We Are What We Eat!

 
Have you ever heard of the saying, "You are what you eat"?  Nothing has ever been more true than that statement.  This is why it is important to understand why you should be eating more of nature's foods, rather than eating processed, fast, or junk foods.  If your diet consists mostly of those types of foods, in relationship to "you are what you eat", you will have a body that is run on chemicals, preservatives, and food that has little to no nutritional value.  Is that who you want to be?

We know that processed foods are full of chemicals, preservatives, white flour, white sugar, and give us little nutrition, if any at all.  Why on earth would you want to fill your body with that kind of food?  Are you eating all for taste and none for health?  This is something that you need to evaluate in yourself.  I have said it before, and I will say it again...the number one reason we eat is to fulfill the need for nutrition in our bodies.  If you are eating foods that have no nutrition, you are defeating the purpose for eating.

By the way, if you think that fast food, junk food, and processed foods taste good, it is only because you have trained your taste buds to like that kind of food.  It happens if that is what you are eating most of the time.  If you stopped eating those types of foods and just ate fresh fruits, fresh vegetables, lean proteins, whole grains, nuts, legumes, and other natures foods, you would find that eating junk food, fast food, and processed food, would not taste good to you.  I actually get nauseous when I eat those types of food because my system isn't used to it.  I prefer natures foods because I have eaten that way most of my life.

Most restaurants and fast food places are mandated to show their fat gram and calorie count of the foods on their menus today.  It is amazing what has happened.  Most people who actually see how fattening and high in calories these foods are, end up choosing the lower calorie and  lower fat choices on the menu.  These establishments have been forced to put healthier choices on their menus so that people have the choice to eat healthy or not.  Having said that there are still enough people who don't care and choose to eat the unhealthy menu choices.  Those are the food addicts whose health is not their priority....eating the bad food is.

When you see how many calories, fat, and sodium that are in the foods sold in fast food, or chain restaurants, you will understand why we have 65% of our population over weight and obese.  We really need to wake up and understand that it is what we are eating that is killing us.  I have written many blogs on the nutritional account of theater food, carnival food, fast food, and restaurant food that you can look up in the archives of this blog that are quite eye opening.  I will never have anything in a theater again, except water!

Remember that it is not just calories that we are interested in, we also care about the quality of those calories.  It is not just fat that we care about, it is the kind of fat that we need that is important.  I have several blogs on these topics in my archives as well if you are interested in reviewing this information.

It takes 3500 calories to gain or lose a pound.  It is easy when choosing items from a fast food or chain restaurant to eat that many calories in a meal...or at least close to it.  Most of us need somewhere between 1500 and 2500 calories for the whole day, depending on your sex, body fat percentage, activity level, and metabolism.  If you do the math, again you can see why their are so many people who are over weight.

When reading the food labels on processed foods, you will find many ingredients that you may not be able to pronounce, and most likely have no idea what they are.  If we are what we eat, do you really want to be any of those ingredients?  Certainly not if you are looking to be healthy.  They say that you should not eat anything that would not be found in your grandmothers pantry.  That means most of the processed foods on the grocery shelves should not be eaten....they are full of preservatives and chemicals that do not belong in our bodies.

So keep remembering that "You are what you eat" when you are choosing your foods.  If you are wanting to be healthy, lean, strong, feeling good, and looking good, choose natures foods for the bulk of your diet.  Then you can be proud of saying, "I am what I eat!".

Till Monday,
Queenie