I was thinking recently about the difference between those who eat a really healthy diet compared to those who eat at the other end of the spectrum.
It occurred to me that one of the most straightforward ways of describing the two groups would be in how they define the word food.
If asked, those who eat a mainstream diet would probably define food along the lines of something edible you put in your mouth when you are hungry that tastes good. The liability of applying this broad a definition is that many manufacturers use ingredients or flavour enhancers or preservatives that do nothing to improve your health and a lot to deteriorate it. So, because that definition includes substances that reduce your health and life span, it is a non-optimum definition.
The really healthy eaters have much stricter definitions of food. Their definition would exclude many items not excluded by the above definition. From what I am reading, there are probably way too many variations given the definition of food by healthy eaters to get a consensus but all of them much more limited than the above.
If you haven’t clearly stated your definition of food, I invite you to do so. If you feel so inclined, by all means share yours with me.
Which reminds me of two thoughts shared with me by experts in their field. One was a management consultant who said, “As you grow your business it becomes more important what you say no to.” The other was a marketing consultant who said, “Opportunity is the enemy of small business.” The reason being that you do not have the resources to take advantage of all the opportunities you see so you have to be disciplined about saying no to most of them otherwise you lose focus and dilute your efforts so much that little of note is accomplished.
I guess the same principle holds true in choosing what you put in your mouth. You can say yes to everything that resembles or is marketed or offered to you as food or you can hold in mind and apply a stricter, more limiting definition of food so you better maintain your health, physical energy and mental alertness.
It is also interesting to note that in this society at this time we are not taught to say no. At least we guys aren’t. Those with the big advertising budgets are rather averse to consumers having any ability in this area! So we are constantly bombarded with sales messages and urged to say “Yes!” to this that and the other without a corresponding or balancing emphasis on improving our ability to say no.
If you get talked into doing things against your better judgement or feel at all uncomfortable about your ability to say no, try standing in front of the mirror and practicing your “No.” technique. Practice being polite, firm and unyielding. Then imagine yourself tired, run down, under slept and hungry. Practice saying no from that viewpoint too. Because that’s your most vulnerable time, the time when you are most likely to say yes to things you shouldn’t.
Writing this it makes me realise the different choices that might have been made by all the celebrities who died of drug overdoses had they only 1. Had a clearly defined statement of their lifestyle choices and 2. Were more accomplished at saying no to those drug pushers who got to them in moments of weakness.
Yours in optimal health.
Tom