Connecting the Dots with Nutrition

When it comes to nutrition, many do not connect the dots, in my opinion. We get it that if we don’t exercise we won’t have the tone or strength that we want. We get it that if we don’t get enough sleep we won’t function well the next day. We get it that if we eat too much, we gain weight. And we usually get it that if we don’t eat enough we become cranky, sluggish and not our best selves. But were we don’t seem to be connecting the dots is that WHAT we eat – the actual food choices – affects more than our waistline!

Too often I see clients who are achy, sluggish, have digestive issues and joint pain … but they don’t make the connection that diet is a big factor in all of this! Think about it – if you put bad gas in your car it performs poorly or doesn’t run at all! If you watered your plants with Mt. Dew instead of water – how do you think they’d respond? Probably not so great! When you pour grease down your kitchen sink – what happens?  It gets clogged or runs slower doesn’t it? Our bodies are the same – what we put in affects our performance.

I recently was speaking with a medical professional about diet and the side affects of a poor diet. Fibromyalgia, stiff joints, chronic pain, lack of energy, IBS … these are all symptoms affected by a poor diet. I can’t guarantee you that you will completely cure your Fibromyaliga or IBS with a proper diet… but what if you could reduce you symptoms by 50 or more percent? Wouldn’t that be worth it? And what if a new diet meant you no longer needed to take medication and felt good again?  I often hear people say how hard it is to change their diet but isn’t it hard living with chronic issues?  Would it seem so hard if you saw tangible results?

What if we started thinking about our diet as more of a whole body answer not just evaluating how good our diet is by what the scale says each morning?  Skinny people have heart attacks, strokes, chronic pain and digestive issues. While staying at a healthy weight is important – eating foods that provide fuel and don’t cause inflammation to our system is also very important.  A diet high in sugars or glucose can wreck havoc on our body – our guts, our joints or even cause headaches and energy swings. Glucose or sugars come from many sources not just candy. White bread, pasta, sauces, potatoes, cereals, soda – these are all culprits.  Many of us eat diets full of items that are very high up on the glycemic index and low in protein.

Here is a potential day of eating that is high in glucose:

Breakfast – cereal

Lunch- sandwich on white bread with fries

Snack – snickers bar

Dinner – pasta with sauce

And here is a makeover to that same day lowering the glucose intact:

Breakfast – eggs

Lunch – salad with chicken

Snack – almonds and avocado

Dinner – Vegetables and grilled chicken/shrimp/fish

If you don’t feel your best or can’t seem to get the scale to budge – why not try modifying your diet for 30 days.  One week is not enough time to clean out your system and reduce potential existing inflammation. Within a month, however, you just may experience some changes that make the ‘sacrifices’ you are making hardly seem like sacrifices.  If you could trade your cereal for better digestion – wouldn’t that be worth it?  What about swapping mac and cheese for pain-free joints?
Connect the dots with nutrition – focus less on the scale and you may see results you never dreamed you could achieve.

For more on high glycemic index foods click here.