Nurturing Healthy Habits

Healthy Habits JJ Whilst making a lunchtime juice-smoothie combo the other day, I realised how years ago my staples used to be bread and milk!!! OMG!! The first two things on my mind on return from holidays were always a cup of tea (with milk) and bread (subconsciously I think I was afraid of starvation if I didn't have a loaf in!!) Now my staples are bananas, avocados and greens - the foundation to my favourite breakfast green smoothies, and after a holiday (usually there's a long journey involved) my first thoughts are always for a nice looooooooooong drink of water. Shows how tastes and mind sets change - if we allow them to.

By de-cluttering our minds from old stuff, such as beliefs (that I’ll starve without a nice slice of granary on hand) and habits (brewing up without thinking), we can allow new energising, health-giving habits a bit of room to move in and set up home in our brain cells. Yay!!

But often it’s a chicken and egg situation. What comes first? If we are happy and healthy and bouncing full of energy we are more likely to feel good about ourselves and therefore more likely too to eat and think more healthily. Similarly, if we drink our water and eat our greens we are more likely to have cells that are buzzing full of energy and flourishing – which can’t but help overflow to global level (i.e. YOU).

Obviously if you aren’t eating as well as you could, and perhaps holding on to negative beliefs, your poor old cells will be feeling the effects and, rather than being happy, will be dragging themselves around feeling sorry for themselves and under-functioning. And that means you will be too. It takes a strong will or a light bulb moment or even both to get you changing your diet and mindset.

My own experience was one of feeling like absolute death and really scared because of my health (or lack of), and had someone suggested I hung upside down from a tall bridge to get better, I would have done so (a BIG deal for me as I’m a “feet firmly on the ground” kinda girl). Thankfully, a less dangerous option was on hand – to change my diet - and two of the things which went out of the window were wheat and dairy. The rest as they say is history.

Often it has to be a leap of faith. Often when you are in the depths of despair, you just have to trust and take that step.

The other week there was a fantastic film called “Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead” on TV. It followed an Australian man called Joe who after suffering an auto-immune disease for many years (and being on umpteen drugs), decided to juice his way across the USA. Along the way he met a truck driver called Phil, suffering with the same illness. Phil chose to follow Joe’s example and get juicing. Both men made incredible strides in their health, lost lots of weight and were headed for a life without drugs. Both had hit rock bottom, but both too took that very difficult leap of faith. And WOW what results.

Obviously not all of us are so seriously ill.  I try to have a very healthy diet, but even so felt the film had a message for me too. It really brought home just how fundamental food is to our health and well-being, and how I need to get that message across to people. Whether you are a juicing-queen / king, or maybe have an OK diet but suffer with odd headaches, or lacking energy – things which we assume are “normal” (they aren’t; it may be the norm, but it isn’t normal) - I would recommend you make a point of getting your hands on this film and watching it, and see if it doesn’t speak to you at some level. 

The following quote sums it up nicely. J “Our bodies are incredibly smart. We have over 60 trillion cells intricately and automatically coordinating their activities so we can go on with our lives without having to worry about our health. But when we introduce bad foods to our bodies, we start to destroy this finely tuned masterpiece, balance is lost and the preconditions for disease set in. Our bodies scramble to recover and regain balance, but so long as bad food keeps coming in, they will remain out of balance and, over time, disease will set in. Our bodies are extremely forgiving of bad habits - but only up to a point - and when they have had enough, people will get a wake-up call like they’ve never had before”  THE RAVE diet and Lifestyle - Mike Anderson

The first step with any healthy diet / lifestyle is to get savvy !! You don’t need a university degree – just a few basics to put you on the right path. I shall be giving my “How Happy Are Your Cells” talk JJ in Dorking, Surrey on Monday 30 September and I invite you to come along to learn some of those basics.
See my website for more details ............