Choose Whole Foods

First, let us take a look at the average person’s diet. It usually
contains high amounts of processed foods, refined grains, sugar and
fats. It is often difficult to avoid parties and other events that have
such temptations – and a little nibble or two is challenging to avoid.
But you don’t want them as part of your everyday diet because we are
learning that our health will suffer. Ingesting foods that provide
little nutritional benefit can cause serious nutritional deficiencies,
over the long haul and have immediate results.

(coffee + sugar
= poor muscle tone prior to an athletic event or exercise & also
has the high/low drop in energy for inadequate performance or long
endurance)

Starting with organic, whole foods may seem a little
overwhelming at first, I know. By my own experience in attempting to
convert my husband all-at-once was disastrous. He panicked when we came
back home from a wellness consultation for his Agent Orange rash. I
started throwing out all the canned goods and wanted to buy fresh
fruits and vegetables. He was so use to the way in which he grew up
that this threatened his safely created world of what he knew. (He also
saw money going into the trash, instead of the health investment we
were about to make).

A whole foods diet is lower in fats &
consists of a wide variety of different colored vegetables, fruits and
grains; raw seeds, nuts and nut butters such as tahini, almond &
pumpkin seed butter. Whole beans for protein and fermented; tofu,
tempeh, & natto – that can even be in the form of shoyu, miso &
tamari.

Antioxidants include vitamin C, beta carotene, vitamin
E, and many cancer fighting substances called phytochemicals are found
in whole foods & higher in organic fruits, vegetables & grains
and are to be considered when wanting to protect yourself against the
environment and helps with the anti-aging process.

In
re-evaluating ones eating habits, approaching one’s diet is important.
It has to have sense of balance. When you start to have the majority of
your meals with whole, fresh foods, then cravings will be minimized so
when you want a sweet or two you won’t be damaging your body’s
physiology, and lessening the onslaught of ‘stressor’ foods in your
system.

When stressor foods are consumed it starts depleting the
body of essential nutrients. These stressor foods consists of refined
sugars (promotes tooth decay, creates hyperactivity or adds to those
already challenged with this behavior, decreases immune functioning,
increases the risk of heart disease contributes to obesity &
diabetes), sodas (carbonated drinks & colas are high in phosphates
that robs the body of necessary calcium which contributes to
osteoporosis), enriched or refined grains & flours, pastas (removes
the germ and bran which contain 90 percent of the nutritional content
and does not get easily digested & sticks to the stomach lining
which does not allow for maximum absorption from other foods) and also
processed/hydrogenated fats – margarine & deep fried foods (causing
trans fatty acids to interfere with metabolic absorption and tend to
gather at adipose tissue (body fat) sites. They are difficult to
eliminate from the body and are a lower quality of an energy source.

This
may be a completely new experience for you, too. Relax, and make the
transition slowly (you don’t have this make major changes overnight
like I attempted) but most of all have fun with shopping &
investigating these new foods. Think of this as a new adventure!

By
making small changes to your family’s diet the transition will not only
be more acceptable, their bodies will also be in harmony and not go
through a too fast toxic foods cleansing.

Remember this it is
never too late to start. It will be an amazing health & healing
journey. You will begin to notice how quickly the poor health habits of
your family will begin to disappear when good nutrition is established
esp. when they begin to notice that they have more energy, mental
clarity, and overall body strength with whole foods!

Nancy Jean Walton is a Life Coach and Holistic Practitioner of alternative health who practices in New York, Philadelphia & New Hope, PA. Check out her website: http://www.naturallifestyle.net/profiles/Nancy-Jean-Walton-Reiki-Master-Teacher-Life-Coach-211.html