28th March, 2012
I read a story about an elderly carpenter who told his employer that he was getting ready to retire. His boss, the contractor, was sad to lose him and asked if he could build just one more house as a personal favour.
The carpenter said yes. Unfortunately, it was obvious his heart was not in his work as he cut corners and built the house with little attention to detail. When the house was completed, the employer handed over the key to the carpenter as his retirement gift. The old man had no idea he was building the house for himself, and now he has to live in the home he had carelessly thrown together.
We are the “carpenters” of our bodies. Over time, all the cells in our bodies will be replaced with new ones. Skin and blood cells change quickly; others such as bones, take longer. In total, we have a completely new body, including our skeleton, every seven years. We are in essence building our new “homes” one meal at a time. Build wisely. Your body tomorrow will be the result of the choices you make today.
We have a lot of information about food and how our bodies work, but there are also a lot of different opinions about how best to use the information. For the sake of simplicity, let me explain how best I understand this philosophy.
If it were so difficult to eat and live healthfully, I really believe God would have given us an extensive user’s manual. Think about it. How did we survive for thousands of years without all this nutritional research, special studies, and books? In simpler times, people ate the food available to them. Buttered bread, ice cream and cakes, and other treats didn’t grow on trees. It’s unlikely that cavemen found anything closely resembling a spaghetti or pasta in the average cave, either.
While the human bodies have changed very little over thousands of years, our dietary habits have changed dramatically… and not for the better! Hundreds of years ago, people had no choice but to eat food the way God created it. Can foods and drinks weren’t on His list. And in days past, the average person burned thousands of calories each day just surviving. Today our fingers, using all of our high-tech conveniences, get more exercise than our diet.
The key to good health and effective fat management is the frequency and the amount of compromises you allow in your daily diet.
I believe it is possible to nourish your body for excellent health and still enjoy food for pure pleasure, if done in moderation. It is a matter of balance. Try to eat as much natural food as you can as frequently as possible. If you could actually see what is happening inside your body when you eat too much sugar, white flour and saturated fat, you would be shocked! We need to retrain our minds and taste bud to crave and enjoy natural foods more than all the decadent snacks we have come to love.
Eating for high energy, low body fat and maximum health should be of utmost priority for every individual who wants to go far as long as health issues are concerned.
It’s pretty simple to eat right. Most of us need to go back to the basics. You know all the stuff like, “eat your fruits and vegetables. Drink lots of water. Go easy on the junk food” and create time for exercise at least three times per week for thirty to forty-five minutes.