7 Habits for Healthy Eating – Are you creating the healthy life you want? by Dawn Pallavi (Steinborn)
Do you struggle with feeling fatigued and sluggish even when you eat well? Do you find yourself eating on the run and making poor food choices despite your best intentions? Do you find yourself overeating or skipping meals? Would you like to know how to enjoy better health no matter what you eat or where you are?
It may surprise you to know that your eating habits can contribute to the foods you crave and the foods you choose, but they certainly can. With so much emphasis on what to eat or not to eat, many of us have lost touch with how we eat. But, how we eat is an essential part of the health puzzle. Do you know how your habits are affecting you? This could be the very question that moves you from lethargy and feeling down to full vitality and motivation to choose the best food for your health.
When you incorporate healthy eating practices into your life you will experience more strength and vitality, more efficient digestion and assimilation of nutrients, more evenly regulated moods, hormones, and sleep patterns, increased immune function, fewer cravings, and more overall harmony in your life, even amidst external chaos.
The best way to understand how this works is to experience it. Take these tips and try them for yourself. Incorporate them into your life one or two at a time. You will be amazed at what a difference they make.
- Sit down to eat.
When your body is in a relaxed, sitting position, your digestive system is in the position to receive nourishment. This position allows for a smooth flow of blood to the digestive system and easier transport of nutrients to the cells. The simple act of relaxed sitting makes your system more efficient from the digestive fluids it secretes to the smooth elimination of waste.
- Eliminate distractions while you eat.
Give your meal your full attention. Relaxing music or light conversation are great for eating, but turn off the TV, close the book or newspaper, don't drive, or do laundry. Give yourself this time to just eat and enjoy your food experience. Your body will be more aware of how much you eat, and will assimilate it much better.
- Eat meals at regular times everyday.
Regularity of meals causes all of your bodily functions to regulate and synchronize. Your moods, hormones, sleep patterns, menstrual cycles, energy levels, blood sugar, and overall vitality will improve. It also decreases the desire to overeat. If you know that your next meal will happen at a regular time, you are less likely to overeat at the current meal.
- Chew each bite 30-50 times.
Chewing helps break down your food more completely, enhances assimilation of nutrients, increases energy and vitality, supercharges the endocrine system, increases immune function, and makes you more aware of what, and how much, you eat. So, you will eat less, while experiencing greater satisfaction and taking in more nutrients from your food.
- Stop eating at least 3 hours before going to bed.
Sleep is a time of rest and rejuvenation. If you are busy digesting your food while you sleep, your body doesn't have its full resources for recuperating and restoring balance. Food that rests in the digestive system while you sleep creates acid that must be detoxified from the body causing sluggishness and fatigue the next day. Try going to bed feeling a bit empty and see how much better you feel when you wake up.
- Set an intention for your meal.
What effect do you want your food to have on your body? …healing of a particular organ or condition, nourishment, fun, energy, vitality, strength, relaxation? Set an intention for what you want to create in a particular meal then focus on that intention for the entire meal and even while you are preparing it. It can transform anything you eat into a healing experience.
- Leave guilt, shame, and deprivation out of your dietary experience.
You have the power to choose what you eat. Use this choice, and enjoy every morsel of what you take into your body. Be gentle with yourself and others and see how much more open everyone becomes.
All it takes is some awareness and a little practice to create the healthy life you want. The best part about habits is that you can take them with you and practice them anywhere, in any situation. Begin to pay attention to how you eat. Create support by getting your friends to practice these habits with you. See how they change your life, and enjoy the new you.
An experienced macrobiotic chef and owner of The Natural Epicurean Academy of Culinary Arts, Dawn Pallavi (Steinborn) helps students to create optimum health and incorporate wellness into their everyday lives. With culinary training in France and the United States , she brings a comprehensive perspective to the art of cooking and nutrition. The Natural Epicurean is one of the leading Macrobiotic and Natural Food and Healing Schools in the world. If you would like to learn more about macrobiotic career training, recreational classes and workshops or just learn more about how foods affect your health and emotions, visit www.NaturalEpicurean.com .
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Hi Dawn 
complete health to you
meg