Tuesday, 19 January 2010

• Fueling My Body

  
  

  Do you know which fuels help your body to run well?

  If I put salt water in my cars gas tank it will stop running. Even if I only put in a ½ cup of salt water every time I fill the tank eventually it will stop my car from running. There are certain things one should never ever put into a gas tank, and most everyone knows that. However, if my fancy new supercharged sports car "should" be running on premium and I put in regular it won’t make my car quit running - it will simply change the way it runs. The change may be so slight that I don’t even notice it at first. Affected parts may wear out faster; the car may be sluggish and a bit noisier.I may even shorten the life of my vehicle if I do it on regular basis.

  It seems to me that our bodies are in some ways similar. They are designed to run on certain fuels. Most of us learn in school what those fuels are and how they help our body to run well. What we don't always learn is that like cars everyone's body isn’t exactly the same and if we try to run on the same exact fuel everyone else is using it may work great for us or we may end up wearing ourselves down.

  I believe that we are each born with a unique body that has unique needs and it's our job to start with the basics and figure out which fuels our body runs best on. If you have no clue which foods work best for you, then maybe you can start out by eating what is recommended by the FDA. You could keep a food journal and write down what you eat and how your body performs. Try to observe your body closely. Note your energy levels and how they fluctuate, the physical condition of your body, your mood etcetera. If you do this for a long enough period of time then when you look back over your journal you should begin to see patterns in the effects foods have on your particular body. This morning I assigned this project to my kids. They are each going to keep a journal and attempt to determine the cause and effect of food on their own bodies.

  I did it for a year and discovered that high carbohydrate foods  like pastas tend to make me  feel lethargic. I still need to get a certain amount of those foods in my body to maintain a healthy balance but I now know to eat them before bed or try to balance them with enough protein to counter the effect instead of having them for breakfast.  Proteins are just the opposite for me, they send me into high performance mode which is great in the daytime but really sucks if I’m trying to get to sleep at night. I discovered that my body also runs better overall if I eat many small meals instead of three large ones. Basically, by doing this journal, I discovered how to use the food I eat to help me get the best out of the body I have.

  
  Are you aware of which foods your body runs best on? 

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