Our Body's Relationship with Food..

The Human Experience By Alisa LC

Nutrition is a vast topic that involves various elements, including our experiences, work, body types, emotional and physical states, and lifestyle choices. To live healthily, we need to fuel our bodies with the right nutrients that suit our unique needs. When dealing with disease, we must consider our overall health, not just the illness.

In this podcast, I will emphasise the importance of being aware of what we eat and how it affects our bodies. However, before we delve into the fundamentals of nutrition, let's examine our digestive tract and colon. When our digestive tract is not functioning optimally due to blockage or sluggishness, we absorb fewer nutrients, leading to overeating, especially when emotions are involved.

The intestines absorb 90% of our water and most of our nutrients, while some chemical absorption occurs in the mouth and stomach. The lymph and blood vessels carry these nutrients and water from the intestines to other organs and bodily functions. When the digestive tract is blocked, our other organs' functions are affected, and we may develop health complications.

The colon's primary function is to form stool, which takes up to 36 hours to dehydrate. On average, the entire food journey takes two to five days. The colon can hold between 2-18kg of waste; if it's clogged, we may experience faecal impaction, which is waste sticking to the colon walls, further slowing the process. This condition should be treated immediately to prevent complications like sepsis, which is a deadly condition that occurs when faecal toxins tear the digestive tract.

Globally, 80-90% of people suffer from leaky gut, a condition that may lead to sepsis if left untreated. Therefore, gut health is crucial when considering our overall health. Cleaning the colon is a great place to start on our health journey. I recommend cleaning the colon seasonally or biannually using natural products or visiting a hydrotherapy clinic for a flush.

Poor diet is the leading cause of a blocked digestive tract and sluggish colon. Some people eat healthily but consume the wrong foods for their body type, while others are under immense stress, leading to chronic constipation or bowel conditions. Emotional stressors like grief and sadness can also contribute to poor digestive health, leading to anxiety and further health complications.

To avoid these complications, I recommend cleaning the colon seasonally or biannually. I also suggest a 6 and 1 maintenance food eating program, where people eat healthily six days a week and indulge in their cravings one day a week. This program helps people maintain a healthy diet without feeling deprived. It also strengthens the immune system, making us less susceptible to illnesses.

Good eating involves providing our bodies with the right nutrients that suit our unique needs. A healthy digestive tract is crucial for our overall health, and we must clean it regularly to avoid complications. By adopting a healthy eating pattern and lifestyle, then we can maintain optimal health and longevity.

So what does good eating look like? When studying for my Certificate Four in Fitness in my early twenties, my nutrition teacher said something that still is with me today. When considering the food we eat, we must realise we are all feeding ourselves at a cellular level. Our food either regenerates high-quality cells during mitosis, creating high-quality functioning organs and the best versions of ourselves, or we are degenerating our cells, organs and self.

This never left me, and whilst I have undergone many programs, protocols, studies, and self-labbed with long-term fasting and detoxing, I have also fallen off the wagon during stressful times, but I was aware of what was going on within my body, and this thought always created a pivot of change. These words never left me, and I hope they stick with you. The food I put in myself is creating the best version of me or the worst version of me. Am I feeding my body or my pain? It is that simple, and when thinking of that, these next basic steps don’t look too hard.

Now I do not know you personally so I do not know if you would be best suited to a vegetarian, vegan, paleo, or pescatarian, type of food plan. I don’t know if interment fasting, three meals a day or a grounding program is best suited to you. I do not know your age, gender, past, employment, and family lifestyle but I can tell you that most people are not using food as fuel when consuming food.

I can tell you that eating whole foods is the best place to start. Soak your fruit and vegetables in apple cider vinegar and salt. Many studies show that this brings most back to an organic state. While I try to eat as much organic produce as is readily available, for some, it is not affordable or available, so soaking your produce for 20 minutes will heavily decrease your toxic intake from whole foods.

Eating fruit is not bad for you, but eating fruit all day is not the best thing. I always tell my clients to stop eating fruit and carbohydrates after 2 pm if they struggle with weight loss.

I am not perfect. I have recently just come out of a very stressful time; my adrenals were fatigued and my thyroid slow, so I needed smaller meals to stop the increased cortisol in my body, it was causing weight gain and low energy. By doing this, it decreased my weight and increased my energy levels.

We can’t prevent stress, and it has a huge effect on the body, but we are aware of how best to bring ourselves back to a good state and to monitor when we have a gap for change. We get presented with these opportunities to heal; when they present, we need to jump on the universal train and take them.

If you can see a holistic nutritionist I highly recommend it, so you can start reviewing your quality of food against who you are as a person. Good fueling will change your life.