But what about the junk-food we take in?
It's been my own experience that you have to wean yourself from addictive, non-healthy eating patterns. For example, wheat, glutton, sugary deserts, starchy foods, wine, beer, fatty and fried food, cheese, artificial and overly processed foods are almost all culprits for many of us that lead our health astray. Not because they can't be fun in small or occasional doses, but because, when overly-consumed, they don't support our health.
[Tomatoes on the bush (from en:) Taken by en:User:Fir0002]
What is interesting is that the body, when acclimated to regular consumption of some of these "non-food food products," thinks and responds to them like they are necessary food. They are not.
However, until the body weans itself from these often addictive-like substances, it will still want them.
In my experience, replacing non-food food products with really, really delicious, healthy, life-impregnated, beautiful, and great tasting food is essential to that. You have to give the body something that it will like and learn to like more than the stuff that isn't so good for it. And the body needs time to re-realize that this healthy and delicious food ups the quality of energy, sleep, joy, and life itself.
I have a theory that it takes about five days to make the first shift towards that readjustment. At that point, you pass into the next stage, where you still might think about the life-depleting food, but you are actually starting to also experience actual nourishment. Three more days passes you through that danger period. Don't slip!
After this there are two more important shifts (of five days and three days each) wherein the draw towards life-depleting foods continues to ease up and disappear and a body readjustment occurs. In each phase, it gets easier because the body is getting better nutrients and starting to experience more health and balance. As the body feels better, it more easily convinces the mind that it likes healthy food choices too.
For example, I am allergic to wheat. One of the ways my body responds to that allergy, when exposed to too much wheat, is by craving it. (I found out that this is apparently a common reaction to a food allergy.) Now, I can still have occasional wheat in small doses, but if I have it all the time, my body starts to think it needs it.
When I've gotten myself to this point, I need to wean my body of it and the first five days without it are the hardest. After that, it's basically out of my system and the rest is more of a distancing from the wheat. Each stage frees my body–and my mind–from wanting this allergic substance more and more, and by Day 24, I am free of it and I have established a new, sustainable, nourishing eating pattern.
So, if you are giving up something not-so-good for you that you crave, understanding these weaning stages might be helpful:
Day 5 : 5 days gets bad foods out of system = less craving for them
Day 8 : 3 days past thinking you can now control the craving
Day 13: 5 days gets you further from the old cravings and gives body more healthy balance
Day 16: 3 days past a lighter temptation period to revert
Day 21: 5 days gets you further away from any lingering cravings and towards a more sustainable health
Day 24: 3 days past an even lighter mental temptation to revert
Good food satisfies the body. It does not make the body want to overeat (or give you headaches or put you in a bad mood or drain you of energy, etc.). And, yes, sometimes we all crave something a little salty, a little sweeter, a little more filling. But when the body is in balance, it will crave the healthier of those choices, not the least healthy.
-bbffair
Hi bbffair! thats so true what you wrote it is like an addiction to unhealthy food. And with any addiction it takes time to overcome the body's needs for the unhealthy injection. Also loads of this unhealthy food makes us believe we have eaten enough but when you listen to your body more closely we are even more hungry only a short period of time afterwards. For example junk-food from McDonalds or BurgerKing - when you eat a burger the body as satisfied but only for a very short period of time. And then you want more much more.
ReplyDeleteI, too, have food allergies. Its particular paprika, kiwi and bananas. It feels like cramps in my stomach - which is not a good feeling. It hurts and I am not hungry for hours, so I stopped eating those and I do not need them - ok it was easier as I knew when I eat them I feel really sick but still sometimes a banana would be great but is definitely not allowed.
Also I think its ridiculous how cheap junk-food is and how expensive healthy food is.
Please forgive me if I make grammatical mistakes but English is not my mother tongue as I am from Austria, Europe and my mother tongue would be german :-)
Hi Nina, Yeah, it's important to be a savvy shopper and I cannot say enough how important the life-quality of the food is. It should look, smell, feel, like Life! Allowing your senses to really connect with that in your food and spices helps the body to locate what it really needs for nourishment. It also benefits one to shop ahead for both quality and good choices of food so that daily, one can ask: What am I really hungry for? My body tells me, very clearly, when it needs dark green vegies, or fruit, or protein. Your English is great. I would not do so well in a second language!
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