How to Eat

My Vegan Mode

Around my mid 20s I got into veganism. Partly because I wanted to challenge myself to see if I could do it. But also because the media was promoting it to be the #1 diet to have a healthy body. I felt that if I followed what the media said then I too would become the healthiest person I could be. Although it did allow me to lose a bunch of weight in the beginning it did not come without issues.

My Issue with Veganism

My issues that I was faced with was the typical ones that all vegans go through at one time or another.

• I was worried about who I could eat with, what I could and couldn’t eat, what explanation I would give to get people to stop asking me why I was vegan, etc.

• There we’re so many conflicts in my life now that I started eating this way. At times I felt alone, isolated by my own doing.
  

• If they would just eat like I did then I could hang out with insert Friend Name Here

The more I did the vegan path the more I felt like I was judging people for not being vegan.

This was not my end goal. I chose this path with the hopes that my body would get healthier and perform more effeciently.

Now I was overanalyzing people, their diets, my diet, and how long I was going to live. The diet brought the worst out of me.

It was completely the opposite of what I expected so I decided to find a different path to bring people together.

What is Food?

For a large majority of Americans food falls into two main categories.

Fun and Fuel.

Many order a large deep dish pizza that is solely based on how good it tastes. Others would grab chicken breast and broccoli for fuel. The thing is both people are justified in their meal choice.

Food is not good or bad. It is another tool in our arsenal that has an expected or unexpected affect on our lives. That’s where it is up to us to decide what effect are we trying to get out of the food.

What Are the Food Categories?

Here is a chart to reference when you are trying to decide how to alter your body.

Anytime you feel like you don’t have energy you can go towards the Energetic column. If you feel like you have too much energy you can eat some Absorptive column foods.

As you go through your life you will gain an awareness of what different foods do to your body and what makes you feel the way you want to feel. The main thing is to be attentive to your body when you consume foods so you can decide if its doing its job in your personal vehicle. Is the food fueling your life or is it taking away from your life?

That way you can rely more on your personal expertise instead of a social media influencer.

We are not the same! So we cannot follow the exact same advice for our health as the next guy.

How to Use Food to your advantage?

Ok, I gave you a chart to use but how can you apply it to your life right now?

Let’s take a case study to play with before you try it for yourself.

Case 1#: Middle aged man, heavy meat eater who is under a lot of stress.

In this example the middle aged male probably does not want to stop eating meat.

At the same time he does want to alleviate some of his stress.

When we talk about stress as an emotion that is effecting the body we can see it as food for your mind or spirit.

This stress is usually a spike in energy followed by a sudden drop or loss of energy.

Stress that is negatively effecting someone is most likely on the Absorptive side.

In other words the stress he is feeling is taking AWAY his energy.

He wants to have more energy and also make sure it is going to the places he wants.

Protocol:

1. Reduce Meat Intake - Meat is Acidic or Absorptive to his energy

2. Increase Fruit intake - Fruit is Alkaline or Energizing to his energy

3. Increase Vegetable Intake - Veggies Maintains energy so we use this to make the energy he does get in last longer.

4. Meditate for 10 mins a day - When you slow down to review your day you can organize your activities and decide which ones are Improving (Energizing) your life and which are hurting (Absorptive) your life

Following this plan for a couple of weeks will give him enough info to see if he needs to add more energy or reduce energy.

Once its all said and done we must realize that everyone will respond to foods differently and must use information on food to their best of their ability to change their personal condition.

What issues are you dealing with?

Let us know in the comments below so we can help you through it.

Alex