It’s safe to say that most people would love to be healthier. To live longer, stronger lives with enough energy to accomplish their dreams… or even just to do more fun activities without excess weight, pain, or chronic diseases getting in the way. For me it has taken a while, listening as my body evolves over time to understand what works for me, and I’m still far from finished on the journey. In the earlier years of becoming more health-conscious, I made small changes that felt huge! But, what appeared to be better options were sneaky mirages on the healing path ahead.
Some people are gifted with guidance from a young age on eating well, moving often, and having quality sleep and hygiene routines to support the body’s natural function and ability. Others are less fortunate, going through the patterns of a modernized world with much more processed and artificial foods, much less consistent and beneficial physical movement, and inconsistent quality of rest and routine. Then, there are those who float somewhere in between, learning a little here and there as time goes on, based on the information we have at the time. When the journey into health begins, it can be hard to overcome a way of living that was put into place before our birth, then supported and perpetuated by society. If everyone else is “just fine” eating a standard American diet and neglecting their bodies’ needs, it may not feel necessary to make any changes, or the changes we do find may not feel like they are contributing in a meaningful way. Chronic pain, mood disorders, hormonal imbalances, trouble maintaining a healthy weight, and developing “hereditary” diseases may feel like the hand you’ve been dealt with no solutions in sight, that it’s the way it’s always been and the way it’ll always be. The truth is, it’s not, and the path is not often linear.
If we are lucky to have guidance that clicks with the deeper desires of how we want to live and feel, or realize on our own how tired we are of the way things are, we start to make small shifts in hopes of reaching a more pleasant state. Realizing the power we each have to modify our own reality is necessary in the journey of preventing the more serious health problems that will absolutely take over our lives if we continue to ignore the cause and effect dynamics of poor diet and lifestyle choices. We are constantly warned about these dangers everywhere we look – in our friends, relatives, healthcare system, and our community. It’s not a secret or a surprise that things will stay the same without action, nor that healing on a massive scale happens with intentional action. Once we see the potential we have, it will take time to fine-tune what works for us individually through trial, error, and eventual successes. What took the most time on my journey was realizing that so many of the “improvements” I made weren’t necessarily improving my health, and there were many other choices I was making that counter-balanced the efforts I was putting in. This is an all too common and easy mistake to make.
It was pretty early on that I started noticing foods I wanted to eliminate from my diet to benefit my body. It felt important to be aware of undeniably problematic foods and make better choices. Soft drinks and fast food were the main two, with animal meats on their way out around the same time, for ethical reasons. I would have the occasional root beer or orange soda float, as well as drive-thru with friends or family when necessary. What I ended up preferring to drink was water, cow’s milk (usually 2% or fat free), fruit juice, fruit smoothies, and – my absolute favorite drink in high school – XXX Vitamin Water. These seemed to be great alternatives to the notoriously toxic sugary sodas. Little did I realize, and much later on, that most of these options weren’t as healthful as I thought they were, and might even effect the body in similar ways to the options I was avoiding. I was duped, like most of us often are, by the misinformation around healthier drink options as well as our general lack of knowledge about the way certain foods, like sugar, work. I was thinking “fruit juice comes from fruit, it must be super nutritious!” and “Vitamin Water has 100% of the daily recommended amounts of B12, B6, B5 and C!” We often think about the benefits something holds, rather than its downfalls. In reality, a bottle of that Vitamin Water contains 32g of sugar, equivalent to about 8 teaspoons, all added in the form of crystalline fructose and cane sugar. And that delicious fruit juice… 22g of sugar in an 8 oz cup of apple juice and 19g in a cup of orange juice. These aren’t added sugars, but when the juice is squeezed and removed from the fiber of the fruit, there isn’t anything to slow the release of the sugar in our digestive tract and our body handles it just as quickly as it would if it was processed cane sugar. This leads to blood sugar spikes, hyperactivity, energy crashes, the risk of decreased insulin sensitivity (insulin resistance), as well as weight gain, mood fluctuations, and other blood sugar-related health issues.
As for the foods I was still happy to eat while ditching fast foods, they were just as confusing and contradictory. I was a vegetarian, but my folks called me a starch-etarian because I ate so many, if not mainly, processed starches and simple carbohydrates, lots of dairy products, and of course PB&J. Processed foods galore, lots of home-made baked goods, nachos, grilled cheese, casseroles, candy, frozen foods and desserts, pizza, quesadillas, you name it. They were right, I ate more of all those foods than I did fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. Not sure how this all made sense to me.
It was an interesting mindset to have, eating the way I did but feeling like I was healthy for giving up a few of what seemed to me to be the worst foods. I saw myself in a certain light, yet struggled in so many ways that may have absolutely been linked to poor diet, such as depression, anxiety, overeating, oversleeping, intense mood swings, trouble concentrating, memory issues, and more. These are just a couple examples of how we can be mislead while trying our best to do well for ourselves. If we understood more clearly the way certain foods worked, and didn’t fall victim to advertisements and highly-palatable foods, we would have a much better shot at getting on and staying on the path we really want to be on. Learning what is in our foods that we don’t want, and asking what isn’t in our foods that should be there for our overall health is incredibly necessary. Read ingredient lists and nutrition details, opt for less-processed foods, foods with less sugar, less artificial ingredients, and please remember that advertisements are almost always paid for by the brand itself to sell its product, not to properly educate you.
Making small adjustments toward health will always be better than no effort at all, even if our early attempts feel like missed marks later on. Take time to get to know the foods you choose in place of others. Explore a variety of opinions and resources on them, and explore them on your own to help understand what foods feel best for you. Let’s work together to avoid the trap of healthy disillusions.
Have you ever made substitutions you felt good about and later on learned they weren’t what you thought?
What are some of your starter substitutions vs current favorites?
If you are interested in improving your health in a 1:1 setting, I’m always scheduling complimentary 50-minute Connection Calls! E-mail me: laura@heartcenteredholistic.com
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Have a beautiful day!
– Laura
