This is a story about why I have developed and continue to develop the perspectives that I have.
I’ve already shared bits and pieces of my wellness journey in parts one, two, and three. In those posts, you can gain a greater understanding of some of the different dietary choices I have tried in my life to manage my wellness.
In short, two separate times in my life I became quite ill, and changes to what I ate helped me manage intolerable symptoms I was dealing with.
Those experiences have made me truly understand that what we eat affects the biology and biochemistry of every cell of our body, which affects both our physical body and our minds.
The first event of illness and recovery through diet is what set me on the path to return to school to study naturopathic medicine so I could help teach and empower others to make the best choices for themselves to optimize wellness and find their full potential.
However, when I fell ill again in 2016, my eyes were opened even more. I tried to manage my symptoms with what I knew to be true about dietary choices. However, I just kept getting sicker and sicker.
It wasn’t until I tried a highly controversial way of eating did I manage to get a
This experience made me curious about what was going on. With newfound energy, I started looking down some new paths of knowledge. Ideas I hadn’t learned in school. Concepts outside of what is considered common and accepted knowledge.
The further I dove, the more I realized that for the most part, we, as a society are being duped.
We’re being controlled by politics, money, marketing, and large corporations that will do anything to manipulate us to buy more of their products.
Even if it means dedicating exorbitant quantities of money to research, craft, and engineer products that will activate our neurotransmitters the same way addictive, illicit drugs do.
Sugar is more appealing to a mouse than cocaine. Oreo cookies light up a rat’s brain more than heroine. Food companies know this, but most of us consumers don’t.
As I began to venture down this dietary experimental road, I started to realize as I tried to reintroduce various products, that there are additives, flavour enhancers, stabilizers, chemicals, and added sugars and starches in so many packaged foods. And I react to all of them.
This forced me to become more aware. As I continued to work with my own clients, I began to realize that most people have no clue what’s in their food. Most don’t think to read ingredients, nor do most understand what half of those ingredients
Food is important. It fuels us, it affects our biochemistry and how we function.
What we choose will not only affect our wellness but can also affect what drives our actions and our motivations.
These processed foods can affect hunger hormones and neurotransmitters to such a degree that it can affect our priorities, especially in terms of how we’re deciding to fuel ourselves, treat ourselves, and our seeking behaviours.
Where do we choose to spend our money? Certain foods can motivate us to do certain things that we wouldn’t necessarily do. A recent research article touches on this very fact.
Participants were willing to pay more money for foods that contained a combination of fat + carbohydrates, which is the exact combination that we find in most ultra-processed food.
Imbalanced metabolic hormones from certain food choices can affect our mental state, which can affect decision making, our relationship with others, our memory, and our level of cognitive function.
Then there’s a whole sector of newly emerging information about nutrition topics that we as a society, for ages, have assumed as biblical knowledge.
Some examples of this include the statements that fruit, fibre, vegetables, and grains are not only nutritious and good for us, but they’re necessary for us to function.
Then
Some of these assumptions I’m finding are more untrue than others, but I am finding that out of those “necessary” list of items, not one is absolutely mandatory. And for some people, some of these foods are proving to make them extremely sick. As was the case for me.
For what reason, I’m still working on figuring out the answer. Many theories abound. Anti-nutrients, other inflammatory factors in these foods, the herbicides these foods are treated with, and genetic modification are all working theories. There are more.
Which one(s) is/are right, I’m not sure. I’m not here to say for sure, because knowledge is changing every day. I don’t want to say x answer is THE answer, because it’ll likely change as time goes on.
If I’ve learned anything from this journey, it’s that it is important to:
1. Keep an open mind. Anything is open to reanalysis and any idea we have about how something works can change at any moment. If this wasn’t the case, we’d still think the world is flat.
2. Keep learning, and understand for yourself how and why something is the way it is. Empower yourself with knowledge so you can made the best decisions for yourself.
The only one that can make the best decision for you is you. Otherwise, you’re giving your power away.
And when it comes to dietary choices, it can mean giving your power away to giant corporations that don’t have your best interest at heart, only their pocketbooks. The more you understand, the better equipped you’ll be to make the best decisions for you.
Don’t be afraid to question authority, and look to a variety of different, reliable sources to help you get the best understanding possible. Look to knowledgeable people you trust to help guide you in the best direction that works for you if you feel lost and confused. Because, you don’t know what you don’t know.
Sometimes looking to reliable sources to help you figure out what you don’t know can give you that powerful piece of the puzzle you need to help you unlock your fullest potential in life and wellness.
Knowledge is power. Use it to create the best you possible.
Please join us in the free Facebook group: Eat better. Live better. FEEL BETTER. I add lots of tidbits of information, inspiration, recipes ideas, and more on a regular basis so you can feel empowered with knowledge. Click here to join us!
If you’re feeling confused and think you’d like some help figuring this all out for yourself, please feel free to contact me, at michelle@wellbalance.ca.
