Health And Wellness From God's Perspective

I started the previous article by explaining that ALL that ever came before Jesus robbed us of an accurate view of the Father, and by extension abundant life.  I also attempted to relate this concept to us being robbed of our health by our lack of understanding of the true role of nutrition. This is further compounded by the corruption of the normal feeding-reward mechanism because of over-consumption of highly refined and processed foods. In this article I will attempt to clear up any potential misconceptions.

I trust that you looked at the TedTalk and some of the supporting websites.  If not, please do so now.  To get us back on the same page, the key points from the TedTalk were:

• Under normal circumstances we get positive feedback (pleasure) from eating healthy food. That is the correct way!
• Highly processed foods are addictive because they cause excessive dopamine release in the pleasure centers of our brains.
• The brain becomes adjusted to them (habituated) such that we need increasing amounts to experience the same level of pleasure as before.
• Once we become addicted to highly processed foods, we no longer get positive feedback (pleasure) from healthy foods.
• Because of the pleasure trap we often continue to consume highly processed foods even though they are killing us (robbed of good health and wellness).
• In order to get back to the way or the place where healthy food tastes pleasurable to us again it takes weeks of intentionally doing things that reset our taste buds.

The premise in all of this is that when the body functions as it was designed, we can trust our own inner food intuition.  Our own bodies will let us know the right way of eating because we will 1) feel good (pleasure) when we eat, and 2) be good (healthy) after we have digested and assimilated the healthy food. In the same way, we will receive appropriate negative feedback once we eat unhealthy things.  This is the only way to good health through nutrition.

On the other hand, excessive consumption of foods rich in fats, salt, sugar and a host of other food additives engineered to either lure us or make us addicted upsets the body's natural feeding-reward mechanism.  Those foods essentially rob us of good health because 1) we feel excessively good when we eat them, but 2) we feel unhealthy after they are digested and assimilated. We instead eat solely for pleasure, always in pursuit of the fleeting pleasure derived from their consumption to our own detriment. Worse than that is the fact that if we have never really eaten healthy foods before, we will not even know what it really feels like to be healthy at all.  Part of the robbery is that our educational system and much of conventional medical training fails to highlight the role of diet in health.

Some who have crossed over from being robbed to the right way actually feel like new persons because they are indeed new persons! Yes, there is hope!  Our normal healthy food intuition can be restored by taking intentional action.  Essentially, we need to be deprived of the excessive stimuli of processed and refined foods and allow time for our taste buds to reset themselves.  Once we are free, we would then need to continue along the straight and narrow.  I am still talking about nutrition! Does this mean that we never ever eat for pleasure? Of course not! On occasions such as birthdays, other holidays and celebrations it is ok for us to treat ourselves. The problem is that we often make the exception the rule - to our own detriment. I would recommend an 80/20 or 90/10 percentage split where the larger number is healthy, plant-based, whole foods while the smaller number is our treats.  Even then, I advocate for finding healthier versions of our treats.  We may be surprised to learn that we become more aware of the healthier options in the average supermarket once we decide to stop automatically going for that to which we are accustomed.

This feels like a good place to end this week's article.  I really trust that this particular concept is as eye-opening to you as it was to me. Since the body follows where the mind first goes, there may be areas where we really need to repent, i.e. change the way we think, especially about the vital role of appropriate nutrition in producing health and wellness. Next time we will delve into the concept of "Food as medicine".

References

Disclaimer

The contents of article are for informational purposes only and are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This article does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.