Nutrition as Medicine for Balancing Weight, Part One

Here is a subject that needs to be addressed if we are going to make any progress in coming to terms with the obesity epidemic in our country. Those who are locked into this struggle are typically missing some important pieces of information which could help them immensely if they only understood some of the underlying dynamics at work.

Our health and our weight are the result of many different factors which converge together uniquely in each person's life. To say that weight loss is all about eating less and exercising more is missing the point. This blog entry will not cover all of these complexities (after all, I want to save some stuff for later entries, don't I?), but I do want to talk about one crucial factor now.

That is the concept of nutrition and digestion. In the US, we have many people who are not cooking at home anymore. After all, they reason, why should I when I can grab something in the drive through for a buck or two which I can gobble down on my way to work? And I can order take out or pizza delivery on the way home? The result is that we are eating food, but we are not eating smart food.

We are not eating the high-octane fuel our vehicles need for optimal performance. We are eating the watered-down stuff that tears the engine apart. Our vehicle is the only one we get. We do not get to trade it in for a new model when we burn through this one folks. Doesn't it just make sense to eat food that is the best quality we can get?

The ironic thing is that most people know the difference when they are eating junk and when they are eating nourishing food. I will cover this more in a future entry, but the focus here is on what happens to our food during digestion.

The digestive track is a long tube that runs through the body. It has an entry point and an exit point. What happens in between has everything to do with how much weight you put on. Think about what food and eating are designed to do in the body, i.e. to provide energy and maintenance of body systems. Now, think about how that happens.

Most people don't really know, and therein lies a big problem. Here it is in a nutshell:

1. You eat something. Digestion starts in the mouth, for those who take the time to chew and coat the food with saliva. Chewing an d saliva are vital to proper digestion. When we gulp our food we have simply insured that the body will not be able to extract the nutrition from it. The cells will not receive what they need, and they will continue to send the signals to the brain that they are starving, and you will continue to feel hungry. Stress will impede the body's ability to secrete saliva, so eating 'on the run' is never a good idea from the perspective of digestion and nutrition.
2. Once the food hits the stomach, if it has not been properly 'pre-digested' by the chewing and saliva (which begins to break the food down chemically), then the stomach will attempt to make up for the missed step by secreting more acid to break the food down. If you have reflux, consider slowing down and chewing your food more thoroughly. You may discover that you can resolve that issue easily without those over the counter drugs. Also, avoid drinking too much liquid with your food, which dilutes the digestive fluids, rendering them less effective, which in turn stimulates more secretion.
3. As the contents of the stomach enter the intestinal tract, long finger-like cells called cilia protrude into the center of the intestinal tube. As the digestive matter flows through these cilia cells, the nutrients which are available in the right size and form will be absorbed into the bloodstream where they are carried into the cells. Nutrients which are not absorbed simply become part of the waste material. Sometimes, large particles will be absorbed and passed into the blood stream, which the body defense system will 'read' as foreign invaders because they do not look like nutrients. This will set up 'leaky gut syndrome' and an inflammatory response which can affect all the body systems if not addressed and corrected. Also note that the cilia cells are fragile. Stress and poor diet will wipe these out in large masses and the gut can become encrusted with plaques and putrefying fecal matter. Inactivity can impair the ability of the intestines to move the matter through. A body which has poor muscle tone will also have poor tone in the gut.

So you see that in fact, some people can be eating a great deal but still be malnourished. This will inevitably lead them to eating even more. The types of food being eaten will tend to be the high fat and simple carb types of food which the body can assimilate more easily than the proteins, minerals, vitamins, fiber and other nutrients the body is truly wanting and needing. Since there is an overabundance of that which the body doesn't need so much of, it gets stored as fat, all the while the cells are starving and sending those signals to the brain saying 'feed me, feed me.'

One way to end the 'struggle' is to love yourself enough to feed the body what it truly needs, and to feed it in a way that the body can access the nutrition. Slow down around your food. Take a moment of gratitude to release stress before you eat. Chew slowly. Eat bitter salad greens first to help stimulate more saliva production. Limit fluids during the meal. Move your body during the day to help the digestive system move things along. Eat fiber to keep the digestive tract clean and healthy. Whenever you set out to make changes, pick one or two things to start with, and as you get used to that, add in a few more things.