The word of the day is DIGESTION! Actually, that should be the word of the day every day. My Super #3 for your new lifestyle change is purchasing Kimberly Snyder’s The Beauty Detox Solution book and reading it over and over and over again. Kimberly is amazing and I found myself loving everything she had to say. She helped explain to me how important digestion is to have a healthy body. Not only is her book super informative, it’s very fun and entertaining as well. A few things that really stuck with me was her explainination of eating light to heavy, the difficulties of eating meat and dairy, and most importantly food pairing.
Eating light to heavy is something I never thought I would do. I was always taught that breakfast should be the “biggest” meal of the day and that dinner should be your smallest. I ate that way for years and worked out at the gym every single day and still didn’t lose weight or feel healthy. Kimberly finally helped things click in my brain. I was pairing all my foods the wrong way. Fruits, vegetables, starches, and proteins, all digest at different rates in our body. That is a fact and there is no way around it. So when I thought I was eating healthy by having my yogurt and turkey bacon for breakfast, a turkey sandwich on whole wheat bread and baked chips for lunch, then chicken on whole grain rice with vegetables and fruit for desert for dinner….boy was I WRONG!!!! I was piling food on top of food in my body and I wasn’t really getting any of the healthy nutrients.
So now, I make sure I have a juice for breakfast. Doing this makes sure my body get the nutrients asap! It starts my day off feeling great and energized. I used to drink 3 cups of coffee a day and now I drink ZERO!! I haven’t needed it. However, don’t hold it against me though if I splurge a little this Holiday Season and I get me a Pumpkin Spice Latte….made with soy of course. 🙂
I then always make sure I have a fresh spinach and mixed greens salad for lunch paired with whatever leftovers I had from the night before. I usually make enough for dinner that there is always the perfect amount of leftovers for Adam and I the next day. I try to always eat my salad first as that is going to digest faster than the entree. Who knew after all these years of going to restaurants there really is a reason as to why we get our salads first. I thought it was just to keep us busy ’till our dinners came. 🙂
Now, if I’m going to have sprouted grains or proteins, I make sure I have the large majority of them at night. In fact, Adam and I go through one whole loaf of Ezekiel bread a week. We also eat a ton of beans and nuts. If I’m hungry after dinner I don’t even think twice about having a slice of Ezekiel bread with some almond butter. YUMMY!!! Or a good handful of trail mix. The key here is that your body has enough time to digest everything. So if you are going to eat meat, or heavier food items eat them at night so your body will have all night to digest it. It takes at least 4 sometime more hours for meat to digest in our bodies. If you start your day off with meat, and then pile more meat on throughout the day all you are doing is piling sludge on top of sludge.
Fruit is also something Kimberly is very passionate about. She insists YOU MUST EAT FRUIT ON AN EMPTY STOMACH!!!! I started do this right after my juice fast and what a difference even that makes. I would always eat fruit for desert. I love frozen gapes and would eat them after dinner all the time. It takes only about 25 minutes for fruit to digest through our system. If you eat fruit for desert it’s going to just sit on top of everything else you ate and turn to sludge. You won’t even get any of the beneficial nutrional value out of it. So eat fruit first, then veggies, then entree. Something this simple has changed my body completely!!!!!
Well, no surprise to a lot of you, but I used to be a HUGE meat eater! Heck, Adam and I make Barbeque!! I never in a million years thought I would eat meat only once or twice a week and I’m here to tell you it’s true! I feel way to good and you know that whole “oh my gosh, I feel so sick and bloated because I ate to much feeling” has completely disappeared. I have yet to feel that way eating like this. I know I feel so good right now because my food is digesting properly.
Kimberly explains that meat and dairy are very difficult for your body to digest. Whether you believe meat and dairy are good for you or not, it doesn’t change the fact that “it is what it is”, and our bodies always have and always will have a hard time breaking them down. I completely cut out dairy and maybe 2-3 times a month I have meat (seafood, turkey, or chicken). I now use almond milk and almond cheese and it’s SO good!! And if and when on a cheat night I do eat dairy or meat I make sure it’s as natural as possible. Like all natural goat cheese instead of Kraft singles. Dairy is very, very hard for our body to digest. Plus, Kimberly points out that we are the only creatures that continue to drink milk after infancy. And on top of that, it’s milk from another creature! COWS!! Who decided that??? Once she pointed that out it had me wondering, why do we drink milk from cows? And how does it “do a body good”? You get just as much if not more calcium from fruits and vegetables. Why do I need to go drink milk from a cow to have a healthy body? I’ve been more healthy NOT having dairy.
I never in a million years thought I would not be a 24/7 meat eater but boy am I glad I read Kimberly’s reasoning behind eating meat. The strongest animals on the planet are Gorilla’s and they eat a fruit, vegetable, and nut based diet. So the whole “you need meat to be strong” doesn’t really hold any true value. You get a TON of protein from vegetables, beans, and nuts. She explains how our body is designed compared to other animals and how man started eating meat years and years ago. Yet, when he did, eat he had to hunt for it and it would sometimes be days or weeks before he got to eat meat again. Therefor his body had time to work it off and digest it. I know I was guilty and I’m sure several of you are too but I ate meat at every single meal!!!!!!!! And my weight gain and awful skin color pictures go to show that wasn’t working out for me. I’m not saying you shouldn’t eat meat, or that meat is even bad for you, I’m just saying once I cut back on eating so much of it I started to feel a ton better and look a lot better as well.
The final important thing for me that Kimberly touched on was food pairings. She says:
Starches DO mix with vegetables
Proteins DO mix with vegetables
Proteins and starches DO NOT mix
Different starches DO mix
Different proteins DO NOT mix
Fats DO NOT mix well with protein, pair moderately
Fats DO mix with starches
Fruits should be eaten on an empty stomach
Fruit DOES mix with raw greens (exept melons)
I try my best to follow this and always think about my food pairing. She goes on to explain in her book specific good and bad food pairing combinations. She also maps out a list of what is considered to be a starch, protein, and fat.
Digestion! That is one of the biggest keys to looking and feeling good. So think about that next time you order surf and turf served over wild rice with a side of mashed potatoes and cheesy garlic bread. That’s going to become your new best friend as it sits in your digestive tract for the next several hours, days, weeks, months, years……..Instead, order a side salad first, then get some grilled chicken with steamed broccoli. Or better yet, ask them if they have any vegan dishes. There is an awesome vegan/vegetarian restaurant in Nashville called the Wild Cow. They are amazing and their sweet potato tacos are to die for!!!! Their vegan queso and raw tiramisu cake is pretty exceptional as well.
Remember, I’m not here to tell you what is right or wrong. I’m just here to tell you what I’ve gathered and show you what is working for me. I also will say that there are some things in her book I don’t 100% agree with either. So that’s why it’s important for you to take this book and pull from it what will work best for you and your family. Kimberly has hundreds of more things she talks about in her book and I know there will be many you can relate to as well. I really hope you take the time to order it and read it from start to finish at least 10 times. That is only because every time I read it I find something new! HA!
Please check out her blog www.kimberlysnyder.net. She has amazing updates weekly and you can also get more information on her book or you can also order it through amazon.
Stay Juicy!
Stacy
StayJuicy 