You are what you eat. You will have heard this countless times before – and you’ve probably spoken it too. But I sense we may not have given it the attention it requires, nor understood it’s meaning in its entirety. It may be something we have spoken about lightly, but perhaps haven’t actually given much emphasis to or deeply considered. And for the most part it has probably been taken quite light-heartedly – amusing someone with the idea that they may turn into the edible object they seem to be over-consuming.
We are indeed what we eat. Despite it being hard to objectively verify via sight, it is truer than we dare think. Just as our homes are made from various types of timber extracted from forests but without looking like trees, our bodies, too, are made from the nutrients we extract from foods without actually resembling those foods.
Let me give you a little background to this story. We have roughly 38 trillion cells in our body. Every seven years or so we are in fact residing in a brand new home. Our body is smart enough to regenerate cells continually across our lifespan, each part of us having a unique cell renewal pattern – and therefore replacing most of those 38 trillion cells that make us multiple times during our existence. For instance, our stomach cells are replaced in 2-9 days, our skin cells 10-30 days, and our red blood cells approximately 4 months. The only cells that don’t renew are those within our central nervous system and brain.
With that in mind, it is crucial we acknowledge that the nutritional content of what we eat determines the composition of our cell membranes, bone marrow, blood, and hormones. Consider that the average adult loses roughly 300 billion cells to old age every day and must replace them. Our bodies are literally manufactured out of the food we consume. This is not something we should be taking with a grain of salt!
That’s why what we put into our bodies is critical. Like so important it can shape our destiny. Eating foods that are as clean, natural and as unprocessed and unrefined as possible is crucial to our health, function and longevity. Alternatively, if we eat food or substances that contain man-made or synthetic chemicals, or ingredients that are foreign or unrecognised by our body – let alone to the part of the mind that is trying to pronounce them – we are going to be housing cells in our body that are going to promote who knows what!?
Let me ask you this – would you want the aviation engineer to put dirty fuel laced with unknown compounds into the plane you were about to board? I didn’t think so.
And I’m not saying NEVER eat those foods – heck, I ain’t about to lower myself to hypocrisy! We become what we eat often, not what we eat sometimes. On those sometimes occasions your liver and kidneys can detoxify those unwanted substances, it just hasn’t got the gusto to do this all the time, or every day.
In short, our bodies are only as clean as the food we feed them. If we feed our bodies with products that are loaded with foreign ingredients, have been processed beyond oblivion to the point that they barely resemble the ingredient they began as, as are doused in sugar, salt, and trans fats, then it’s no wonder we begin to feel sluggish, groggy, and irritable – this is because our bodies struggle with digestion of substances that are unrecognisable to them. And, we may even be encouraged to overeat as our body can’t recognise enough of the micronutrients needed to sustain effective functioning of your body, so it begs you to feed it more so it can increase it’s nutrient load. However, if we choose to feed them clean, natural products that have plenty of nutrients and essential compounds in them then we’ll be building a body that feels energised, light, and vibrant. Not only this but our body will also communicate that we’ve had enough to eat because it can sense that we’ve given it loads of useful nutrients.
Our body and our experience of life is so heavily determined by what we eat. For the most part choose wisely, and note how much better you feel, and how much more awesome life feels.
- Corinne Austin
- Movement Motivator & Health Coach
corinne@fitfixnz.co.nz
