Winning healthy eating habits that help you stay fit
At Teyla, we want you to reach your full potential. That's why we invite professionals to write an blog article to give you helpful tips to reach this healthy lifestyle you are looking for. Our first article in this category is about the winning healthy eating habits that help you stay fit. It's brought to you by Mouna Akué a pro Naturopath who made the choice to give back to Africa after spending few years in Canada and is currently based in Lomé, Togo.
As active professional women, we are concerned about our well-being because of the challenges that comes with this busy lifestyle. However often times it is hard for us to achieve and maintain work/life balance and our overall health tend to come last on our priority list instead of coming first.
Our health is mainly influenced by the quality of the food we eat, the resting time, the quality of the air we breathe, our exposure to sunlight, our physical, social and professional environment, the amount of stress we are exposed to and the lack of physical activity.
What should we eat ? How should we eat ? Two main questions often asked. It is very important to keep in mind that we are all biochemically unique so we have to eat accordingly. Also, we inherit from our parents an « energetic capital » at birth and we have the responsibility to enhance it or preserve it.
Thus, adopting healthy food and a diet rich in grains, fruits and vegetables helps revitalize our body and provides us with the energy we need to be fit. However, due to our uniqueness, not all food should be eaten by everybody. Some have allergies, intolerances or develop symptoms that is the outcome of a consumption of a particular food. The body is naturally rejecting what does not suit him. That’s why it’s important to listen to our body and pay attention to its reactions.
It is sad that the food we eat these days have become overly processed and denatured. Also, our taste buds have become dull from eating those processed foods either too high in sugar or too salty. We have ended up eating a tremendous amount of food which increases the ratio of overweight people. That ratio comes with a higher risk of cancer and heart diseases. As young professionals, stress also play a major role in the increase of cravings for easily available sweets since it has an impact on our adrenal glands. We have therefore lost our innate ability to know what our bodies need to eat in order to be nourished. This finding raises the following question : What are the winning healthy eating habits that help you stay fit while keeping you away from all sort of chronic diseases?
- Eat only when you are hungry and stop when you are full
- Eat intuitively. Listen to your body and eat food according to your biochemical uniqueness. Seek when needed a professional advice to help you know exactly what your body needs. A professional will look at your constitution, your blood type, your culture, your energy level, your stress level, your family history, your medical history for example.
- Stay away from processed foods
- Eat natural whole foods and forget about the « white » stuffs : « white sugar », « white flour », « white rice », « white bread » etc.
- Eat various and colourful foods. We want to eat nutritious, whole, beautifully prepared foods that promote life, health and joy
- Fast at least one a day a week. It puts your digestive system at rest and the energy is used to restore the whole body.
- A healthy eating plate should look like this :
- 50% vegetables
- 25% whole grains
- 25% healthy proteins
- Fruits are to be eaten before meals or as snacks as they are easily and quickly digested.
In order to adopt these eating habits, we need some initial self-discipline to train ourselves to eat foods that are pure, fresh, whole, natural and organic (as chemicals used on crops ar harmful for our bodies).
I suggest healthy eating habits instead of diets because I have seen tons of people trying to follow some sort of extreme diet, from all-fruit diets to high-protein diet, low-carb diets, low-fat diets, low-cholesterol diets, low-sodium diets to name just a few. Diets are necessary for some pathologies. However, everyone on diet should see a professional to help balance the diet, to identify and fill the nutritional gaps.
As a holistic practitioner, I would add the importance of the paying attention to the things we « eat » that affect us physically, mentally and emotionally. I’m talking here about the images we see, the caption we digest, the book we read, the music we listen to. All of these are food to our body and soul and it’s important to pay attention to it. Stay away from all the negativity that can come from your environment.
« Eat and enjoy whatever you want, but pay attention to what your body truly need »
Namaste
Mouna Akué
Naturopath