I have a confession to make. One that I never thought I would share with anyone, but now that I know how many people suffer from digestive and bowel problems, I know this is something I MUST share.
When I was in my mid-thirties, I had some serious trouble with irritable bowel and digestion. So much in fact, I began a journey of research that took me down some interesting, and often painful and costly, roads.
I read about diet after diet hoping to find the perfect diet to ease my pain and bloating. One was the juicing diet. Another was the vegetable only diet. Another was about popping a huge clove of garlic in my mouth and on and on.
With the “garlic” diet, I popped a big fresh clove of garlic in my mouth, chewed it up, and gulped down a very large glass of green cabbage juice. It came right back up and I felt worse than ever!
I was more miserable than ever. Here I was, a young woman, who felt years older than my chronological age. I had to find the perfect diet. Not so much for weight loss, but for my own pain management. Sure, weight loss would have been a nice byproduct, but that wasn’t my main driving force. If I did lose a little weight it always came back.
Countless Diets
How many diets have you tried? Some diets are scientifically researched; some are just plain crazy! Trust me, I know. I’ve tried many of them.
There’s the all-egg diet, the lemonade cleanse, the oatmeal diet, low fat, high fat, low carb, all carb, no sugar… the list of crazy diets is endless. We all want to know what the perfect diet is and what foods will help us have trim and healthy bodies. But there is not one single diet that fills this bill… until now!
Just as each person’s fingerprints are different, so are each person’s nutritional needs and solutions. You have your own unique health issues, and foods that are healing and health building for one person can cause another person great distress, such as pain, inflammation, bloating, weight problems, allergies, and even disease.
Whether you are overweight, underweight, or lacking energy, your relationship with food is personal and unique to you.
The word diet is one of the most misused words in our language today. It is associated with restriction, starvation, dread, pain, and suffering, yet is what we think we must endure to be the thin, willowy figures society paints for us as pictures of happiness and fulfillment. It’s used like a swear word. The D-word conjures the dreadful act of self-deprivation and stress that 108 million Americans attempt four or five times each year. The diet industry currently rakes in over $66 billion a year.
You’ve seen the success testimonies that accompany diet programs that have come down the pike. At the end of every TV diet commercial or magazine ad featuring a skinny model prancing around half naked in a bikini, is the tiny statement *Results Not Typical.
Typical diet programs are based on restrictions – some that are just crazy and dangerous. They usually limit the dieter to tiny portions; restrict calories, carbohydrates, sugar, and/or fat; and regulate specific foods. It’s a mindset of all or nothing: When you are not dieting, you can eat all that you want; when you are on a diet, you can eat “nothing.” This is where the term “yoyo dieting” comes from. You might go on a strict diet to lose weight for a wedding, a class reunion, or to look good in a swimsuit while on vacation and gain the weight back right afterward. You might get good results from a diet once but fail miserably the next time you try it. Why is that?
What’s the Solution?
It can be so confusing to know what to eat for good health, body discomfort AND weight loss.
One expert tells you to eat fish and olive oil. Another says green juices. In 2017 U. S. News & World Report reported on the top thirty-eight diets… the top thirty-eight out of how many?
Goodness, thirty-eight is a lot of diets! It seems like every few months a different food will either cure you or kill you.
I used to own a health food store. When customers came in and asked for no-fat products, I joked that someday lard would be the next fad food – that we’d have lard capsules in the store and people would buy them in droves.
Guess what? Lard can be a healthy and useful food for some people, at least according to an article by Pete Wells published in 2012 in Food and Wine magazine entitled “Lard: The New Heath Food?”
In fact, there was a recent world summit at which scientists said they had been wrong about fat; that it is essential for good health; and that butter, coconut oil, and other fats should be consumed regularly. Lard and animal fat have been attacked as unhealthy foods for decades. We were told they clog our arteries and lead to heart attack and death. And now lard is being heralded as a health food. No wonder we don’t know what to eat!
The abundance of food available to Americans today has never been equaled. Food is everywhere and is prepackaged for instant consumption. This is a luxurious convenience, yet there are an increasing number of added chemicals in our foods.
Many of us no longer eat the same whole, natural foods that were readily available when we were children. Let’s consider the original meaning of the word diet. Its first known use was in the thirteenth century and was based on the Latin word diaeta, meaning “regimen.” Diet truly means a manner of living that includes the food we eat and the way we eat it.
When I realized how much confusion there is around food and diets, and when I experienced what the right foods for my body are, I began a journey that has turned into my life’s work.
Much of this is chronicled in my book, The Food Codes™ Intuitive Eating for Every Body.
My purpose in writing this book is to show you how to use food as a source of health, well-being, joy, and satisfaction for a great lifestyle. No longer do you need to wonder what to do, you’ll learn how to let your body give you the answers.
It’s a very powerful way of knowing what a body wants based on working with thousands of men and women and children around the globe.
You can quit struggling once and for all. You can quit dieting once and for all. You can quit guessing once and for all when you rely on your body to give you the answers.
To learn more about how to tap into your food needs, based on The Food Codes™ click here.
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