All men are created equal but all foods are not. Some foods should not be labeled “food” but “edible or consumable product, void of nourishment”.
What is living food? – Fruits, vegetable, grains, seeds and nuts
They exist in a raw or close to raw state and are beautifully packaged in divinely created wrappers. Living foods look robust, healthy and alive. They have not been bleached, refined or chemically enhanced and preserved. Living foods are plucked, harvested and squeezed, not processed, packed and put on a shelf. Living foods are recognised as food. Dead foods are the opposite. They have been altered, in every imaginable way, to make them last as long as possible and be as addictive as possible.
That usually means the manufacturer adds considerable amounts of sugar and man-made fats that involve taking various oils and heating them to dangerously high temperature, so that the nutrients die and become reborn as something completely different – a deadly, sluddy substance that is toxic to our bodies.
Life breads life. Death breads death. When you eat living foods, the enzymes in their pristine state interact with your digestive enzymes. The other natural ingredients God put in them – vitamins, minerals, plytonutrients, antioxidants, fibre and more – flow into your system in their natural state. These living foods were created to cause your digestive system, blood stream and organs to function at optimum capacity.
Dead food hit your body like a foreign intruder. Chemicals, including preservatives, food additives and bleaching agents, place a strain on the liver. Toxic man-made fats begin to form in your cell membranes. They become stored as fat in your body and form plague in your arteries. Your body does its best to harvest the traces of good from these deadly foods, but in the end you are undernourished, overfed and overweight.
If you want to be a healthy, vibrant, energetic person, rather than someone bouncing between all-you-can eat buffets and fast food restaurants, take your diet seriously. Now is the time to make the changes to living foods.
Note this rule:
It takes about twenty minutes for the food you have eaten to reach your small intestines and signal your brain to stop eating. If you stuff yourself with dead foods, it can take even longer for your brain to detect that it has the nutrition it needs. You keep eating more of the same dead foods, and you are caught in a toxic trap.
If you consume five pounds of food daily, over your lifetime, it would be around seventy tonnes of food that would pass through your intestinal tract and be assimilated by your body. This is the equivalent of about forty midsized cars, if you live for 77 years.
Those that eat dead food at the age of fifty-five to sixty-four must develop high blood pressure.
Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. And it is wonderfully made.
The Psalmist said “Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex. Your workmanship is marvelous – how well I know it” (Ps 139:14 NLT).
You are not placed on earth to be anaemic, feeble and helpless. God wants you to live more abundantly, disease-free and in maximum health. Your physical body is precious and was created as a dwelling place for God, your creator. Yet most people pollute their temple by eating too much food and eating the wrong foods.
God envisioned you in His heart. You are His masterpiece, designed according to an eternal plan so awesome that it is beyond our ability to comprehend. Your body is an amazing creation – something far superior to anything developed by man.Only God Himself could have created such a remarkable work of art.
We not only have a body that functions with billions of parts, but we are also blessed with feelings and emotions.
May be you have felt hopeless or even said, “Why try now when I have already tried everything?” You said it; you tried. The good news is that you are not alone.
Set practising, temperance, moderation, portion control and self-restraints, when it comes to food, then when you make positive changes to your diet, it will have real and lasting effects on your health.
People who restrict their calories live longer. More than two thousand studies support the fact that a low calorie, optimal nutrition diet can extend life by 30 – 50 per cent.
Do you know that choice of food sometimes depends on mood? When you are happy,you want to go to fast food restaurants with your friends.
Why people eat wrong foods
Some unhealthy eating are psychological and some biological.
* It is convenient to eat bad foods.
* It is a habit to eat bad foods. Some people are raised on regional ethnic cooking that is not always healthy.
* It is a vicious cycle. People fall in a cycle of eating sugar, and the circle perpetuates itself.
* It is comforting to eat bad foods.
Excessive stress elevates cortisone, which leads to craving and what is often called
emotional eating. When people are stressed, depressed, anxious, or just low in
serotonin, norepinephrine or dopamine, they often reach for foods that pump up those feel-goods chemicals. Too often, however, these foods are junk foods, processed foods or foods with lots of sugar, making then unhealthy choices.
Food craving
Unhealthy food cravings do require an extra measure of self-control, if we are going to conquer them, but be encouraged. These cravings are merely your body’s way of signaling that something is out of reach.
And that “something” can be physical, hormonal, neurochemical, emotional or even spiritual. Commit your cravings to God at the moment they occur. He will give you the strength to get through them without over eating and the wisdom to understand what your body or heart is trying to tell you. Let your cravings begin a process of bringing your body back into physical and spiritual balance.
One of the emotional motivators that can send you to fast foods is stress or worries, especially when you hold on to them. Depression also can lead you to these comfort foods.
Note:
1. Control your portions. If you do slip up and indulge in an unhealthy food, never eat directly from the package. Place a small portion on a plate.
2. Keep water with you all the time. Drinking water can often curb hunger pangs and make you feel full, without turning to unhealthy food or high sugar beverages.
3. Never go anywhere without packing a healthy snack, such as fruits or nuts (e.g. Almond) in single serving size in a container.
4. Distract yourself. Taking a brisk walk will help you get your mind off your craving and also release stress and burn off some calories in the process.
5. Consume high fibre foods with each meal and snack. This will help to stabilise blood sugar and help to control hunger.
Think of a healthy alternative e.g. instead of ice cream, take yogurt. Instead of fried potatoes chips, try baked potatoes. While these alternatives might not be ideal, at least they are a step in the right direction and can help bridge the gap between where you have been and where you want to be with your diet.
When someone develops a habit of eating unhealthy food it is called ORTHOREXIA. This is a newly discovered eating disorder.
Reasons that may be behind emotional eating
People that have emotional eating habits might have probably grown up hearing statements like:
a. Eat everything on your place; otherwise do not leave the table.
b. If you are good, you will get ice cream.
c. Eat something; it will make you feel good.
d. If you don’t finish everything on your plate you will not make mum happy.
e. If you stop crying, I will give you cake and ice cream.
Whether the causes of your eating habits are genetic or psychological, you are not bound by your past. Today is a new day filled with fresh hope for a new way of thinking and living.
I am asking God to give you the determination and will power to follow through on your new eating strategies. Not only will you lose weight and feel better but you will also be taking care of your body, God’s temple, and begin to live a full and abundant life.
Source: What will Jesus eat by Dr. Don Colbert
