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Healthy Doc - Healthy Coach Series: Debunk the Junk

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Your HEALTHY DOC - Dr. Nigma T. Sciortino, ND

Junk food is everywhere: at gas stations, grocery stores, schools, work, at home watching television and even on billboards as we innocently drive home from work. Junk food is hard to avoid.

We know that junk food is not good for us, and yet we continue to eat it. After a while, your body will begin to break down, just like a car that has not received the proper maintenance. Your body will give you signals if it is not fed the right substances. Like an engine light on the dashboard of your car that turns on in the event of engine trouble, your body gives you hints when it is not performing up to par. Junk food signals show up as fatigue, acne, rashes, digestive problems and even mood imbalances, like depression. The long term side effects of improper eating can cause inflammation in the body that contributes to almost every disease. Weight gain is a sure signal that you are on your way to being a statistic for heart disease, cancer, and/or diabetes - similar to eventual engine failure in your car.

Now when that light turns on in your car telling you that you need to fill up the gas or check your engine oil or that you’re due for a tune-up, you would certainly take your car in for repairs and maintenance to prevent your car from incurring engine failure, would you not?

So if we know junk food is so bad for us, why do we eat it? The answers are different for everyone, though many of us indulge in junk food for the reason that it simply tastes good and that we feel we deserve a sweet “reward” after a long, hard day. But most of us have been conditioned to eat the sweet or salty stuff, even when we don’t really want it in the first place. And we are bombarded with messages from the media to eat, eat, eat! The marketing propaganda is polluting our diets.

Debunk the Temptation of Junk food

The first step to debunking the junk is to be aware that just because it is found everywhere, it doesn’t mean that it is good for you. It is important to educate yourself about the toxins, chemicals and artificial flavors that exist in our everyday foods. These will, over time, lead to disease, especially in children whose little bodies are in need of nutrients - not chemicals that eventually build up and cause disease.

To start with, we want to think of healthy foods as foods that give us energy, taste good and don’t make you sick. Research led by John Hopkins University studied how vegetables and fruit with emphasis on broccoli reduced cancer growth by up to 40%. Other research from high profile institutions such as Stanford and Harvard has proven that people who eat more vegetables, not only reduce their risks for various cancers, but other inflammatory diseases such as heart disease and diabetes.

How to Color your diet

Start by eating a variety of colorful fruits and vegetables. Look out for the colors, green, yellow-orange, red, blue-purple, and white. The more colorful fruits and vegetables you eat, the wider the range of nutrients you will receive. Each color offers something unique to the your diet such as disease fighting phytochemicals that, along with vitamins, minerals and fiber, work synergistically to support a good healthy foundation. Phytochemicals act as antioxidants that work at deactivating cancer-causing toxins.

Blue/purple: Blueberries, purple grapes, plums, purple cabbage, eggplant and purple peppers

Green: Avocados, green apples, honeydew, kiwifruit, artichokes, asparagus, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cucumbers, leeks and peas

White: Bananas, brown pears, white peaches, cauliflower, garlic, ginger, mushrooms, parsnips, potatoes and white corn

Yellow/orange: Apricots, cantaloupe, oranges, papayas, pineapples, butternut squash, carrots, yellow summer squash and sweet potatoes.

Red: Red apples, cherries, cranberries, pomegranates, strawberries, red peppers, radishes, radicchio and tomatoes.

Think about picking the food you eat everyday in the same way you would pick the home you live in and the car you drive. More than often, one will research these such items before they purchase them; make your health one of these important items and empower yourself to pick the best choices for your health instead of eating foods that are cheap, greasy and nutrient-deprived.

Your HEALTHY COACH – Annette Dykes, MCC, CPT

So we all know that junk food isn’t great for us, and yet many of us still “indulge” every now and again.

Before trying to change your entire diet or attempting to eliminate all junk food, begin first by understanding what it is about these foods that you love.

What might you be hiding from? Where are you missing fulfillment in your life? What is it about these foods that gives you the “gotta have it” feeling?
These are all questions to help you understand your psychology around diet and nutrition, which will make the journey to healthy slimness a whole lot easier.

I suggest taking some time to journal about these questions, to help you to understand why your health is important to YOU, and what your optimum vision is for your health and well-being. Once you know where you’re going, it will be a whole lot easier to get there.

Here are some powerful questions to ask yourself:

• What about health is important to you?
• What do you think about the foods you eat now?
• What information do you need to improve your health today?
• Where can you find the information you need?
• In what ways are you shortchanging your health?
• What does your body need to thrive?
• What is your next step in improving your health?

You can live a healthy, fulfilling life where food is your friend, and no longer the enemy.

Remember, progress always happens one step at a time.

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© Annette Dykes, Certified Weight Loss & Life Coach, Certified Fitness Trainer.
www.MyPrivateCoach.com
Annette Dykes is the Life & Weight Loss Coach at My Private Coach. She can be contacted at info@myprivatecoach.com.
Get a taste of coaching FREE today, schedule your first free session!

© Dr. Nigma T. Sciortino, N.D., is a well-respected Naturopathic doctor, and the Director of the West Vancouver Naturopathic Clinic in West Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She is a clinical instructor for both the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medical School and the Boucher Institute. She has been featured on Breakfast TV with Denis Simpson, and is a recurring guest of the Good Life Show, with Jesse Dylan.
She is the Founder of the Healthy Doc concept and her site can be visited at HealthyDoc.com

This article may be published without the consent of the authors so long as the publisher's box is included in the post.

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