No, I am not embarrassed of my age nor I want to keep my age a secret. Most of you know by now how old I am. This past January I turned 30. I remember that during that week of my birthday all I wanted to do was to block that number out of my mind and continue living life as like my birthday wasn’t even happening that week. Since my 25th birthday, every year is a bittersweet time when my birthday is approaching. It’s like “Yay, it’s my special day of the year, and I am going to get presents!!!” but then it is like “I wish I didn’t have to turn a year older”. Oh, the problems of getting old…
Since I started my academic career in nutrition, I started discovering how everything we do will directly or indirectly affect our health. I recently discover how even a deep tissue massage (a.k.a. mashing) could even alter your liver enzyme levels (I had a blood work done the day after a mashing session). What I am trying to say is that every little thing we do to our bodies MATTERS. One thing that undeniably directly affects our body and health is food. We rely on food to satisfy a need. However, that need is often misbelieved to be a bothersome. How annoying is to get hungry 3+ times a day? We have to stop what we are doing to satisfy the need. We have to design our schedule around meal times. And more importantly, we have to find the food, either by cooking our meals or going out to buy something. Who has time for that? Who cares that we order take out or delivery for lunch every day because we don’t have time to cook? The important thing is that we are satisfying the need of eating, right? WRONG!
Food is your primary fuel to keep your heart beating, your muscles moving, your lungs breathing, and so on! You need to be concious of every SINGLE food item you consume. This is not about just satisfying a need but to also improving your overall health while doing it. What we eat will determine how strong our immune system is to fight infections, how strong we feel while we exercise, how much energy we have throughout the day, how well we sleep at night, how well we can perform at school and work and the list goes on and on. Food is everything!
People sometimes ask me, what kind of diet do you follow? The Paleo Diet, the Mediterranean Diet, the South Beach Diet, the Eat According To Your Blood Type Diet? And my answer is always the same I follow the Arlene’s Balanced Diet. As a Registered Dietitian I am familiar with all those kind of diets, and while each one of them have strength, none of them will fit my lifestyle completely. I believe in eating all kinds of foods in moderation and according to my fitness/health needs. It is a lifestyle. By giving food the important place it deserve in our lives, we are also giving our health the proper importance that we should to prevent disease in the future. If you ask me, FOOD IS EVERYTHING AND MORE. I love food, and I enjoy eating. So, next time you are in a rush to get "something" to eat, stop for a minute and think if your choice of food is going to improve your health down the road. It is all about thinking and doing... never going through the motions. Let me know if you need my health... I am here for you :)