There are hundreds of news articles and books released every year about how to lose weight and what to eat for a healthy body. Well, I’ve done many of those things throughout my life, and then I was diagnosed with an auto-immune disorder.
A good friend recommended a book called Eat Dirt by Josh Axe. He is a doctor of natural medicine and writes about the foods we eat today and how it’s changed over the last hundred years. He touches on topics like soil, deficiency, the long-term impact of medications and so much more. You will need to take your time reading this book to properly understand and apply what he’s recommending.
So here’s what I started applying to my own diet in the last 3 months:
- Restrict unnecessary sugars
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Sugar is known to be inflammatory to the body and especially harmful to the body — check out this article by Healthline, it explains it very well! Instead of being sad about giving up sugar, I looked to replace it with healthy and natural sugars. A few of my favorites are natural honey and stevia, and fresh fruits. I use honey for all my foods and drinks, but if I’m baking cookies, stevia tastes much better. I also eat all the fruits I love as a source of natural sugar.
- Carbohydrates
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Not all carbohydrates are bad, but most of the markets sell refined carbohydrates that also cause inflammation in the body. Instead of white bread, I opted for sprouted bread, whole grain, and brown rice.
- Prepackaged foods
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When I realized how many foods in my home had unnecessary sugars, I quickly purged everything from my household. All of my healthy cereals contained brown sugar, cane sugar, high fructose corn syrup and absolutely nothing that was edible. As we progress into a world where we are busy preparing food because of work and school, we sacrifice what’s most important: our health. This was no longer a bargain I was willing to make, so I looked for healthier premade foods to still save time.
The Outcome:
Three months later, I have lost weight, have stable energy, and experience less pain throughout my body. I shared this new lifestyle with my friends and all of them have said the same thing, and they didn’t have pre-existing conditions that they needed to be concerned about. Changing the way we eat is difficult, especially when the food industry has great marketing schemes to get you to eat what they sell — even I’m still enticed sometimes. But, in the end, when you start feeling better you realize it’s worth it.