Fuel Your Body With Good Nutrition Quotes

I am fundamentally optimistic about the possibility that we can change the way we eat and move. We have to change, we are going to change, and I would like to be part of that because the way we live now is not sustainable. Here’s some important news: I am absolutely certain that exercise is as important as food when it comes to weight loss and long-term weight maintenance, as well as being the single most important component for your overall health, energy, and wellness. We do both here, obviously—eat great food and exercise hard. But if you find yourself in a difficult food predicament, keep the exercise going. Regular exercise promotes a desire to fuel your body healthily in addition to keeping you on track with some nutritional leeway, meaning that occasional celebratory indulgences won’t affect your bottom line as much as they would a sedentary person. Exercise really is the flywheel of the good life.

Fuel your body. Think about your environment as an ecosystem. If there’s pollution, you’ll feel the toxic side effects; if you’re in the fresh air of the mountains, you’ll feel alive. You’d be surprised at how many of the foods that we eat actually sap our body of fuel. Just look at three quick examples: soda, potato chips, and hamburgers. I’m not a hard-liner who says that you should never consume these things, but this kind of steady diet will make it harder for your body to help you. Instead, look at the foods that are going to give you energy. Choose food that’s water soluble and easier for your body to break down, which gives you maximum nutrition with minimal effort. Look at a cucumber: it’s practically water and it takes no energy to consume, but it’s packed with nutrients. Green for me is the key. We overeat and undernourish ourselves way too much. When you eat bad food, your body will feel bad and then you will feel bad. It’s all connected. I drink green juice every day and eat huge salads. I am also a big believer in lean protein to feed and fuel the muscles--I might even have a chicken breast for breakfast. Growing up, because I danced every single day, I would basically eat anything I wanted and I wouldn’t gain any weight. I would eat anything and everything trying to put on a few pounds, but it never worked--and my skin was terrible as a result of it. We’d blame it on the sweat from the dancing, but I never connected it to what I ate. As I got older, I started to educate myself more about food. I learned that I need to alkalize my body. It’s never about how I look. Instead, I go by how I feel. I notice immediately how good, clean food boosts my energy while junk makes me feel lethargic. I’m also a huge believer in hydrating. Forget about eight glasses of water a day; I drink eight glasses before noon!

Our eating instincts are disrupted by modern diet culture, in which food is supposed to be fuel, not therapy. Just as the PICU doctors and dietitians think of nutrition as a prescription they can write and then tweak for optimal results, we’re taught that a “healthy” relationship with food means that you only ever eat for sustenance. Enjoyment is allowed only when you’re eating certain kinds of foods blessed with the right kind of packaging, or better yet, no packaging at all. Otherwise, we’re supposed to ignore the sheer existence of food unless we’re hungry, and then eat only what we need to feel full, but never a bite more. You shouldn’t eat to combat depression, or stress, or just because something tastes good, if you are not also physically hungry. And yet—the physical sensation of hunger is emotional. Hunger triggers a huge range of feelings, depending on its severity—excitement, irritability, weepiness, confusion. And eating brings more: pleasure, contentment, satisfaction, bliss. We cannot separate these things. I’m not sure that we should try.

Gut health is so vital to our health because the microbiome has many functions: •​Makes and regulates hormones and neurotransmitters •​Absorbs nutrients •​Supports immune function •​Regulates estrogen levels in the body •​Fends off pathogens and parasites, and keeps healthy bacterial balance in check Estrogen and progesterone fuel the good bacteria in our guts. Without adequate levels, we can develop dysbiosis and its wide range of digestive disturbance symptoms, including diarrhea, cramping, constipation, bloating, and indigestion. When the gut microbiome is healthy, the estrobolome produces optimal levels of an enzyme called beta glucuronidase. As the liver metabolizes estrogen, it delivers this conjugated estrogen to the bile for excretion into the gut. A healthy estrobolome minimizes reabsorption of estrogen from the gut, and instead helps you poop it out. However, if you’re constipated and not pooping daily, or have an excess of bacteria producing beta glucuronidase, you can keep recycling estrogen in the gut and become estrogen dominant.