What goes in Should come out

by Rhonda Sheryl Lipstein | Dec 12, 2008 | Physical Fitness and Nutrition

Or so the saying goes….ya know like, what goes up must come down, the sun rises and the sun sets, and yet…sometimes, what goes in, stays in and NOT how or where we would like it to!

We all want to be healthy and part in parcel with BEing healthy, is EATing healthy.

When consuming energy for our BEingness, eating the foods we do, for our body’s to function at optimal homeostasis, what we Choose to consume, how, when, and why are all major factors into the fantabulous dynamic of the “ins and outs” of eating healthy.

Essentially, eating healthy is a mathematical configuration, a ratio if you will, of the amount of energy you require to stay awake, alert and active through out your day and the amount of energy you consume to allow for such.

Just like with our cars, if we do not put enough gas into the car, it won’t run and if we try to put in too much gas, it spills over and unfortunately, more times than not, all over us…..not the safest or for that matter healthiest of positions to find oneself in!!

But we aren’t cars, and when we consume too much energy it doesn’t just spill out onto the floor.
Like the exhaust pipe on a car, we have our own means of purging unused, unnecessary or toxic waste, our bodies do not require, however, when we consume too much for that which our bodies actually need, instead of spilling back out, like the gas from our gas tanks, our stomachs expand and make more room, hence weight gain.

Our stomachs, unlike the steel gas tanks in our cars that are rigid and unchanging, are made of soft elastic muscle tissues, that are able to expand and contract, or get bigger and smaller. Depending on how much food or energy we are putting into our stomachs, will determine the extent to which it expands. More over, the frequency by which we expand our stomachs or the number of times we consume more than we require, will determine how, if at all, our stomachs contract or get smaller.
If we continuously feed our bodies more than is required, more energy that we are actually using through out our days, then we are giving no opportunity for our selves to use up the energy, nor our stomachs to contract. Once you have expanded your stomach for an elongated period of time, it will signal your brain that it requires more food to fill it, even though your body does not actually require that food, or energy for homeostasis, hence weight gain.

So our first objective is to eat only that which our body requires, which one can generally determine whilst eating, as a feeling of satiation or fullness.
It is recommended that you do NOT eat until you are full, but satisfied = until the hunger or feeling of need for food has subsided.

Of course, if you have grown accustomed to over filling, so too, has your stomach, and thus you will need to “artificially” determine when you are full, or begin by decreasing what you normally would eat, and allowing your stomach the opportunity to contract, before determining when your body is truly satisfied.
Remember, once you have over expanded your stomach consistently over time, your determination of fullness or satiation will be skewed, as your stomach will have expanded beyond its “normal” size and will have your brain thinking it requires more than it actually does, as there will be more room within it, to fill it up with excess energy or food.

Once at a stage where our stomachs are more accurately determining what our bodies actually need – not expanded beyond “normal” size, we can ensure we are paying attention to this “feeling of satisfaction”, by eating slowly, giving our bodies time to signal our brains that we & our stomachs are full, and thus register that we no longer need to eat, to provide that which our bodies require.
It is a great idea to enjoy a meal with friends and family, engaging in conversation, taking breaks through out your meal, and assessing how your stomach is feeling. If you are single and living on your own, I suggest a good book to read, perhaps even some creative writing while you are eating, so that you can take those much needed moments of reflection to determine if your body really does need that next bite.

I know many of us have been taught to “clean our plates”, so do so, either by
A} taking less than you think you want, using smaller plates, or
B} storing your left over food in tupper ware, or other forms of storage containers.

There is no need to finish every morsel on your plate, if you are full, or even better, satisfied, then you have eaten that which your body requires for that moment. There are 24 hours in the day, you need not eat all your daily required energy at one sitting.
In fact, you don’t even have to spread it over 3 meals.
Try splitting your meals up into 4, 5 or even 6 meals, through out your day.
Instead of soup, salad and a sandwich for lunch, have a mid-morning snack of vegetables, a sandwich at “lunch” and a mid afternoon snack of soup.

Not only is this healthier for your body, in that it gives your body the time to truly use the energy you are consuming, digesting, dispersing, utilizing, but it also establishes a routine that you, your stomach and your body will grow accustomed to. Lowering the extent to which your stomach expands at any given meal, maintains your stomach muscle at a smaller size, hence the amount of food it shall take to “fill it” or have you feeling satisfied.

The next objective is to eat foods that are healthy for us, obviously!! Eating 6 small meals a day is FABULOUS, but if those meals are chock full of fat and little to no nutrients than you are essentially feeding water to your car….. get ready for a break down!!
You can not run on fat.
Your body will deteriorate without the much needed vitamins, minerals, and essential nutrients it requires to function, period.
So, when eating those 3 – 6 meals a day, Choose HEALTHY foods, foods that are rich in nutrients, vitamins, minerals, proteins, carbohydrates, and low in fat, cholesterol and sugars.
To increase your “health content” not to mention the ratio of “energy in to energy out”, choose not only foods that are healthy but high in fiber.

Ahhhh FIBER!!! Gotta LOVE the Fiber!

The goal is to eat foods that provide all the nutrients our bodies require, whilst purging all those that it doesn’t.

Fiber is a GREAT TOOL in ensuring that which should be purged, is.
It gently guides, just like a tour guide, or perhaps a snow truck, collecting all the snow in its big shovel, and clearing a nice path by which we may drive or walk, all unwanted foods, out through our bowels, ensuring unnecessary food “stuff” is not left behind, thus our bodies are cleansed of any toxic waste, &/or………FAT.

Problem is, even with the greatest fiber consumption, thus, content within our BEingness, if we are consuming too much of anything, our bodies become overloaded, as they are not equipped to handle the purging of such excess, and you know what that means……..STORAGE!!!

OH, how we loathe STORAGE……9 times out of 10 it is not storage of minerals, vitamins, or nutrients our body shall later require but FAT,- otherwise known as CELLULITE,, when too much of it gathers together in, ahhhhhhh, STORAGE!

When consuming foods, our fantabulous bodies, like a well oiled multi purpose machine, extract what elements from the foods we are eating and disperse those elements where required.
So for example, you eat some yogurt, a GREAT food for the body by the way, and your stomach does its digestion thing and then we’ve got what was once yogurt, now broken down into its base elements.
These elements, such as the acidophilus, a fantabulous enzyme found in yogurt, will be used by our stomach to further assist in the digestion of food and maintain healthy & strong stomach workers, or cells whose function it is to metabolize our foods, or eat’em all up. Then there’s the milk content from which our stomach will extract calcium to be sent to our bones, teeth, hair and nails to strengthen their cellular make up and maintain healthy homeostasis. If the yogurt has fruit within it, your stomach will send the fiber from the fruit to assist in eliminating food elements not required, as well as extracting the vitamins and minerals for our organs and tissues, and the fructose, a naturally occurring sugar, for instant energy, that we may maintain active living.

What ever is not used is considered “waste”, and thus excreted through our bowels.

Thing is if you are downing an entire family sized container of yogurt, you are in effect drowning your stomach in way too much of all this fantabulous goodness, and even though it may have dispersed this great goodness through out your body, if your body does not need it, and it has not been determined to be waste, it gets stored away.

It takes up to an hour for our stomach just to digest a meal, imagine how long our tiny microscopic cells through out our bodies take to utilize all this greatness.

Foods that could otherwise be broken down and used as energy, such as the fructose in our fruits for example, if in excess, wind up getting stored where they will become FAT. They do not maintain their elemental status as fructose. Our bodies, as fantastical as they are, simply do not have enough storage bins to separate and categorize all the different food elements our stomachs so diligently break down. Whatever is not used by the various parts of our body, gets compacted, much like cars in a scrap yard, into FAT.

If, by some chance, we find ourselves stranded on an island one day, starving, our bodies will break down that fat into its elements and thus feed the body accordingly. However, that is not a likely situation and thus we wind up with the dreaded CELLULITE pockets of FAT, just waiting around for that day when we might get stranded, or by our SELF LOVing Choosing, change our lifestyle habits and start providing that which our BEautiFull vessels of BEingness, our bodies, really need.

Ya see, when someone is “losing weight”, what they are doing is essentially causing their body to go into those Fat stores and break down the excess energy stored there. Perhaps they may now be eating a little less, exercising a little more and thus, though not starving, are requiring more energy than they are consuming, by which to maintain a healthy homeostasis.

So don’t lose hope if ya got “storage issues”, there is a way out!! It’s that mathematical ratio thing again…..eat less energy than you are using and you will begin to burn off those storage bins of fat.
Of course, ya don’t want to get carried away!! WE ALL NEED Fat, believe it or not, for healthy homeostasis, so once you have reached your “ideal weight”, you want to go into “maintenance” or simply put, healthy LIVING. Therefore, again, paying attention to the cues from your body and NOT over-eating. BEing carefull and eating to satiation and not fullness. BEing aware and choosing healthy food choices, and ALLways DOing YOUr best to include healthy amounts of FIBER to assist in eliminating all those food elements we do not need nor want in our bodies.

I allways recommend, when choosing healthy food alternatives, to “put foods in” that will easily be digested and assist in getting whatever is not required, out, swiftly and easily.
Foods such as vegetables, especially dark leafy lettuces, legumes, fruits, whole grains and the like, are all great for providing a fantabulous feeling of satiation whilst ensuring we aren’t holding on to any unwanted food elements thereafter.
In fact, they’ll even assist in getting rid of foods eaten previously and needing a little nudge to get a move on OUT,, where otherwise, they would LOVE to stay awhile and take up some much dreaded Storage space.

Happy Eating my Sweet Angel Friends 🙂