But You Can Control ... Your Diet

One of the biggest take-aways from Jordan Rubin's book, The Maker's Diet, is that we can control the number one most important factor for our health: our diet.

When we are younger we seem to get away with making unhealthy decisions.  As long as we are moderately active, we can consume almost anything without becoming overweight or sick.  Alcohol and smoking don't have such a dramatic effect when we are younger. We can get by with quite a bit of sleep deprivation as well. Why? Because younger bodies are able to adapt to hostile treatment while still staying mostly functional.  

But our bodies remember different kinds of stressors ... and dietary stress is a big one. 

You have probably heard of the word "inflammation" in reference to health and wellness.  Honestly, to this day, the word still seems vague to me.  I still have to pause for a minute and try to remember what it means or why it matters.  

But you can think of inflammation as a kind of stress.  Stress on the gut, causes an immune response, which causes inflammation. Inflammation happens when your body rushes into action because it believes that it's under attack, or there is a foreign invader that needs to be dealt with.  

That's how your body reacts when you consume food that is not digestible or toxic. This includes anything overprocessed (seed oils, sweeteners, grain) or artificial (dyes, flavors, sweeteners, chemicals). After years and years of consuming overprocessed "food," the human body will start to weaken and break down.  Symptoms will appear early on to give us a clue that something is wrong: allergies, eczema, mind fog, fatigue, obesity, chronic sickness. Later on clues will get louder with symptoms such as cardio vascular disease, immune system disfunction or diabetes.

So how can you steer the ship?  If you're a regular partaker of the average American diet, it won't be easy. But you're worth it! 

Your life is worth it.

You'll have to be countercultural. You'll have to get used to a different eating routine. You'll probably have to eat out less often. You'll probably have to work a lot harder to shop for cleaner food. You may have to research where your food comes from.  You may have to give up Kraft cheese (that one took me years to get over).  Believe me, I still have my cravings.  But once your body reacclimates and cleans itself out, your cravings will change as well.