What is a healthy diet?
Quite simply, it is a diet which provides optimum levels of all known nutrients and low levels of food components which are detrimental to health. If you don't feel very well, the last thing you would look forward to is slaving over a stove every day! I should know - I've been through it too.
The most important thing you need to do before contacting a nutrition counsellor is to overcome, within yourself, the apathy toward self nurture. I believe this apathy is our greatest enemy, a sign of our fast times and the most horrible thing we are teaching our children.
Apathy toward self care and nurture is the number one contributor to a prolonged diseased state within one's body.
Caring about what you eat and how you prepare your food will lead you toward the broader essence of life. This essence of life is made up of clean air, clean water, rest and relaxation, sunshine and shelter, mental balance and harmony, correct food, exercise and activity. When you incorporate any one of these elements lovingly into your life, the others will follow.
A disease is a living thing. It has a life force of its own and it wants to survive as much as any other life force. Any disease will thrive as long as it has the opportunity to form a relationship with you based on emotional, psychological and spiritual stresses.
Generally, disease is classified in five stages. These stages are:
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The adjustment stage, when the body's system is making an effort to keep itself in a homeostatic balance. For example, a symptom of this stage might be perspiration or fever.
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The discharge stage, when the system is attempting to rid itself of useless or noxious matter through other than normal channels, such as sneezing, vomiting or diarrhea.
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The accumulation stage, when the discharge is suppressed or is not adequate. Medication may be introduced at this stage to assist the immune system to discharge. When the accumulation begins to interfere with the body's natural energy system, the next stage is malfunction.
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Malfunction is when the immune system and therefore the organs work less and less efficiently and disease takes a place of priority within the body.
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The last and final stage of disease moves on to structural changes when eventually the shape of the organs or other body structures change, sometimes irreversibly. The further someone progresses through each stage, the harder it is to achieve normal health.
Knowing these physical stages, as well as the emotional and spiritual relationship someone has with a disease, makes it easier to know when to introduce treatments, especially foods as treatments, which are not foreign to the body's healing process.
Good Nutrition is not about food only. Changes in food require changes in a lifestyle. The choices we make and therefore the actions we take, reflect the sort of personality that we are. Choices and actions offset consequences. 'Bad' choices continue unless we can change the way in which we think about a situation.
Our bodies are eternally attempting to achieve a homeostatic state. This is a state of equilibrium of the internal enviroment of the body, which is maintained by dynamic processes of feedback and regulation.
Even when our bodies are static, there is continual movement striving for a state of balance. Between the emotional body, the physical body and the biochemical body, there is constant energy flow which creates a mutual independence. This is LIFE FORCE.
An unhealthy state of being (a disease) is the disruption of this life force flowing through the body. Most disease is tangible and measurable and the best treatment will deal with the individual as a whole and not just the ailment.
Our food is solar energy. We convert it by cooking it and then convert it again by digesting it in order to release this energy back into our bodies. When we ignore this one simple fact and consume foods that don't originate from solar energy, we are creating disease or prolonging an already diseased state.
You can heal your body with food. You can maintain health by making good choices in food and by understanding your place in Natures' life force. It's very simple.
Article provided by:
Maria Mitzikis
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