Fitness: Eating ourselves into a grave

Today I am going to give a little tough love! I know that starting a healthy path is rough, I have been there. I know how it feels to look one way in my mind, but see a photograph that looks completely different (My before picture). It is HARD. However, one day I got fed up. I looked unhealthy and felt terrible. If you are battling health or weight you have to reach that breaking point of being “sick and tired of being sick and tired”. The first question once you commit to beginning a healthy life style should not be “Well, can I still eat this?” You’re setting yourself up for failure; that question reveals that you are not ready to change.

The secret is simple; it all starts with the FOOD. What we put into the machine determines what comes out. Yes my friends you can throw away all your diet books, tips, tapes, DVD’s and complete low-carb library because that is the basis of all you need to know. It is the food. It’s the food that makes us thrive or kills us, it’s the food that is giving us energy or drains us and it is the food that adds nutrients or depletes them.

Today in America we are literally killing ourselves with food, and I don’t just mean by being overweight. We are killing our bodies with foreign man-made chemicals, mutated cellular organisms and toxic filler. Our bodies were never designed to eat, digest and use the radical ingredients that are found in our food supply today. The crazy thing is all this death is wrapped up in a cute little cupcake, catchy slogan or hilarious commercial that will bust your gut - literally. Even so called marketed "healthy food" is running around as X-Men mutants of the real thing. 

How have we as a society allowed this extreme dissociation between what we eat and where is comes from? Have we become so distracted by iphones, TV shows, careers and social media to realize that the killer we fear is not outside but in our refrigerator? How many loved ones have to pass away from lifestyle induced diseases like cancer, heart disease and diabetes to make us realize that something is wrong? How does it ever become normal that at the age of 40 doctors in America begin to start people on blood thinners, statins and pharmaceutical cocktails that make us customers forever? Will it ever stop?

I am not coming from a place of judgment because this very well could have been me today, but my hope is that people wake up and THINK. It boils down to the daily seemingly insignificant choices we make to fuel our bodies; to eat a bagel over eating fruit, to forgo vegetables for a pizza, to continually feed our sugar addictions. It has nothing to do with being overweight or thin because thin people are dying of the very same diseases. It is about our health. Think long and hard about what you want for your life. Do you want to battle diseases and prescriptions for the second half of your life or do you want to LIVE?

Start today by educating yourself. Some of my favorite food documentaries are Forks over Knives,IngrediantsVegucated and Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead. It is so important to find out where your food comes from. My rule of thumb on everything I eat is: How close is this food to its natural state?  If there are too many steps in the process then I usually don’t eat it. Nutrition doesn’t have to be so complex. Eat life! Most of our diets should be food that is grown and has been in the sun. Give your body a period to detoxify and rid itself from old habits and toxins (detox video).

You deserve to be healthy! You deserve a good life! Give yourself that chance. Share your thoughts comments and questions below.