My thoughts
Consider your own health for a moment. Maybe you are not a victim of the worst illnesses. Maybe you do your best to eat 4-6 servings of vegetables and get your 30 minutes of exercise on a daily basis. You might believe yourself to be a healthy person, because you’re better than the average person on TV. But can you really say that you are glowing with health, that you are full of energy and vitality on a daily basis?
Most people are so used to feeling like junk that they don’t realize they do anymore.
The average Western citizen falls into the old frog-in-water scenario. The saying goes that if you throw a frog into boiling water, it will yelp with pain and swiftly leap out. But if you place a frog in a cool pot of water, and gradually turn the temperature up, the frog will not notice until it’s too late. The frog will continually get used to the ever-increasing temperature, degree by degree, until it becomes so hot that the frog is dead.
The truth is that mediocrity is not the natural state of human being; a human body that is truly healthy can and will feel fantastic to occupy. Boundless with energy is possible even at old ages. A life completely free of any disease, joint or muscle pains, skin diseases or overweight can be a normal life, and in my opinion should be. With a truly healthy body your mind will be full of life too; it will be as sharp as a dagger and the cloudiness that most people accept as the norm will be far away.
This fantastic state of being is reachable but most people are nowhere near it. There are so many hidden menaces today that it takes real effort to avoid chronic health problems. Air pollution is destroying our health, we are surrounded by chemicals in todays society and it's literally everywhere, we even have chemicals in our food.
I strongly believe there is a correlations between diseases and the food we put in it, and therefore we could also reverse these diseases with food.
Food
I believe that taking a conscious approach to eating is crucial in today's crazy food world. Becoming what I call a Conscious Eater begins with a change in mindset. Eating consciously doesn’t mean to count calories or to dwell on proteins, carbs and fats, it simply means to eat with awareness, knowing what we are eating, why we are eating it, knowing how the food we eat affects us, where it comes from and more importantly how it will make us feel.
Since we can't rely on the government and food companies to provide the safest and cleanest food possible, becoming a conscious eater requires us to stop eating unconsciously whatever is given to us, and to start questioning the source and quality of the food we choose to put in our body.
The basic strategy of my approach to nutrition is to take on a plant-powered foodstyle. This means consuming primarily unprocessed whole-foods that come from nature, not a factory. It focuses mostly on plants, including a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, herbs, spices, nuts, seeds, superfoods, and healthy fats; includes some grains and legumes, and may include some clean animal protein, if any.
What follows is that conscious eating is very much about quality; choosing organic produce and grass-fed or pasture-raised meats is essential to get the cleanest food possible and avoid harmful substances such as genetically modified organisms, hormones, antibiotics, pesticides and food additives.
Basically, it boils down to avoiding processed, industrialised and chemicalised fake-foods in favour of the foods that we humans have been eating for a very long time in their most natural state: real food, mostly plants.
Being a conscious eater is not about being a health purist, it isn’t a fad diet, it isn’t about deprivation or starvation, it's instead a way of life where every food choice is made with mindful awareness. Eating consciously allows us to establish the right balance of healthy to unhealthy food, and flexibility to adapt, both crucial to maintain our sanity. Overtime, it creates a deeper understanding of one's body, where eating becomes intuitive and we eat according to our body's needs.
Personally, I eat mostly from the plant world, both raw, steamed and cooked, with occasional white meat or fish. Eating healthy doesn't mean no fun, I eat whatever I want as long as it comes from mother nature. Overtime, I have found my own healthy balance, so having the occasional unhealthy food (wich i don't enjoy anyways) doesn’t hurt me. After all, it's not what we eat some of the time that makes us healthy, its what we eat most of the time.
Since all foods have a specific function which can be medicine or poison, ever heard the saying -
"one man's meat is another man's poison"
What we eat really matters because it has the power to hinder or heal our body. What we eat has a direct impact in how we look and feel. While processed foods make us fat, sick and tired, whole plant foods nourish and nurture us, providing our body the essential nutrients and minerals that are so critical to good health, making us look and feel at our best.
We can benefit from this goodness by embracing all the foods nature has to offer by using them to make nutritious smoothies, decadent desserts, tasty treats, and hearty meals. As eating is very individualistic and each person has his own dietary preference, I teach omnivores, vegetarians and vegans to apply a conscious plant-powered diet to their own unique nutritional style. My mission is to share how fun, easy and delicious healthy food is.
Lifestyle
A healthy lifestyle goes beyond just diet. The food is the fuel for our bodies, but healthy relationships, a fulfilling career, regular physical activity and spiritual awareness are what will essentially feed your soul and fill the healthy lifestyle puzzle.
Living a healthy lifestyle is about taking care of the “whole you” – your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. And, that means taking care of you from the inside out.
Exercise
Maintaining a healthy weigh, and being physically active is very important, luckily exercise in order to maintaining a healthy weight is something you will never have to think about again if you choose to eat plant based foods.
Instead your choice of exercise should be something you do because you like doing it or because you have a specific goal in your training. Personally a like playing ping pong, tennis, do some light exercise in the gym and yoga. Being physically active is so important for the "whole you" and i urge you to find something you enjoy doing if you don't already are active.
Cigarettes and alcohol
Using substances such as cigarettes or alcohol is not recommendable, if you are addicted to any substances such as caffeine, cigarettes or alcohol, you may want to take advantage of a dedicated substance-dependence program in your community if you are not able to quit on your own. Personally since i started eating plant-based i slowly begun to drink less and less and now i might drink one glass of wine at my best. Not because i am limiting myself from drinking but rather that i can feel a difference in my otherwise so clean body after drinking, also i don't see the purpose of putting toxic in my body that could potentially affect my liver?
So what should you drink if at a bar or restaurant where you'd normally had a cocktail? What's wrong with clean pure water. Yes i know… everyone will think you are boring, all jokes aside, a tip is to order a glass of chardonnay or sauvignon blanc since it's a whine with lower sugar than other brands, with a glass of water. you smutter on the wine now and then and drink up the water. When you feel done with the wine and nobody is watching just pour the wine into the water.
Personality
Having a positive attitude fosters a healthy life and it will naturally attract more positive energy around you.
I will not deceive you and say that this comes naturally to everybody. But now is the time to practice.
Choose to be Happy
Choose happiness, contentment and joy as a way of life. Choose to be happy, and strive, no matter how difficult it might be, to reject, ignore and refuse to associate with unhappy thoughts and feelings. If you are feeling happiness, love, passion, compassion, and hope, positive things will happen to you. However, if you are feeling anger, fear, depression, and guilt, then negative things most likely happen to you. It’s that simple.
Don’t take criticism from people you wouldn’t ever go to for advice. Don’t let other people doubt yourself.