FOR THE SAKE OF YOUR HEALTH, YOU NEED TO DO THE FOLLOWING

 1.     MAKE MINDFUL EATING A HABIT

2.     FOLLOW AN OPTIMAL DIET

3.     LIMIT RED MEAT CONSUMOTION

4.     AVOID PROCESSED MEAT AND FOODS

5.     CUT DOWN ON SUGAR ANS SALT

6.     EXERCISE

Let’s now summarize these recommendations as to what are they, and why are they good to do for your health:

1.     MINDFUL EATING

The types of food we eat every day establishes the essence of our diet. Our taste for food develops in early childhood, traditionally under the cooking of our mother. That is why everybody’s mother is the best cook in the world. Later on, the availability and affordability of food and the food culture we grow up with establishes our eating habits. We eat to satisfy our feeling of hunger. But sometimes we eat without being hungry, just out of habit or to compensate for our psychological problems, such as depression. We are not usually aware of the consequences of our eating. However, the type of food we eat, the time we eat and the amount of calories we consume have serious health consequences such as obesity, hypertension, type2 diabetes, cholesterol and increased risk of cancers. 

Fortunately many of us are able to change our eating habits. We can become vegetarian even vegan. But obese people can’t change their eating habits. They are addicted to food. The fast-food industry and popular fast-food culture have contributed significantly to the worldwide epidemic of obesity.

We should always be aware the health consequences of our diet and eating habits. Our diet should be simple, easy to follow, should contain fresh, organic, wholesome and nutritious food from all different sources.

There is a misconception about diet and weight loss. There is no such a thing as weight loss diet. It is not the type of food we consume that makes us fat, it’s the amount of food we consume that makes us obese. If we look at the animal kingdom, the heaviest animals are grass eaters (herbivore).

There is an old Turkish saying about weigh loss. It states, if you want to lose weight and enjoy your food, at the same time, you should, ”az ye, oz ye, yavas ye.” Meaning, ”eat less, eat quality of food, eat slow.” This could only be achieved by mindful eating. Have you noticed all overweight people, eat very fast.  As soon as the food is swallowed, after few chewing, we no longer taste it. Taste is very important for enjoyment of food. In order to taste the food, overweight people, keep stuffing their mouth with more food, without knowing how much they consumed. This obviously is not mindful eating.

Mindful eating means not to eat anything in hurry. It means to pay full attention to our food andeating, but nothing else, like watching TV, reading something or arguing.  These things take away our attention from our food. We should concentrate to notice, the color of our food, its presentation, its smell and aroma. Only then can we take a small bite and notice its texture and its taste in our mouth. Start chewing slowly and repeatedly, again notice the change of the texture and flavor of the food, than swallow it. Repeat the same thing over and over, until we finish. It should take around half hour or more to finish our food. This duration of time, spent for eating, is very important. Because when we start eating, all the digestive enzymes and hormones pour into our digestive tract and we become more hungry. The feeling of satiety returns in half hour. Fast eaters, during this hungry time, can consume a lot of food, before they feel full and stop eating.

So mindful eating is the only way to enjoy our food, to taste it, to eat less and not to gain any weight. We should all try to make mindful eating a habit. Mindful eating should also include when to eat.

We are all familiar with our circadian rhythm, which is a biological clock by which our body sends chemical messages to sleep, wake and engage in certain activities. We also have what is called “chrononutrition” time,by which our body needs certain amount of calories to function at its best. This time is in the early hours in the morning. During this time, burning food for calorie production is most active. This is an evolutionary and genetically acquired character holdover from our ancient hunter- gatherer ancestors to be more active and to hunt in the morning. Our body burns foods more for energy in the morning. That is why a hardy breakfast is much better than a hardy lunch or dinner. Late eaten meals, instead of being  metabolized for energy production, tend to turn into fat and deposited for future use, and cause weight gain.