In this episode we are going to talk about disease prevention so we can live a long life. Instead of suppressing systems we want to prevent inflammation and allow our bodies to heal ourselves.
Eating food to give your body proper nutrition, whole plant based foods.
Lifestyle Choices to benefit your body.
Have a listen and think about implementing some of these into your lifestyle..
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(00:00):
Hello, all you gorgeous souls. How are you today? It is a beautiful day out here in the Metro DC area. I just love it when it gets spring, minus the allergies. Cause I do have a Heller, geeze, but you know, nothing's perfect in the world and that's okay. But today we're going to talk about disease prevention. What we can do to try to help us be in that state of that good wellbeing, right? Instead of waiting to go to the physician one day and in the doctor tell us that we do have diabetes or you know, all the things that can go wrong. So we want to prevent not getting a heart attack, heart failure, strokes and all the things. So just little lifestyle changes because we are worth it to go that extra mile to take care of ourselves. Aren't we? Yes, we are because I love myself and I love all of you guys, even though I might not know all of you.
(00:56):
I do know if people can spread hate. I can spread love, just call me the walking hallmark card. Okay. I'm all about the love. That is me all day. So some people might think preventions are when you get your, your yearly, check-ups your pap smears, your mammograms, all the things. But those are just ways that detect everything. So we don't want to wait until we get those things done to find out that we have something going on, right? We don't want that. So we want to try to worry about preventing them. So a lot of times when, once it gets to that point, it's been years in time to get there. So it's all the wear and tear on your body. You can hear somebody say, well, I'm fine today. Or I don't have this going on today, but that's it today. You don't have this symptom.
(01:46):
That's strong enough that you notice it today. And a lot of times you're so used to living in that manner that you don't even notice. It it's like normal to you. Like I'm talking about stress a lot lately because stress also accumulates. So that also adds to the things that can go wrong in your body. And sometimes you are so used to living that way that you don't realize that something is wrong. You know? So I'm in a big city. And so people always, we always going and going. And so it's kind of a normal thing, but really it's not. And then when somebody gets sick, it's like, oh, I need to slow down. That's one thing that COVID did is they slowed people down. It was hard for some people to do that because sometimes you're so busy going and going, or a lot of times it's a way for you to cope with things. So you might want to go here or go there instead of sitting. Cause you don't want to sit with your thoughts. And we want to definitely learn how to say what our thoughts and let it all come in.
(02:48):
And so we want to try to get there before that, right? So it could take years for act for it to be bad enough that you notice it. But at that point
(02:59):
Bad. Right? So we want to try to avoid getting it up to that point. So when you start to notice the symptoms, it's leading you towards something to let you know that something is off. So it's not normal or good for you to have a migraine every single day. But you're so used to having it, that you might take pain medication to suppress the symptoms, instead of trying to find out what exactly is going on so that you could try to fix whatever that is. So you could heal. So you could use yourself to heal your body. It's really pretty amazing. A lot of times it can heal itself. If you take care of it, you take care of your body and it'll take care of you. So that's why we have to pay attention to our diet and our lifestyle habits. I don't have, I usually like to say the word diet because it makes it seem like it's some kind of short term fix when actually it's the way you eat every day is your nutritional intake.
(03:55):
So I don't even really say the word diet that much so that when we do eat a certain way and have a good lifestyle, our body is able to heal itself. Like for example, when you cut yourself, your cuts heal. It does that on its own. But you notice it might take longer if your immune system is kind of weak. So it affects everything in every kind of way. And something else is with inflammation in the body. So sometimes a certain food can cause inflammation in your body and the body cannot really heal itself that well, until you stop eating that particular food. So sometimes we're eating something like say gluten. So lots of times people have gluten allergies, sensitivities, and you notice that whenever you remove certain things, your body starts healing stuff. You start feeling so much better. So you have to think, is it more important for me to eat a and feel this way or remove that and feel wonderful.
(05:00):
So sometimes people don't want to eat a certain way because they think it's not going to taste good. But at the end of the day, it's all about how you cook your food. I mean, it's all about seasonings and spices. Everybody. There's so many wonderful flavors out there in the world, different cultures, just like all the things you can do so much with your food. And it's all about how you prepare it, you know, because you could take anything and it could taste, okay, so you can take a food and you could fry it and it's fried. You can have some seasoning on that, but then you take it, take the same item in, bake it or boil it or put it in your air fire or any of the many things we have waste prepare your food. And it's all about your seasoning and how you prepare it.
(05:42):
It may well make it taste good. Okay. So today, just go in your cabinet experiment. Just throw something together, just make it fun. Okay. Food is fun. And also sometimes people believe that just because a relative has a disease that you will automatically get it. And that is not true. You can still care. You bad gene for something, but she, it is not necessarily true that you will get it yourself. So a lot of times you can feed a disease or you can fight a disease is all about how you choose to live your life and the food you choose to eat. That's not always the case, but sometimes it is so like high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, like type two diabetes. A lot of these things can be presented, prevented, excuse me. So it was all about your health and how you choose to prevent things because food provides dietary signals to your cells and this can also affect common chronic diseases.
(06:42):
All right. So like for example, a good rule of thumb is that if you're going to buy something that you're not automatically going to bake fresh, which I do suggest if you buy something out of a box, if you can not pronounce what's on that label, it's not for you to eat. It's all kinds of preservatives and things that your body does not need. Okay. And it should only have a few ingredients on it. So at the end of the day, you do have to prepare most of your food. I mean, just set aside a couple of hours, not hours, but like maybe like two days a week. I mean, and just prep some food, just make some big portions of things and just make it nice and healthy, you know, just know that it's medicine for your body and just prepare it up, put some good spices and herbs on there because it's beneficial for you.
(07:30):
It's like, you know, it's like programming, like for computer programming, you're programming your body to fight off disease. So you can live longer for yourself, for your family. And just like all the things. Okay. Because when you were eating processed foods, there's like the micronutrients and just all the things have been altered. So you're really not getting anything beneficial out of it. You just feeding your body things to cause disease. Instead of fighting it off, I've been also a process food. If you're rushing English, pick up like some snack item where the chips or cake, or just something like that, if you're hungry or you need energy, it will spike your sugar up really high. The noodle thing you'll drop. And you don't want to keep doing that a lot of times that can also lead to diabetes. So you want to be really careful.
(08:18):
Cause if, cause it might seem good in the morning to just grab a donut or some kind of pastry product to give you that sudden burst of energy. But you do notice that in a couple of hours you feel so lethargic, right? It's because your energy and just your blood sugar just fell and you don't want to keep going up and down like that. So it's better to try your best to have some, to have something good. Maybe like some oatmeal, maybe put some blueberries on there or something. Give, give you some good, fresh energy and just keep you going and then eat again in another couple hours and try not to let yourself get too hungry. So if there's like a, like a, I just say on a hunger scale, try to eat around a six or seven, you know, don't wait till it gets too high.
(08:56):
Then you didn't, you're just like eat everything. Right? Cause you're so hungry, you're eating so fast. And next thing you know, all your food's gone and you're like stuff that's because you got full before that happened. So let's say you were eating a lot of processed food. So your body is going to respond to that. I guess food-like substances as being foreign in your body. So then it's going to have prompt you to have an inflammatory response to protect itself. Okay? Now in general, this can be a good thing to fight off disease, but it can be dangerous if it curves too often, you know like, cause you're always doing this, your body's like always trying to fight itself. Right? Cause it's cause he's trying to protect you now over time, the continued consumption can lead to development of low grade chronic inflammation. It can mess with your mitochondria.
(09:45):
Your hormones can be off balance and these are precursors to disease, but they can be reversed if you get catch it early enough. But what happens is a lot of times people don't catch it early enough because you just kind of ignore or your symptoms. We try to suppress them with medicine or medication that when it gets to that point, it's so far gone, then it's more serious. So bottom line, the food you eat, it's going to affect the functioning of your genes. It's just the way it is. So we just gotta be more mindful of what we're eating our guys. So it's not like you can even address like one component because our body is all connected. So in general, we just want to take better care of ourselves by improving our lifestyle, but making a permanent lifestyle. Because just doing something for a couple of weeks, hopping on a fad diet, getting ready for a wedding, all those things doesn't help you.
(10:42):
If you go right back to being the way you were before. So we want to be mindful of all those things. Cause that inflammation can wind up turning into heart disease, asthma arthritis. I mean the evening come up in your mood and you can feel depressed and anxious. I mean, it just has all these things that it contributes to. For example, when we eat inflammatory foods, they can cause damage in our gut, which can lead to an increase in touchstone permeability. And we wound up getting something called leaky gut. I know you've probably heard about it. So our stomach lining is like one cell thick, which is good because nutrients from our digestive food can go into our bloodstream while keeping our waste and the bacteria absorbed when it gets damaged, that then lining. So I was getting loose in these little junctions in the cells and so harmful bacteria can pass through.
(11:38):
So some good anti-inflammatory foods are blueberries, ginger avocado, which I just love to death on the sweet potato, dark chocolate, pumpkin seeds, even sardines. If you eat those, some things we can avoid, which are inflammatory foods, gluten, dairy, corn, soy products, eggs, peanut, and then inevitable sugar that's sugar. So taking care of your digestive system is one of the best things you can do for your health. I mean, it helps with your energy, your immune system diseases, auto immune diseases, your anxiety, your depression, your skin, because what you eat can show up on your skin. Lot of times in the past when I've treated people for acne, a lot of it sometimes it's addressed internally. Yes. Cause it all comes from the inside. And so adjusting their diet, removing dairy and the processed foods, good probiotics. And a lot of times their skin clears up.
(12:43):
I mean also good skincare. It doesn't on the topic, but you know, digestive, Emmy, it affects so much, so much. We also want to make sure that our hormones are balanced. Cause it's really responsible for a lot of physiological processes in our body. And if they're out of balance, we can start getting like side effects and it's not just associated with illness or age. It comes from a lot of places as well. So going back to your gut, when your gut is off, it will also affect your hormone imbalances. So some things you can do is try to balance your macronutrients. Now your macronutrients are your protein, your fats and your carbs, the big guys there. And also going back to reducing the inflammatory foods, which I gave you lifts with those earlier. And also all the foods were different from person to person because we're all unique.
(13:35):
So what one person can have is not different. It's different from one another person can have. And it's also, if you don't know, do an elimination diet, so that will help you figure out what's causing you sensitivities. So like avoiding all the major foods that are cause you inflamed and then put one in at a time. So like stop eating and for like three weeks or so, and then adding a food in adding one food in and just seeing how it dose your body and paying attention and then doing one by one, you can also work with a coach or a nutritionist to help you with that. So that you're just not doing it by yourself. So you can have a better understanding of what's going on with that more high fiber foods like your fruits, your blueberries. I mean, I will put some blueberries on some oatmeal for breakfast, you know, it's really good.
(14:29):
And it gives you energy in those probiotics in there also like yogurt. I like Greek yogurt. You don't have any Greek yogurt that has extra protein. So that'll help with the Mac macronutrients, you know, get you your protein in there. An example of your healthy fats could be like salmon, your avocado. See whenever you're eating certain foods that are whole, then you know, it covers so many different spectrums. It covers so many different. So whenever you're doing, you're eating food, that's more nutritious for your body and you're implementing the better lifestyle changes. It all works out because you're hitting so many different parts of you because we are so complex and excessive alcohol can affect your hormones as well. Smoking the stress, just all those things, getting adequate sleep. So it all goes back to the lifestyle habits, just making, living a better, a healthier lifestyle, excuse me, a healthier lifestyle.
(15:33):
Just cover so many different aspects of your health. It is not just a one. So as you're about to make some transitions in your life, because this is a lifestyle, this is not a fat or a temporary thing is I said before. I mean, I firmly believe in this. I mean, I firmly believe in this so much. And um, I'm by my friends. I'm like, look, you know, let's go do this. Let's go do that. Just making it a lifestyle. And then you just start craving it, start craving it. You know? So as try asking yourself these two questions here, one, what am I lacking? Or what do I need to add? So my body has all the building blocks and necessities to flourish and heal. Just think about that. Write that question down and just look at it. You know, are you lacking something?
(16:26):
And a lot of times your body will tell you, you just kind of listened to your body, you know? And it's amazing. Your body is so amazing to get heal itself. The immune system will get stronger and it is so important. If you do not have your health, what do you have? You do not have anything. If you do not have your health, okay. And to what is harming me or what needs to be taking away. So the obstacles to healing are removed and my body can do what it needs to do to heal. So there we go. So we are what either feeding or fighting our body with what we do every day. That's what your food, your physical fitness, whether you are walking or doing something more aggressive, lifting weights, all the things, the stress levels. It's just, it's just getting a fresh air, getting outside and getting some sun.
(17:20):
Hopefully you live somewhere where there is some sun, you know, just doing all the different things. So what am I lacking for my body to heal itself? And what is harming me? These two questions. Ask yourself this whenever you about to do anything. And if you feel it hesitation, listen, that's your body trying to tell you, trust yourself, use your intuition because you got it. We all got it. You just gotta learn to listen to it. Okay? So some general rules that I've mentioned before, eat real food, fresh whole unrefined, unprocessed food. That's an altered. So as fresh as you can get it, try shopping on the perimeter of the store. You don't have to go to whole foods, but I'm saying eat whole foods. Meaning in its natural state, as close as possible, whatever store you go to, whatever grocery store, a market you go to, you can shop on the perimeter.
(18:15):
That's where all the fresh food is. You know, pick up that fresh produce, you know, organic if possible, because it's not going to have the pesticides and the chemicals on it. Okay. So it's better for your system when you deliver it like that. The close to the best, the closest to the natural state as possible is good. Okay. You don't have to worry about counting your calories. There's this is a thing with people in the counting calories. I don't, I don't believe that you need to actually count the calories when you're eating a certain way more nutritious. You don't need to, it, it handles itself. It handles itself. Just relax. You know, it's not about deprivation or anything like that. It's about just what's you're consuming and how you're preparing it. You could take a piece of chicken and you can bake it. The same piece of chicken.
(19:04):
You can fry it. The chicken automatically has more going on with it. When it's fried, the calorie count is higher. Yes, but it's not about the calories. It's about the quality of the food. Okay. So I mean, because sometimes you can have something and it could be lagging and compare that to, if you are, have a goal to lose weight. So you shouldn't look at the number on the scale, you write it down. If you want as like a reward, but it's not about the number on the scale. You take measurements. Okay? So muscle weighs more than fat. So if you are working out and you're obsessing over the number and the scale is going to mess with your head, it will mess with your head baby. Listen to me. It, because once you are toning and doing everything I got to do, you bow, you become lean and you put on muscle.
(20:01):
So the same thing with your food, it's not about counting calories. It's about the quality of what you're eating. Okay. If you are, sautéing something you could use, like extra Virgin olive oil. I always have some E V O O or some coconut oil in my kitchen. Put a little bit of that in there. It's amazing. And if you do choose to eat dairy because everybody's body is different, some people it's okay. And some people is not. If you do just try to buy organic, okay. That will cut out the pesticides and the GMOs and herbicides, no antibiotics. So at least it will be a little bit more gentle on your stomach. I mean, that's what all organic food, it's a lot more gentle and there's no pesticides herbicides. And just like all of the things that they use to protect it, just like with farm raised fish, they injected with chemicals and antibiotics and stuff because that's, they're having to try to raise it and it's not natural.
(21:02):
So if you do eat seafood, you know, wild salmon is the way to go. Omega three fatty acids, also sardines and hearing. Also, if you prefer that, and of course always sugar, which I've mentioned before, sugar is just always causing premature death. You know, it just, it, it gets in your body and it just does not do good things. Okay. So try as you can to detox off of sugar. I mean, sugar is like a drug. People will become very devoted to it and it does not do anything good for you. Moderation is key. If you can eat it moderately it's okay. I mean, you could be going through something and take a bite of something and not stop. And then that has so many effects on your body. Okay. Not in a good way. So just try to be mindful of that. I will mention that all the time.
(21:54):
Cause I have my feelings about sugar and when it comes to lifestyle habits, not including your nutrition to get a good amount of sleep, that's different for everybody. I just say a good number is seven, but you know, everybody's at everybody's schedule different. I don't get my seven every night. I would like to, but you know, I have a cute little person that loves to wake me up and he's like, mommy, I am ready to either eat or play on your phone. You know, also stress reducing our stress. I mean that, that can get you in so many ways. Um, reducing your stress, that puts pressure on your heart. You know, exercise, trying to move your body at least 30 minutes a day. A lot of times I say, if you are sedentary, you're not used to working out, starting with walking is good. A good community will just help you move spit, get out in nature.
(22:49):
I mean, that is just, it's pretty amazing just to get out there and go for a walk outside when it's a beautiful day. I mean, even if the chili, just whatever you got to do, just get out in nature is refreshing. Then you get your vitamin D in all the things and just enjoying life, just laughing and just finding, finding something fun to do. I mean, people are so serious, you know, and time times there, you know, have been quite a mess, right? There's so much stuff going on, you know, take a detox from the news. I mean, sometimes you got to turn it off, be like, boom, I'm good right now. Okay. And just watch a comedy call, a friend that you laugh with, just enjoy latches, just get out there and enjoy it because we don't know what tomorrow is going to hold.
(23:38):
But I do know that we can try our best at taking one day at a time and improving our health, our wellbeing, and is friendly. Believe this, you know, and I'm just so passionate about all of these things. Okay. I just really am. And I would love for you to come join me on Facebook. We have a group over there called total wellness community and just come on over there. And the link will be in the show notes and just come join us to talk about things, just a safe place for you guys to come to. I would just love to see you there. And also if you would like to journal, because that definitely helps. I mean, I journal all the time sometimes when I'm meditating or sometimes I just need to get something out. I do have these pretty amazing journals where you could track your food intake movement, exercise for the day, your water, your sleep, just all the things we need just throughout the day to live a nice lifestyle, just to heal good, healthy lifestyle. And you can also grab one of those. So until next time guys,