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Food + The Power of Well-Being

4/9/2017

This article is about food, from the perspective of someone who has had quite a tumultuous relationship with it. In our society, food has become such a mindless activity, it is a filler, an object to help numbest emotions, a reason to post a cool looking picture on Instagram and above all the reasons that so many of us suffer from just “not feeling good enough".

Natalie is a person previously with a tumultuous relationship with her dinner plate. We sat down with Natalie and she shared her wealth of knowledge on the topic of food and what it really means to foster a healthy relationship with food. To turn food from a boredom into the life force that it was intended to be.

Natalie’s journey started when she got sick, really sick. There were no explanations as to why she became sick, there were no doctors that could pinpoint why she suddenly felt like her health was turned upside down on it’s head. She even had one doctor suggest that she was drinking too much water, he proposed that she drink more gatorade to replenish her electrolytes, and no we aren’t making this up. Keeping good faith with her medical professionals, she embarked on a short-lived journey on gatorade train. Nothing much changed, her energy was just as depleted. From then on she started seeing a Traditional Chinese Medicine Doctor as an alternative to the standard general practitioner. Soon after she began her regimen of a restricted diet and acupuncture. These things worked for a short amount of time but then she found herself once again going from jogging two to three times a week to suddenly not being able to get up the stairs without collapsing. And there was still no explanation.

Natalie had to fight tooth and nail for her health. She knew that what was happening wasn’t right and decided to make a point of seeking information on her own in order to resolve the issues she was facing. After testing, and re-testing and inconclusive answers she finally figured out that her thyroid was nearing a non-functional state. Her doctor prescribed thyroid medication, but this medication did nothing but mask the pain that her body was going through. Natalie took the time to invest in her own health, her own body and started researching ways to change how she ate and remarkably… she started feeling better.

"She found herself going jogging two to three times a week, to suddenly not being able to get up the stairs without collapsing."

After removing most everything from her diet, she has slowly started to re-introduce different foods back into the fold of her life. On this journey Natalie discovered a vital piece of information that most of us will never have the pleasure of truly understanding. She unearthed the difference between feeling good, and feeling like crap. After feeling good, and knowing the difference there is no way she could go back. When you think about it… how many times have you eaten a meal, and felt like taking a nap right after, or felt like you need to push back in your chair and release your buttons because there was not enough space for the giant food baby you were harbouring in your belly? That is NOT how food is supposed to make you feel.

Food is supposed to be a life-force, something that gives us energy, stamina and fuel to carry on our busy lives. When food is slowing us down, and making us lethargic or sickly, it is not doing what it was intended to do. Many of us don’t know the answers to why we feel this way, we blame it on too much, or the weather, or any other myriad of excuses but the truth behind our ailments is typically laying right in front of us, swimming on a plate of buttery, saucy, decadence that our bodies do not need to function.

For Natalie, it was a necessary evil. She knew that she had to cut out most of the things she had grown to love and rely on as staples in her diet. And no one is saying it’s easy to give up the things you love, it is a difficult and stressful process. Natalie told us a story about strawberries, something she used to love so much, which she cut out of her diet. And when she tried to re-introduce them into her diet, the next day she was brought to her knees with pain. Almost as though every injury she had ever had was suddenly being experienced anew. All because of eight strawberries.

It is important to know that you are the master of your own health, you can change how you are feeling, and you can steer the course of your future. With some research, hard work and a genuine interest in your own well-being almost anything is possible. There are so many resources available at our fingertips, take it from Natalie… feeling good is achievable!

Take the Natalie challenge if you are interested in an investigation in your own health. For 30 days take a trip to junk food-rehab; remove bread, butter, gravies and sauces. deep-fried foods, fast-food, essentially eat a really clean, whole food based diet for only 30 days. And at the end of the 30 days… go hog-wild. Have that burger you have been dreaming about, eat all of the cheesy sauces and deep-fried goodness. And Natalie can almost guarantee that after you recover from your food-induced coma you will certainly revert back to a whole-foods diet. There is no denying the feeling that whole-food gives you, the rush of invigorating energy is incomparable and one that we can certainly get behind.

We were so grateful for this chance to sit down with Natalie to discuss something that is so important. Our well-being. We learned how important it is to be mindful of everything we are putting into not only our mouths, but on our skin (our largest living organ), our hair, nails, lungs, you name it! Everything that enters our body should be thought-about, and mindfully enjoyed. Because our lives, and our health is worth-it. We thank Natalie for inspiring us to question our perceived “normals” and giving us the nudge to explore the other options and resources available to us.

***We are not doctors, or experts in any way and do not poses the power to heal ailments or pain. However each one of us are the experts of our own bodies, and the feelings we experience on a day-to day basis. We wrote this article as an inspiration to get excited about your own health and well-being, from the perspective of someone who has gone through similar struggles that each of us face on a daily basis. Please take this article at face value, we love and accept the face that every body is different and what works for one person is not available to the next.
Thank you, ~ The Yogadown Team

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Food + The Power of Well-Being

"She found herself going jogging two to three times a week, to suddenly not being able to get up the stairs without collapsing."

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