How do we feel about food?
Let me ask, does every person who has a passion for food have an unnatural relationship with it?
Do food bloggers eventually decide to write about food because of past issues, like illness, or weight? Take me, I fall into both camps. I’ve suffered with Migraines since a teenager, so nearly for 40 years and believe food has a huge connection with those, and my weight, like so many other women, I have struggled with my weight for the last 10 years now where it is volatile going up and down, whereas when I was younger I could eat whatever I wanted. Now however, I just need to be that little bit more discerning (very sadly)!
So lets first look at pain, linked with food.
I will focus on a migraineur for now as this is my experience but pain is pain at the end of the day - and remember, caveat here - if you have read my ‘About Me’, anything I write throughout my blog is ‘through my eyes only’ , my opinions, is what I feel, think and understand, have read, researched and taken on board. To those who may disagree with what I have to say and certainly feel free, come back and tell me as I would love to hear your thoughts, but please do not stop or change any medications as a result of anything I write. By all means change your lifestyle for the better, which I hope you will along the way while you pick up some tips from me and others as you need and want to.
So that being said, pain is aggravated by sugar! We love sugar! Our brains simply crave it (because it is not our bodies that do the craving, but our brains), and as we eat more and more of the stuff we want more and more and the wheel keeps on turning. Why is pain aggravated by sugar? Simply because it causes inflammation, and inflammation in turn causes pain.
I will talk a lot more about sugar throughout my blog, however, this is not a carb free zone by any means and lots of my recipes are mixed. The reason I choose to talk about it is because it has a huge connection to both pain and weight which are two issues which are close to my heart.
Of course there are other foods linked with Migraines which I could mention, however those, independently, have not caused me any trouble at all, and being a chronic sufferer I have come to think of those as the ‘label’ items which are there to try and guide us as nobody really knows what can cause a migraine as there are so many different variants. For example, I could eat a whole pack of cheese, and I always eat the strongest as you’ll come to know, and won’t have the slightest pain, and my favourite wine is red! So for now, we will leave those poor singled out suspects alone - they truly don’t deserve the bad press!
Pain and food are very closely linked, and health and food more closely. Before pharmaceutical tablets were produced there were only herbs, berries, natural remedies as naturally occurring chemicals in plants have been used since pre-history.
What about Weight?
Although I am not overweight, I would like to be a different weight, or should I say its not so much the weight, I mean who actually cares what the scales say, its the mirror that counts, right? I want to look better. Food can do that. In fact everyone will tell you food and exercise, and they are not wrong, food and exercise will get you there faster and fitter and you will certainly be more toned, however food is the ‘key’! Try starving yourself, literally for 14 days with no exercise - you will lose weight. That’s not a challenge by the way!
My husband recently did the Beef, Salt & Water diet for 16 days and lost 21 pounds. I mean it was very boring, just Beef, no other meat at all, with no other condiments other than salt and nothing else other than water to drink! He didn’t exercise at all, however his job is quite physical, relatively, so he continued with that, but that was not a change of lifestyle - so good going 👍
I think you see the theme here...sugar? Sugar is the enemy not fat! When my husband did the beef, salt, water diet, he could eat as much fat as he liked. Sirloin with huge amounts of fat, tomahawk, T-Bone with a huge rim of fat, Rib-Eye marbled with fat, you get my point. Fat doesn’t make you fat! Who knew?
Well, lots of people really, but one thing to remember, there are good fats and bad fats and that is important.
So here are the main messages:
- Don’t eat sugar if you can, cut it out altogether, however this is real tricky as almost everything these days has sugar added - Bread has sugar in it, crackers, crisps, breakfast cereal, potatoes, the list goes on and on. Basically the carbohydrates break down in your gut and turn into sugar. For every 4g of carbs you are taking in 1 tsp of sugar, you may as well spoon it in out of the sugar bowl.
- Eat plenty of protein through the day. Meat is good, but good meat, always trust organic as they are not routinely fed antibiotics and wormers. Free roaming pasture fed cows are good because they have naturally foraged and not forced grains which means their meat is generally higher in vitamin E. There are many good reasons for eating plenty of protein. It will satiate you for longer, it increases your muscle strength and is good for your bones, it helps to reduce cravings, it helps to increase fat burning, it lowers your blood pressure, it helps to maintain weight loss, and it helps your body repair itself post injury.
- Ensure you are having fats, but good fats. There are lots of different fats which are bad for your digestive system and body and which will also not aid weight loss however, natural good fats are needed by the body - these include things like: Olive oil, avocados, butter, nuts and heavy cream.
- Balance good carbohydrates. Naturally occurring sugars will be in unprocessed carbs like Fruits, Vegetables (some), beans, we still want all these because we love our veg!
- Never eat low fat or diet produce! Low fat makes you fat - Put simply, these are an industry disgrace. They took out the naturally occurring fat in these products which would have been good for you and made the product taste good and then replaced it with sugar or sugar substitute to ensure the product still tasted acceptable only now the product is bad for you and your weight.
We will come back to health as a topic as this is an important issue and although you will begin to discover how much I love food, you will also learn how much I love healthy food, so even though there will be some decadent recipes here and there, There will be something for everyone hopefully.
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