The Gift Of Health
Sometimes I feel like a broken record, constantly spouting off about health. Healthy food, healthy diet, healthy lifestyle, healthy mental attitude, and exercise. I could go on and on.
But really, what else is there?? If we don't take care of our bodies, where are we going to live??? And, If we don't take care of our planet, where are our bodies going to live?
I have finally come to realize, that our bodies (and minds), and this planet, are our most valued allies and assets. I do wish I had understood this truth sooner. I could have avoided a lot of trauma and personal suffering. But then again, I may not have ever really "gotten it" like I do now.
Through my own physical and emotional health crises, I have gained insight, knowledge, and experience. And it can transport me to exactly where my clients are on their paths to physical and emotional "enlightenment". I feel it is a wonderful gift in this way. I took my own illness, and turned it into a positive. I have heard said, that in order to heal you have to find and embrace the positive in your illness. Actually, I think that the positive finds you. As we become healthier both physically and emotionally, we are able to open up, and accept and recognize the positive energy circulating in the world around us. And then, we can share it with others. And it does not have to take an encounter with illness to do this!
We, (here at Wholly Macro) share this positive energy by taking the beautiful plant foods that mother earth provides, and transforming them into delicious and healing culinary delights that we then deliver to your door via our prepared meal delivery service, or, we teach you how to prepare healing food yourself in our hands on cooking classes, or we talk, listen, and teach, geared to your specific needs and concerns via our one on one natural lifestyle nutritional consultations. We do this for you because of the demand for it. We listen to what you all say: you want to eat well but are too busy to shop, cook, and meal plan, (and clean it all up!). You want to eat well but don't know how to cook. You want to eat well, but don't know what to eat or where to start. We hear you. And we are on the same path.
We find more information confirming the importance of diet (and lifestyle), than we seem to be able to keep up with sharing with you. But here are a few tidbits from my new favorite source (other than AARP!), the Harvard Women's Health Watch Newsletter. (Men: this definitely applies to you as well. It even applies to our pets!).
"Eating more whole grains may reduce your risk of hypertension and inflammation". People who eat more whole grains may reduce their risk of death due to inflammatory disease, and lower their blood pressure. People who eat at least 11 servings of whole grains per week were about 33% less likely to die of an inflammation related disease (heart attack, stroke, cancer, diabetes), than those who rarely or never eat whole grains. Refined grain intake was not associated with lowering blood pressure and inflammation according to the study.
Another study from the same publication states that "people who eat a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, fish, whole grains, beans, and unsaturated fatty acids, are 76% less likely to develop advanced alzheimer's disease than those who eat saturated fats, meat, dairy, and fewer fruits and vegetables". Some forgetfulness is perhaps inevitable in the busy and fast paced world that we live in, but let's try to ward off full fledged Alzheimer's through proper diet, shall we?
Wishing you health and happiness as always.
Gayle and Jaime