Reclaiming your health and resilience: Part 3 - Nutrition
Transcript
Diet and exercise. When we think of getting healthy or healthier, this is what we think of. It’s also what stops people from getting those same things. Why? Because those things are hard. You might have to give up your favorite things.You might have to stop doing some things you love like sitting around all day watching netflix and eating marshmallows straight out of the bag (ugh my mouth literally just started watering). And start doing things you don’t love like sweating or eating vegetables. Let’s face it if you already loved doing those things we wouldn’t be having this conversation. People do what they love. Usually we love things that bring us comfort.
If you want something different, to feel different. You might have to do something different. You might have to change.
You reap the benefits and consequences of everything you do. So that could be work, food, exercise, entertainment, relationships. That’s what this series is all about. Reclaiming your health and resilience is within your control. Everything we do can be a lever. Nutrition is a very powerful lever. So today, Nutrition is part 3 of this series and it’s going to be big. Everything you consume becomes a part of you and that makes what you eat a very intimate relationship. But unlike relationships with other people you have complete control of this one.
Any doctor can prescribe a drug. You’re the one that has to take it. You’re the one that has to make sure you take it on time and in the right dose. You control that. Ultimately it is your responsibility.
How and what we eat is a big part of our identity. Many of our social and cultural events are centered around food in some way. I can’t think of a single holiday in the US that isn’t associated with food in some way. Even holidays like Memorial Day or Labor Day have become opportunities for picnics.
In my family every time we get together (with a holiday or without) is a time to feast. We can’t even finish one meal before we’re planning the next. And around the holidays there’s usually a special table or space designated to all our traditional cookies or candies imaginable. You can’t walk through the room without taking a few bites (or handfuls). And it needs to be balanced, a little sweet, a little salty, maybe some savory, and don’t forget the wine. It isn’t unusual for me to gain 10 pounds over a 2 week “vacation”
This is all part of our love language. In our family we feed each other our favorite comfort foods and sweets, recipes we don’t normally eat but that have special significance or memories attached to them.
But let’s back up. The purpose of this series is not to shame you out of holiday goodies and point out all the places where you’re going wrong, it's to empower you with ways that you can step back into the driver seat of your wellness and see real and lasting health results that build resilience. And I want to strip out the judgment here, because just like it’s not about how you exercise for 1 hour a day, your nutrition isn’t about what you do 1 day a month or one week a year. It’s about what and how we eat most of the time. Our habits. So let’s start with an understanding of how what we eat affects the nervous system.
As we‘ve touched on in previous episodes, everything we do, consume, come into contact with has some sort of effect on the nervous system for better or worse. What we eat and drink does this directly through the gut.
The digestive process begins immediately with taste, triggering dopamine and other neurotransmitters that tell your gut what to expect.
But before we eat when our stomach is empty there's a cascade of signals from ghrelin ( hunger hormone) to adrenaline, cortisol. Insulin and leptin along with others that trigger your nervous system and activate a certain level of stress so you will go hunt down food.
The longer we put off eating the higher those stress signals can go. This can show up as irritation, anger (or any other dysregulated emotional response) (hangry) symptoms of hypoglycemia. Like shaky hands, anxiety, panic. And interestingly, sometimes you can feel all these things with or without the feeling of actual hunger. Part of our stress response shuts down our appetite in order to not distract us from survival so it can be very confusing in the body. And really confusing for the rational mind. So much so that we might not connect those feelings of anxiety to the need to eat because we don’t feel hungry the way we think we should.
In reality, the body may just be crying out for nourishment.
So when we eat anything, the taste of the food (or drink) tells the brain and the body what to expect and then starts the digestive process with saliva in the mouth and then into the stomach and the gut. We evolved to expect energy (calories) when we eat and to seek out certain types of energy in the form of carbohydrates, fats and proteins. Certain tastes release dopamine in the brain and reinforce the message that “hey this is high energy food, lets get some more of that.”
I’m sure you can guess what those tastes are…sweet, fat, salty. When those flavors are attached to whole food there is a natural off switch activated through insulin and leptin pathways that tells the brain when you have had enough and then we stop eating.
When those same flavors are coming from jacked up processed foods, like cookies, chips and soda it can overwhelm that process of collecting and storing energy so we can’t tell when we’re full. (It’s actually true that “you can’t eat just one” because they’ve engineered it that way.)
When that same hyper sweetened food isn’t connected to any calories as with calorie free foods it can be worse because the body is still looking for energy. You haven’t satisfied the calorie requirement for energy so your system is going to continue to signal for you to go get more.
The fact is there is nothing in nature that is anywhere near as sweet as an oreo cookie or a Mt Dew. Even the most perfect North Carolina strawberry in May. Even salty crunchy things that so many people crave (myself included) are actually a craving for the sugar that comes from simple carbohydrates.
Processed sugar and excessive carbohydrates are the source of so many of our modern health problems, from the physical side with insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease and obesity, to our cognitive health and risk of dementia and Alzheimers and then there’s the mental health aspect of depression, anxiety, and chronic stress injury to our overall quality of life - how we sleep, how we work how we interact with other people but most importantly how we feel about our self. How we feel in our own skin.
Dysregulation of the signals from your gut to your brain can start a cycle of hypervigilance for the nervous system that runs constantly underneath every system in the body.
It’s so simple it’s trite to say “just change what you eat”. But changing how we eat is a daunting idea. It’s like saying just change who you are, then you’ll feel better. Easier said than done.
How we eat is a habit that’s ingrained in us since birth. Rooted in how we were raised. And tied up with confusing misconceptions about healthy food and ever changing recommendations from questionable “expert” sources.
I want to introduce you today to an incredible expert. The person has a lifetime of experience in making choices and they have a unique perspective that you may not have heard before when it comes to understanding and nourishing your body. That person is you.
No really it’s you.
Maybe it’s time to get to know what you know and start paying attention to what your body is trying to tell you about what’s on your plate.
I tell people all the time that they already know what’s healthy and what's not. I believe you know too. I think part of the problem is that people have the idea that healthy food is too expensive, doesn’t taste good, it’s not satisfying, it’s hard to make, and takes too long. All those things could also be true of crappy food.
When I stay out of the center aisles of the grocery store I spend half as much on my groceries.
Real food tastes like real food. It does take time to correct a pallet that’s been overwhelmed by processed sugar but there is more to a flavor profile than just sugar. Simple spice blends are your friend and can open up worlds of flavor.
What does a satisfying meal feel like in your body? For me it used to feel like pain in my gut. I ate too fast, and too much of the high starch, high sugar, high fat and full meant painfully over full. Slow down and notice what you’re eating. Stop when you aren’t tasting the flavors anymore. It’s ok to not clear your plate. You can box it up for another meal.
Not everyone likes to cook. I get it. We’re not all foodies. We have become a culture immersed in convenience. But you don’t have to be a chef to master a grill pan or throw a salad together. Clean simple satisfying meals don’t take a lot of prep time or cook time. Most of my meals don’t take longer than 30 minutes. You can wait longer than that in the drive thru at Biscuitville or Chik fil A
A couple of weeks ago on the podcast we had Jason Sapp on the podcast and he was talking about his experience with PTSD and diabetes and getting his health back under control. One of the things he shares in that episode is how he and his wife cleaned out their pantry and did a full nutrition reset for their family. He basically threw out all the processed junk and went to a whole food diet, cold turkey.
Does that seem extreme?
I did something similar several years ago when I had gotten to the point with my gut pain and anxiety/depression that I was ready and willing to try anything. That’s when I did a 40 day food cleans and then followed it up several months later with the Whole 30 Paleo thing.
When I coach clients on nutrition I often try to soften the blow. Explaining that you don’t have to make big changes all at once. You CAN do it a little bit at a time. Use a food journal, keep track of what you’re doing now and then look for small ways to change. Because it’s true making small changes in your nutrition over time will yield big health results.
But I also think that can be harder in some ways. Because you still have to confront those little temptations every day. And we are nothing if not masters of compensation. No more chips? Ok I’ll replace them with pretzels. If it comes out of a package it's basically the same thing.
Ultimately it’s up to you. I think whether you make small changes to your nutrition intake or go for the full makeover it doesn’t matter as long as you are clear about your intention. That intention should include but maybe not be limited to building up your internal awareness of how what you eat affects YOU. This by the way is why there are 90 gazillion diets out there. You are a unique individual that deserves to be nourished, body, mind and spirit.
Imagine what it would feel like if you were to relieve the pressure from the constant stress signals coming from your gut.
You can start that nourishment on your plate. When you approach how you feed yourself with intention and attention there is an opportunity to reset that intimate relationship with food. But you have to be ready. You have to be willing and you have to have a reason beyond what the eyes can see because this isn’t about changing a dress size. It’s about changing the quality of your life for years to come.
Thanks for joining me today on The Work IN. If you like what you heard today and you want to learn more about how you can start to improve your nutrition for last health benefits head over to savagegracecoaching.com/freeresources to get your copy of my Happy Belly Breakfast Salad Challenge recipes. They are simple delicious ways to start your day. Next week we’ll be looking at how to use connections to reclaim your health and resilience.
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