Back To Eden II

Hope you all had a good Christmas, and haven’t eaten yourselves to a standstill. Last week I was prattling on about change and vowed to continue this week. Right now a lot of you are reflecting and making profound declarations of new ideals. While I’m sure you have it all planned out, please indulge me while I pick up from last week and continue to weigh in on possible ideas for embracing a new lifestyle, the Eden Lifestyle.

We are all different on the inside just as we are different on the outside. The idea that “one diet fits all” is totally ridiculous. Many of us now suffer with food intolerances. Some people can tolerate Gluten others can’t. Some struggle with dairy and are lactose intolerant, others aren’t. Some are totally allergic to foods like nuts. Some require more fat and protein in their diet and others require more carbs. Do you think a builder or manual labourer requires the same amount of protein as a journalist?

You can also look at your ancestry to get a better idea of the foods that may better suit you as an individual. Those of us originating from close to the equator are more suited to carbohydrate-based foods and those in much colder climates are suited better to Fat and Protein.

Take Action: Discovering your own food and drink identity is about discovering what works best for you. Try foods to see what reaction you have to them. Do you feel energised? Full for longer periods? Do you have bloating or constipation? Finding your individual diet is about listening to your body and, through a process of elimination, discovering what is right for you.

Do you eat food that nature designed you to eat? Or are you eating processed, sugarenriched foods that have been designed to make people rich but you physically poor. Although the mind has advanced at an incredible rate, the human digestive system is still fairly primitive. In essence we should only eat whole foods. Foods that come from nature. Foods that bring life into the body and not take it away. Allergens are causing big problems today, as are stimulants like caffeine and sugar. Keep your nutrition simple and bear in mind your natural individuality.

Take Action:

Be very careful with the following foods:

Stimulants: Sugar, Caffeine and Alcohol all cause huge hormonal responses within the body. Give your nerves and blood sugar a break and keep these foods to a minimum.

Alarming amounts of people are intolerant of gluten causing problems from bloating and depression, to a leaky gut and arthritis. Avoid all wheat from breads to pasta.

Gluten:

Dairy:

Another allergen, many people lack the enzyme Lactase that is required to break down the milk’s sugar lactose. Anyway cow’s milk is meant for baby cows not humans.

How do you prepare your food? Do you destroy it with microwaves or turn good fats rancid by overheating natural oils? Eating whole live food is important, but the way you prepare the food can have a drastic effect on the nutrients and how your body absorbs them.

Microwaves work by rapidly oscillating the molecules of the food, this ultimately changes the molecule structure of the food and makes it unrecognisable to the body. There was an interesting recent study performed by a school girl who watered two identical plants one with cooled boiled water and the other with cooled, boiled by a microwave, water. Within days the microwaved plant was starting to wilt and die.

Steam:

Steaming preserves a lot of the nutrients and is far better than boiling.

Boiling foods leaches most of the nutrients into the water. If you do boil then use the water for soups and stocks.

Shallow fry with stable fats like coconut oil, butter, lard, and ghee. Never heat mono-unsaturated oils like olive oil because it turns the oil rancid.

Buy a slow cooker and add your ingredients and leave for the day for a ready prepared meal after work.

Boiling:

Fry:

Slow Cook:

Do you know where your food comes from? The healthier the food the healthier it is for you. Do you think sick animals that have been filled with drugs make good building blocks for your body?

Good foods come from good soil. Soil that is over used and destroyed with chemicals does not make a good foundation for food. Remember that the soil is alive. You can’t make healthy foods from dead soil. Also, many think that washing vegetables removes chemicals, but these chemicals are designed to withstand water otherwise rain would remove all the chemicals from the plants.

How did you develop as a child? Can you still move like you used to? Are you limited in what you can and can’t do now?

From the moment babies are born they are working to develop stability. We all know how flexible babies are but they lack joint stabilisation strength. First the baby develops strength in the neck as they support their own head. Later they mange to push up from the prone position in order to look around. Later they crawl, squat, stand and finally walk. The whole process is a miracle. Babies earn their strength and stability, we don’t give it to them.

People ignore the stabilising muscles. Machines take stabilisation out of exercise, concentrating only on prime mover muscles that look good in the mirror but can’t stabilise a joint in daily life. Many people, due to sedentary lifestyles, lack even the fundamental stability that they earn as a child. It’s no surprise that people get injured during exercise.

The body is designed to move economically. We don’t just push with our arms but our core muscles and legs too. For the majority of fitness purposes we want to utilise as many muscles as possible, this ensures maximum strength development, growth, hormonal stimulation and energy expenditure.

Squatting:

think about sitting onto the toilet or into a chair. Ensure the thighs break parallel with the floor to achieve maximum glute engagement

whenever you walk up steps or take long deep strides, you are lunging. You can lunge in all directions forwards, backwards, sideways or diagonally.

Deadlifting: if you correctly pick something up off the ground with a nice flat back, then you are deadlifting

you can either push things forwards in front of you or push them overhead.

Lunging:

Pushing:

Pulling:

similar to pushing, you can pull things in front of you closer or pull yourself upwards like when climbing a tree.

The above movements can be made more difficult by adding rotation or by using one arm or leg. When you exercise, it is usually a good idea to utilise all of the above movement patterns this way no muscle is left untouched and the body is balanced beautifully.

How do you look in the mirror? Is your posture good? How much energy do you think a bad posture requires to maintain balance? It is time you stretched out and stopped training only the front of your body.

In a world of chairs, desks, laptops and sofas, many of us have developed dreadful posture. What makes matters worse is that most people are addicted to forward exercises like Crunches, Cycling Machines and Chest Exercises. More time needs to be spent correcting the bad posture that gravity and a day of sitting causes. Here is a simple method you can try:

Ensure you divide all your workouts between equal Pushing and Pulling Movements, Squats and Press Ups are Pushing movements. Deadlifts and Rows are Pulling movements.

Stretching can really feel good but you need to question how much you should stretch. Spending 10 minutes, three times per week will never correct a tight muscle that is held in a shortened position due to sitting for eight hours per day. In order to really make gains in stretching you need to treat stretching as a separate programme. Stretching for three to four times per day will yield much better results. Stretching is highly neurological. You need to make corrections to the neurological system in order to make lasting change.

Take action:

Start to divide your workouts based on pushing and pulling patterns, this will ensure that you balance out your body equally. Stretch only tight areas but ensure you stretch more often and only the areas that require attention. Stretching every muscle the same will only increase your overall imbalance.

Do you exercise too much or too little? Are you exercising from the inside out? Is the exercise you perform right for you or some model in a magazine? Exercise needs to begin at the core. You need to provide your body with a stable platform. The stronger and more stable your core muscles the less injuries you will receive and the more powerful and efficient you will be.

Be well and Happy New Year!