Every time you eat, every time you move, every time you drink, you are either taking steps to build healthy habits or taking steps to break your progress. The unfortunate part about the choices you make today is those choices affect your health and mobility tomorrow and for weeks/months/years to come. In a world where we are used to immediate gratification, this is challenging. We all want to feel that dopamine rush. We want to feel good. We don’t want to feel uncomfortable. Many times, we cope using food and drink. This coping mechanism is making us fat, it is killing us. We have to find different ways to cope when we are tired and stressed and life feels hard. If we don’t find different ways to cope, our society is going to continue down the path of developing chronic illnesses that could have been prevented.
Everywhere you turn, there is “health” advice. There’s supplements, pills, shots, shakes, etc. It’s hard to know where to turn and what is trustworthy.
I was raised to believe that plants were the superior food source. I was raised to believe that meat was not healthy for my body. I was raised on the old concepts of “fat is not healthy for me”. I was raised in the 90s skinny culture. The problem was, no matter how often I exercised or how many plant foods I consumed, I couldn’t lose weight and I didn’t feel healthy. It wasn’t until I reached my 40s that I finally found a diet lifestyle that worked for me. I lost weight and inches. My blood pressure decreased. I wake up with energy and a clear mind. I had to, essentially, start my learning from food and nutrition from scratch. I read books and listened to podcasts . I felt frustrated, confused, and taken advantage of by the media narratives that I had always believed. I didn’t realize how much damage I was doing to my body all the years that I spent pushing the narrative of a plant based diet. I felt embarrassed. Once I learned the truth about my metabolic health, it was like a whole new world was at my fingertips.
I decided to share my experience with the world by starting this blog. I am so thankful that I was able to find reliable resources and information from professionals in the field of metabolic health, mental health, and biological health.
One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned through my journey, is everything you consume is either building your functional health and future or it’s breaking it.
I am here to help other people prevent chronic illnesses that present ten, fifteen, twenty years down the road. You have to start now. It’s a simple process, but not necessarily easy. Below are three first steps to take to build your future functional health. You don’t have to do them all at once. Just start with one step and go from there!
- Stop eating sugar and ultra processed foods.
- In my opinion, this is one of the greatest steps you can take toward your future health. It’s also probably one of the hardest. We are surrounded by sugar. You have to read nutrition labels like your life depends on it (it kind of does). Sugar has many different names and it is in soooo many packaged foods. Read ingredient labels on everything you buy the next time you go shopping. I bet you will be shocked at how many items have sugar in them.
- Walk within 30 minutes after every meal.
- Not only will you get in more steps, you will help your body regulate your blood glucose levels by getting your body moving. Your muscles can utilize glucose directly from the blood stream.
- Start paying attention to the amount of carbs you consume.
- I’m not saying you have to start regulating your carb consumption immediately, but start being aware of what you are eating. I didn’t realize how many carbs I was actually consuming everyday until I started being more intentional about my food intake. I was consuming way more carbs than my body could utilize, which then meant that my body would just store the excess intake as fat.
Choose one step and start. You won’t regret it!
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