How should I eat?
Well, this is the million dollar question, so we will lay out basic principles in an easy to follow and easy to understand format. Eating for health and a healthy weight is not difficult if you know how to structure your eating based on appropriate food choices, nutrient timing and what drives your metabolism into overdrive.
Let’s discuss food and its effect on health. The old adage “You are what you eat” is truer than you know. What you eat determines your health. I am going to introduce a couple of terms to frame the conversation. The first is Chronic Low-Grade Inflammation this is going to be the foundational term of this document so make sure to embed it because you will hear it a lot.
What is Chronic Low-Grade Inflammation??
In a nutshell, the foods that you eat either improve immune function or hurt it. Imagine that, if, every time that you ate a Ho Ho you would be punched in the arm hard enough that to cause bruising. This bruise is repaired by your immune system, now imagine that, for many years, every time that you eat a Ho Ho that you were punched in the same spot eventually you would not only bruise you would also have a large scar that has formed due to repeated damage to the area. In essence, this is what happens when you eat foods that are known as inflammatory. To avoid boring you with research and biochemistry I will lay it out like this, the foods you eat will EITHER increase or decrease the activity of your immune system. Keep in mind, inflammation is a required part of the healing process but too much of it can have many, many negative effects over the long term. Chronic Low-Grade Inflammation is a long term imbalance between foods that calm the immune system and foods that cause the immune system to become overactive. If the body is in a Pro-Inflammatory state for long enough then eventually the body will begin to express any number of different diseases based upon your genetic predisposition.
Diseases/Conditions that Low Grade Chronic Inflammation has been shown to cause:
- • Irritable Bowel Syndrome
- • Heart Disease
- • Type II Diabetes
- • Osteoarthritis
- • Alzheimer’s disease
- • Metabolic Syndrome and its associated diseases
- o PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome)
- o Hypertension
- o Coronary Artery Disease
- o Increased Stroke Risk
- o Certain Types of Cancer (Breast et. al)
- o Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease
- o Gall Stone formation
- o Sleep Apnea
- o Eczema
- o Psoriasis
- o Macular Degeneration
- o Multiple Sclerosis
- o Asthma
- o COPD
- o Endometriosis
- o Prostate Disease
- o Parkinson’s Disease
- o Headaches
- Migraine
- Cluster
- o Fibromyalgia
- o Many Chronic pain conditions
o AND MANY, MANY MORE!!
SO DID I MAKE MY POINT???
OK, so now we know that food is more than just calories (protein, carbs, fats, etc.) it is the largest single determining factor in how our health will express as we age.
