General Principles of Healthy Eating
This article is about the principles of healthy eating. If thats something your not quite ready for then read this article called the premise of healthy eating for the motivation and the why. So here they are:
1. Eat for Health not for Fun.
Essentially eating is for survival, but once this necessity has been taken care of food can be used as a tool for promoting well-being, energy, happiness and evolution.
You are what you eat. But what to eat?
Why do we eat for fun?
2. Chew Your Food.
If you have decided to stop eating for fun then its about time to chew your food. Its recommended, depending on what your eating, to chew ones food 30 or so time. If you chew something long enough it will become a liquid. When you chew you get your digestive acids flowing in both your stomach and mouth. Saliva starts to break down food before it is even swallowed which means more nutrients for you.
3. Drink 6-7 Glasses of Water a Day.
The Human body is 55% to 78% water depending on body size. To function properly, the body requires between one to seven liters of water a day to avoid dehydration. Your body at its best should be repairing faster then it is damaged and if you start by replacing the water your body needs it can take much better care of itself for you.
There is little need for sugared drinks.
Juicing and urine therapy work with water.
4. Eat the Simple, Raw, Organic, Living, Unprocessed and non-Synthetic Stuff.
Basically fresh is better then frozen, organic is better than genetically altered, raw is better then cooked/steamed/boiled. Boiling preserves 15% of nutrients from vegetables and steaming preserves 35% of nutrients. Microwaves do some screwed up stuff to food, if you must heat something up oven is the healthiest method.
Remember, scary as this is, nothing can grow from microwaved water.
5. Try to Eat in Season
I cannot remember why. Ill find out though ;)
6. Eat Multiple Small Meals a Day
The less you eat the more weight you gain because when your body realizes that its not going to receive food for a long time it starts to store everything it gets as fat as to promote survival of itself.
Also when you eat multiple small meals your body has a chance to digest all day long. More digestion equals more nutrition.
7. Variety
Try to not eat the same thing everyday. Your body can survive without any particular vitamin for a few days so if you are constantly changing what you eat you cover more ground in regards to vitamins and minerals. No-thing gives you everything.
8. Do not drink anything 15 minutes before, after and during your meal.
When you drink during eating generally it is to avoid chewing. If this is not the case then drinking during your meal lessens stomach acidity which demotes digestion capabilities.
9. Do not eat 3 hours before going to bed
When your sleeping your body tries to shut down as much as possible. This includes the digestive process. Its also valuable to give your body a break from digestion.
10. Do not exercise for 2 hours after eating
This only applies to heavy meals though, which should be avoided anyways. Major reason to not eat a heavy meal before exercising is simple, vomiting.
Now What to Eat?
Bits on Cancer.
The following are linked to excess weight:
Colon Cancer
Prostate Cancer
Esophageal Cancer
Kidney Cancer
Stomach Cancer
Liver Cancer
Pancreatic Cancer
Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma
Multiple nyeloma
Rectal Cancer
Gall bladder cancer
Source:American Cancer Society (Eugenia Calle, director of analytic epidemiology and lead author of the study, 2003)