Un-common sense?

In writing this blog, I want to make it clear that I am not a health and wellness expert, but a woman who has a hunger to learn and a desire to live a fuller life.  While I have always enjoyed learning, when it came to health and wellness, for the first 48 years of my life, I was pretty content to march along with the majority of the American public taking as fact much of what I saw in print, heard in the news and read on a label.  I had a basic trust that the food industry, drug industry and the FDA were interested in protecting my health and well being.  I think I was lacking some common sense.

As I gained weight and began to feel tired, achy, depressed and discouraged, I started to become a bit more interested in learning what I could do to naturally get my health back.  I had heard all the typical bits of information:  eat less fats, exercise, add a salad, cut down on coffee, watch the sweets.  The problem was I was already doing these things.  Some of the ladies I work with would say, "Susie is the healthiest eater.  She always has a salad."

Needless to say, when I turned to a more whole food diet and began to lose weight and feel more energetic, my eyes were open to the truth in the statement, "You are what you eat."  I did look a bit like mashed potatoes, a donut, a vitamin depleted freezer meal,  limp overcooked vegetables.  As I ate more whole foods, I could feel a glow come back to my skin, my eyes were brighter and I could practically feel the vitamins running around my body. 

I have often wondered how I let myself get sucked into the spiral of poor food choices, believing the McDonald's commercial, "I'm loving it!" and never really asking myself if the food I was eating was really doing what I wanted it to do, nourish my body.

Real food nourishes.  Processed foods, even if they are "enriched" or have vitamins added (often synthetically made vitamins) are not nourishing to the body.  Usually, it takes more energy and nutrients to break down these foods and the body is left depleted.

So, if you are like me, I encourage you pull out your common sense and take a good, honest look at what you put into your body.  Is it really nourishing you?  Good health is possible, but it all starts with what we give our body to work with. 

What are your favorite ways to nourish your body?