THE F WORD

FOOD just in case you thought I meant something else. When I thought about food I thought back to one of the theories we learned in nursing school.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

It is a lot more complicated and detailed than I am presenting here. In nursing they simply wanted to point out to us that the very basics of life such as air water and food (clear lungs, fluids and nutrition to put it more nursey) had to be met before a higher level of health or being could be achieved.

Well I read a great deal of fitness experts' material and the one thing I noticed about them and about extreme athletes is that food is fuel to their fine machine - their bodies. I suppose what it was meant to be. Sure they have cheat days when they indulge but for the most part food is a fuel and nutrition for their goals of health and fitness.

Basically this pyramid illustrates that food and water are needed for basic survival (before we can adequately satisfy the other levels of need). But we use food for almost anything but.....

If you read the last post about memes, then you will know that your food intake, cravings, etc are related to memes not the need to take in food as fuel. Otherwise how and why do we:

Incorporate food and drink feasts for just about any reason - birth, death, marriage, divorce, promotion, birthdays, anniversaries etc etc. (In past history perhaps celebrants had to travel many miles on foot to get to the celebration earning the 'feast.')

Eat when we are sad
Eat when we are glad
Eat when we are bored
Eat because it is there
Eat for comfort
Eat because it is free
Eat for almost any reason to celebrate or to mourn - food is always there

We rarely eat because we are hungry or because we need fuel.

Yet we would not take our expensive car and put just anything we felt like in the gas tank. We put in fuel - the right kind - the one that is recommended to keep the longevity of the car, keep it running smoothly and lower our maintenance costs. Similarly we would not continue to pump the gas into the car when the tank is full but we do that to our bodies all the time.

I wonder why we put so much less value on ourselves?

Sometimes learning about foods, caloric, protein and fat values might be boring but learning all you can about what you eat - what is in it - what it can do to help or harm your body - in other words how you are fueling all the fantastic complicated processes going on in your body awake or asleep can astound you.

Take the first step and try to think before you eat. Are you nourishing your body or your soul. Changing the way you think about food and recognizing why you are eating are the first steps to eating clean and getting healthy.