6 Steps to Avoid the "Covid 19" Weight Gain
With all the hub bub about our current Covid 19 experience, we're talking immune immune immune, while seeming to FORGET that your body's state of WELLNESS is what PRODUCES your healthy immune state. And that wellness production comes largely from what you INGEST.
It seems being stocked on our favorite snacks during quarantine has given almost an "excuse" to eat as we wish, even though now is the perfect time to take the opportunity to use cooking for yourself to increase the WELLNESS EXPRESSION of your body, especially since we want to be as healthy and protected as we can be right now. However, it seems many using stress and anxious emotions as reason to put healthy eating on the back burner. This doesn't make much sense if we are also trying to keep our bodies healthy.
With this "eat what I emotionally want now, deal with it later" attitude, we are setting ourselves up for plenty of things we would then have to recover from later, including weight gain. Now is the perfect time to protect your health by using food, and to avoid the "Covid 19" weight gain that is now being tossed around as a joke, similar to the "freshman 15" phenomenon common to the first year of college when a child leaves home for the first time, even though this is a very true and real concern.
If you DO get on board, the bias of HOW to eat can be quite a quagmire to wade through! Everywhere you look there are opinions about the healthiest way to eat...combine fruit, don't combine fruit, eat no grain, eat all raw, eat no meat, etc etc. I can see why it seems so confusing simply to feed ourselves!
Most importantly we have to remember that we feed ourselves in order to NOURISH ourselves, not just feel full (emotionally or physically). You can learn how to eat right and heal emotional food concepts here.
It seems there is no end to opinion about how we should eat.
My studies when earning my doctorate were all about nutrition, and while I'm not a nutritionist, when I was studying to earn my doctorate AND when I was researching to write my book, Clean Your Plate, I had the opportunity to study many cultures, many styles, many patterns and theories of eating. I pulled together a combination of the best of this information into a simple plan for daily consumption of nutrient dense foods AND pleasure.
Here is the EXACT foundation I use when I work with clients to achieve health and functioning organ systems, help their bodies heal from disease, or maintain and build body strength. It is important to note that I am NOT a licensed or registered nutritionist or dietician. I am a nourishmentalist which means I practice more what happens INSIDE the body with metabolism than paying attention to calories and grams appropriate to someone's condition. You should check with your health practitioner to customize what works for you.
What I put together pulls together the best of raw eating, the best of flexatarian plant based eating with just enough of the heme iron proteins and non heme proteins throughout the week. The easiest ways to get easily digestible, bioavailable food the right amount of raw to the right amount of Congestor foods, the right times for fruit, the best times for easiest digestion, all while being a plan that allows one to eat pleasure inducing foods in balance, and work well with time commitments.
This is how I eat, how I feed my family with it's diverse needs and particularities, and it forms the guideline for how I help coach patterns in my clients. With a few customizable options, it forms the foundation that starts every eating plan I create.
1. Breakfast of Water
Immediately upon waking, drink 8 oz of water. The body has collected toxins and wastes in its filtering organs and is ready to flush. To add food before this has happened compounds the body's processes and can congest when it wants to eliminate.
2. Lemon the Liver
After I've had the 8 oz of water, I drink a warm lemon water tea, which is simply half a lemon squeezed into half a mug of warm water. This works to help the liver and gallbladder purge waste and bile.
3. Breakfast Smoothie
Every morning I suggest a healthy breakfast smoothie. Not the varieties that are all the rage now that add pudding mix and other additives to make it taste good, but a fruit, greens, and protein smoothie. Here is mine: DrFoodie's Ultimate Breakfast Smoothie
4. Plant Based Pre-Prepped Lunch
Vegetable and broth soups or raw multiple veggie salad, or both. Both are easy to make once and eat throughout the week. I habitually prepare 2 soups and portion them out throughout the week. One and done. I do the same with salads, cutting, washing, and prepping my salads into glass dishes so they can be grab and go.
I do not add meat, and I rely on the proteins found in veg. I add chia, hemp, pumpkin seeds, and lentil sprouts sometimes altogether for their excellent plant based protein provision. I might add a boiled egg because it's an excellent source of B12 which is hard to get elsewhere. I have eaten vegetarian, and I have been vegan for a long time. I switched to a more "flexatarian" style of eating simply because of my body's difficulty keeping it's blood platelet numbers in normal ranges due to consistent B12, Folate, and Iron deficiencies that supplementation didn't seem to manage. Even still my mentality is my understanding throughout study of Cellular Biochemistry that our physical bodies NEED at least 70% of our diet to come from vegetation sources. So, throughout the day I eat plant based, with no grains and no animal flesh. The supper meal is where I will allow it to flex according to my body's needs, which I monitor with Bioenergetic testing and or blood tests from time to time.
5. Suitable snacking
Snack on raw veggies, and a handful of nuts, or perhaps another serving of fresh raw fruit. This gets more raw enzyme rich foods in. We can eat, generally, as many veggies as desired, fruits we stay to 2-3 servings a day.
Beverages: water, coconut water, and or fresh green juices, herbal teas. I never drink nor recommend coffee or sodas or conventional juice.
6. 30% Suppers
Supper then can consist of the "30%" of the diet that can contain Congestors (if desired, though our weight rebalancing groups do NO Congestors/no grains, at least in the beginning) and can contain animal flesh foods.
We start with raw enzyme rich foods, like a small salad or a side of raw vegetables, green juice, or munching on raw veg while cooking the meal. Eating enzymes at the beginning of a meal, slowly and chewed well, gets the body's enzymes in proper production so that it is ready for the harder to digest foods to come.
We do not drink water with meals, so as to keep the proper PH in the stomach, and NO lemon water. Lemon water has become the mark of luxury at meal times, but it is a big no no as it serves to alkalinize the stomach....we do NOT want to do this as we want the stomach acid high to aid digestion, and kill any pathogens that come in with our food. Lemon water in between meals is find and a good way to alkalinize the body in appropriate times.
This is a meal that can include animal proteins if desired. Again, because of my ethics and morals about eating animals for nourishment, I personally only eat the smallest amount necessary, and I honor the animal that gave it's life to me. I remain open to learning more and more about what is truly meant for the human body, but for myself and the health trauma I experienced, that may be a reason why my platelets have to be monitored so closely and thus consumption of some heme flesh made necessary. At the very least I follow this when my body or when my client's healing needs are in a flare of autoimmune inflammation because it's one of the first and only foods that is allowed in the strict healing diet I use.
Also to note, this plan is a foundation for all diets that I build for all of my clients and since most consume some animal flesh, I wanted to develop a plan that included it appropriately. When I work with strict vegans and vegetarians we simply omit. We do however have to work with these groups of eaters in monitoring their intake of Congestors, which can tend to get out of hand when a whole food group is eliminated. As far as the supper meal containing meat, and because of the beliefs I hold in what the body needs for nourishment, I suggest mostly a diet of plant based proteins with only a small amount of flesh foods 2 to 3 times a week. Of these 2 to 3 times, red meat being no more than 2 times a week, and most often, chicken, turkey, and more often oily fish like salmon or mahi mahi.
Did you know a portion of protein is generally the size of a matchbox? Most adult bodies need no more than 3 of these matchboxes to get a full serving of their protein needs.
This is also the meal that we can include Congestors if desired, like potato, grain, pasta, gluten free breads, dairy,etc. The vast majority of people eat way too many Congestors, in fact, every healing and/or weight loss diet you see comes down to reducing or eliminating Congestor foods. DrFoodie's Weight Rebalancing program removes Congestors for the first part of the program, until a desirable first weight reduction is achieved, and then learning to keep Congestors in balance with the other functional foods is necessary to continue to safely and healthfully lose weight.
Not only will following this 6 step plan help you put on the "Covid 19" weight gain, but using this pattern of eating can free up your day to enjoy a sense of freedom, rather than slavery to your diet and your kitchen. It can help maintain the high functioning of a healthy immune system and adapt to pathogens that may enter. While many are eating for emotion and/or boredom right now, in truth, when we eat healthfully in a way that nourishes the body, our brain and thus the chemicals produced are healthy and actually DECREASE negative emotional responses, protecting us from depression and anxiety.
When we incorporate this foundation, we are reducing our carbon footprint through reducing animal product consumption, along with the best benefits a vegetarian diet provides, including reduced inflammation, cardio and metabolic disease risk.
We incorporate a plant based diet and the benefits of raw enzyme rich foods.
We take away the intensity and time commitment of continuous cooking throughout the day and have a plan that works more easily with a busy lifestyle.
We get the best of fruits without worrying about how it's affecting yeast, candida and over consumption that is detrimental to blood sugar.
In my opinion, it is a plan workable for anyone. Simply make the alterations that are necessary for you.
Want to learn more about taking charge of your health and learn Food Functions, too? Join the list and get 4 FREE resources to help you! This link will get you to free tips, free tools like our Food FX chart and tally chart. https://mailchi.mp/drfoodie.live/students-of-drfoodie-subscriptions
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Amanda Plevell, PhD, CNHP is a Natural Medicine Practitioner, researching Cellular Biochemistry, and the effects that food, disease, experiences, emotions, and beliefs play into the programming of the cells, along with the resulting health expression. She is the founder of the Natural Source Companies including community WellClinics, Health Rocks Cafe online education hangout and, as a Personal and Business Transformation Expert, The Success Conditioning Academy. Author of over 28 natural health and self development books, her bestselling books include such titles as "The Genesis Code", "UnBound: Kicking Anxiety From Your Bucket List", "The Energy of Divorce", "The Real Heal", "Clean Your Plate", and "Beyond the Plate". When she's not serving at her Minnesota-based practice, she spends her time homeschooling her children along with her husband, growing food, and making garden medicines. You can access her courses at her online hub: Health Rocks Cafe, found at https://courses.healthrockscafe.club/
Minnesota practice appts: http://wellclinicnaturalhealth.janeapp.com/
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