supply essential fatty acids, essential because the body can’t make them itself and they determine your brain’s integrity and ability to perform. They also help also help to form the structural material of cells and tissues such as the cell walls. They play a role in insulation, energy, regulate metabolism and provide resistance to stress, stimulate reproductive functions, and promote wound healing.
We can see here that ALL these macronutrients are ESSENTIAL, so what are the best sources?
With an unending supply of experts throwing around endless conflicting information and confusing theories, I want to give you a sure-fire way to wade your way through the BS with ease.
It all starts with having a philosophy …
Here’s mine (I am secretly hoping you will share it with me, cos sharing is caring!)
Vitalism which sees that all life possesses its own innate intelligence, this allows us to live, grow, adapt, and heal. We are self-aware, self-organizing, and self-healing organisms, and to be vital we need to be in tune with our environment. This means, among other things, eating unadulterated, seasonal foods that nature provides.
vi·tal
- Full of life or energy; animated:
What does all that mean? Well, you don’t need to tell your body to heal a cut, it has its own self-healing routine that allows it to do so. You don’t need to tell your hormones to kick in at the right time and wake you up or help you to sleep, it is self-organizing and just gets on with it, and you don’t need to tell your eyes to squint if you are looking into a light that is too bright, it is simply self-aware and performs this task without your instructions.
So, with these incredibly intelligent bodies of ours doing their job why are we seeing this CRAZY epidemic of chronic disease? Obesity, Diabetes, Cancer, and Autoimmune Conditions like Arthritis, Celiac, Crohn’s and Hashimoto’s. Not to mention the escalation in mental health disorders like anxiety and depression which we know has strong links to gut health.
Hippocrates – “All Disease Begins in The Gut”
Well, in essence, ALL of these diseases are a result of diet and lifestyle choices. Amongst other things that I will go into in the coming weeks, it is largely due to an absence of unadulterated food provided by nature and instead, a reliance on cheap, easy, convenient, nutrient devoid foods. Our bodies are losing their intelligence. The very definition of autoimmune disease is that our bodies have become somewhat dense and have turned on themselves. “Aaaarrrrggggg you crazy liver cell, you are not white and pure …. I will KILL you, dead …. mwahahahaha (evil laughter)
The good news is that we can, with a little love, kindness and dedication turn this situation on its head.
After all, if we are what we eat, who would want to be cheap, fast, and easy …. wahahaha (eyebrow raised!) … ok maybe that might be fun for a while but in the long run, it will come back to bite you, chomp!
My non-negotiable first step to a life-enriching diet starts here, it might not sound all that sexy, but I promise it is the BEST place to start.