LIFESTYLE: What Are You Eating?If You Eat Like An Elephant, You Grow Like An Elephant…

This is a dicey topic and I may touch a few already frayed nerves but kindly forgive me in that regard.
Just yesterday I was having a conversation with a friend who is a natural health doctor concerning food, diets, health and the like. On the other hand, I also have many friends big, small, tall, short, bloated, deflated (ha-ha) and all other forms who have been hooked on one diet or the other with no results. From pepper to bitter leaf concoctions.
But while they are drinking all these concoctions, they are sitting or lying on the couch 24/7.
Most of these women haven’t lost a kilogram in years. Some lose a kilogram today and pack on three tomorrow!  I am dwelling on women because not many men are engaged in the battle of weight.
Well I have tried a few of these concoctions myself which usually come in the most disgusting tastes.
But according to my doctor friend, there is no miracle diet. No, No overnight weight loss that is safe.
Just as success or failure is not a sudden event, there is nothing sudden about weight loss and weight gain. It is all a matter of routine. Your practices, eating habits, it is a lifestyle result! I know there are genetic issues but let’s by pass that for the general picture.
Like it or not, food and exercise are the surest, safest, healthiest and most sustainable way of losing weight.
So the question boils down to: “WHAT ARE YOU EATING?”
My gym instructor once annoyed our aerobics class when he said:”IF YOU EAT LIKE AN ELEPHANT, YOU GROW LIKE AN ELEPHANT, IF YOU EAT LIKE A BIRD, YOU GROW LIKE A BIRD!” And that is absolutely true. You cannot be eating like an elephant and expect to look like a parrot.
So let’s go back to your plate. Before you wolf down, do you take a minute to check that diet?
According to my limited knowledge, your diet not only affects your weight, it also affects your looks. The wrong diet can make you look fifty when you are just thirty. And honestly, I have seen many Ghanaian women in their twenties who look forty something.
Less and less women are exercising or eating right, they have never even walked down the street to the neighborhood grocery store.
Your body needs stimulation, step on a treadmill, hit the track, get some sneakers and work your machinery! Your body is supposed to last you a lifetime so don’t wake up to a squeaky, creaky body in midlife. And wonder why the other person looks fit while you are not.
Big, skinny, none is beautiful without maintenance may so keep it fit anyway you have it.
It doesn’t end with exercise, what are you putting into your body? What are you giving your body to work with, to serve you with?
When did you last put some living food into your body?
If you are eating a lot of dead food (dead cells) you are weakening and killing your body. When your food is fresh, alive and kicking, it only transmits to your body and look. And eventually your life. What diseases you prevent and develop mostly lie in your diet. What do I mean by dead foods?
Foods that are over baked, boiled, broiled, and fried. Those are dead and dull and too much of it make you dead and dull too! No I am not crazy, I am being realistic. Most of our diet not just in Ghana is all dead food. So it is up to you to make that extra effort to eat to live!
What is living food?
I am trying to tell you about fresh, natural, living, organic (when possible) food. Foods like fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and limited grains. Uncooked, unrefined and unprocessed in any way.
Place some value on nutrition, safe food, food for life not the moment. This is food your body was built to recognize and thrive on and digest without strain.
What we are not talking about is anything cooked or heated above 118 degrees, pasteurized, irradiated, canned, preserved, sprayed by pesticides, or containing additives such as MSG, BHA, and BHT. (Frozen is fine in some circumstances, but is not the best option. Freezing compromises the fiber in food, but some frozen fruit in smoothies is acceptable, when fresh is not available. Most frozen food is frozen within 2 days of picking so it can be safe.
Don’t put pressure on yourself by waking up and making a total lifestyle change, take it slow and add up as you go. Easy does it.
So go and put that bottle of concoction and pills aside and get some living food.
All that dead food might taste good but honey, nothing tastes as good as fit and beautiful.