The Joy of Food
- By Green Rocks Fitness
- •
- 19 Jun, 2017
- •
Enjoying The Food We Eat And The People We Eat It With!
We need to get back to how we felt about food when we were young! It wasn't about counting calories, how much fat, carbs or protein we thought we needed, or thoughts like "I can't eat this because it will make me fat." Understand that we are food dependent creatures! We need food, not only to survive, but to thrive! We also need to enjoy the food that we eat because it affects our mind/body when we force ourselves to eat/drink something disgusting, just because we think it is healthy.
Food brings together people from all walks of life! It's a universal need rooted into cultural/ethnic traditions, preferences, specialties and the creative use of available resources! Lets rejoice and begin to enjoy the food we eat, without feeling guilty or shamed for wanting to eat foods that we have been told are "bad!" Categorizing food is what marketers want us to do in order to manipulate us into buying specific products based on profit, not health! Labeling a food as “bad” will make us feel a sense of guilt when eating it. This takes away our enjoyment, but also makes us want it more just because it's restricted!
No matter what foods you decide on eating, savor the tastes, smells, appearances and textures! Chew your food thoroughly and take your time eating! Enjoy the company of those you are eating and sharing with! Make eating an important part of your daily life!
Important Reasons to Eat Throughout The Day:
1.
Blood sugar regulation:
When we skip meals, or do not eat for many hours, our blood sugar will fall! This is when we experience headaches, cravings, anger, helplessness, depression (etc.) Eating meals consistently throughout the day will keep our blood sugar regulated, and will decrease these issues!
2.
Energy and Fuel:
Food gives us energy. Energy we need to live our wonderful lives. To workout, to function for our jobs, to handle problems that arise in a calm way. To live in a way that is healthy and loving.
3.
Digestion:
When we enjoy and love the food we eat, it helps us digest the food. “…just eating what you would consider the most delicious foods will secrete juices to help digest faster, so enjoy your food”
~ Raymond Peat, PhD
When we fear food, our bodies sense this and can wreak havoc on our digestion and cause issues (gas, bloating, etc.)
4.
Recovery:
Recover from our workouts or daily living tasks!
"Food is more than survival. With it we make friends, court lovers, and count our blessings. The sharing of food has always been part of the human story. From Qesem Cave near Tel Aviv comes evidence of ancient meals prepared at a 300,000-year-old hearth, the oldest ever found, where diners gathered to eat together. Retrieved from the ashes of Vesuvius: a circular loaf of bread with scoring marks, baked to be divided. “To break bread together,” a phrase as old as the Bible, captures the power of a meal to forge relationships, bury anger, provoke laughter. Children make mud pies, have tea parties, trade snacks to make friends, and mimic the rituals of adults. They celebrate with sweets from the time of their first birthday, and the association of food with love will continue throughout life—and in some belief systems, into the afterlife. Consider the cultures that leave delicacies graveside to let the departed know they are not forgotten. And even when times are tough, the urge to celebrate endures. In the Antarctic in 1902, during Robert Falcon Scott’s Discovery expedition, the men prepared a fancy meal for Midwinter Day, the shortest day and longest night of the year. Hefty provisions had been brought on board. Forty-five live sheep were slaughtered and hung from the rigging, frozen by the elements until it was time to feast. The cold, the darkness, and the isolation were forgotten for a while. “With such a dinner,” Scott wrote, “we agreed that life in the Antarctic Regions was worth living.”
[1]
1. The Joy of Food by Victoria Pope
2. C is for Calories by Geneviève Devereaux
If you want to lose weight, go restrict your calories, over train doing cardio, be miserable, lose your period, forget your libido, feel like shit but be happy because you lost 10 pounds of ... muscle, tissue, bone and a little bit of fat. But in the process you created dysfunction, facilitated disease, and potentially will experience a rebound (more fat gain while having less muscle) in the near future.
Let's slowly reverse what we have been doing and form new habits, new behaviors, new standards together. We have to be honest with each other and ourselves and until we are, don't expect to get anywhere other than where you have already been.
“We Generate Fears While We Sit. We Overcome Them By Action.”
~Dr. Henry Link
Action
Changes
Things
I cannot say enough great things about working for Green Rocks Fitness! The environment, the staff/owner, and the awesome members/clients and people we interact and work with each day just make it all so great! The health and goals of our clients are as important to us as our very own! That's why we facilitate a space where we can both share and communicate valid information about health and fitness, as well as put it into practice through action! Change is not only dependent on having direction and purpose, but also on taking steps toward the manifestation of our goals into reality!
What do we mean when we say "Set Yourself Up For Success"?
For us, a typical morning starts off with waking up and eating breakfast. It is very important to start the day off with a balanced (tailored to your ratio demands of sugar, protein, and fat) breakfast, after fasting all night while sleeping! After breakfast, Melissa and I come to the Green Rocks Fitness office (located at 401 Shady Avenue G-100, Pittsburgh, PA 15206 in the Kenmawr Apartments building) where we work with clients, and work on the business by writing content, filming videos, and doing research to further help both our clients and ourselves. We have a refrigerator where we can store our refreshments and the food that we bring with us. This enables us to work longer without having to leave the premises to go eat, which as we have learned, really sets us up for progress with finishing tasks. When you are in the zone and really tackling projects, having to stop because you are really hungry puts a huge damper on productivity! As we educate and tell all of our clients, eating throughout the day is very important and should not be neglected when it comes to our health, wellbeing, and productivity!
Portable Burner and Mini-Oven
Sometimes we need or prefer to heat/cook certain foods! We purchased a mini-oven and intended to order a portable burner so that we can bring the food from home and have it stored in the office refrigerator.Problem solved! I was telling one of our clients this and she was so inspired by the idea of this whole concept that she purchased the burner for us right there on the spot. We were greatly surprised to say the least, and I couldn't thank her enough for her kind gesture! The people we work with and the sense of community we are building is truly amazing and special! This is exactly what we envision in our business, but I will talk more in-depth about that in another post. This burner allows us to cook food during our days at the office in order to stay properly fed and regulate our blood sugar throughout the day, while being able to stay at work for different tasks and projects. We would like to have a kitchen in our new storefront (in the future) so that we can provide these services to our clients, but I will talk more about that in my vision article!
Coffee and Tea Machine
Our clients are all about having coffee regularly, and rightfully so! Coffee, when used properly, offers many great benefits! Most people "do coffee" wrong, as we point out in our blog article, Benefits of Coffee. Most times, our clients get coffee from less than ideal sources, and the ingredients they put into the coffee is of poor quality. That is where a good thing turns into a bad thing! We offer good quality milk with the right types of sugars, and even mix in some gelatin
( purchase here
) for some beneficial protein.
What does setting up for success mean to you?
Whether it is going to sleep 5 to 15 minutes earlier so that you can wake up with time to eat a good breakfast, or preparing foods in advance so that you aren't going long hours without eating, you can take steps using your foresight in order to prevent certain issues from arising and sabotaging your health/fitness goals!
Meal Prepping
Make time during the week to cook and prepare foods so that you don't have to suffer when those busy moments or days hit and you end up resorting to less than ideal meals (or no meals at all.) This can be beneficial for a multiple of reasons! These situations are stressful and can cause blood sugar dysregulation, resulting in sleepless nights (or waking up between 1-4 am,) cravings, irritability, depression, and reduced ability to handle situations, tasks and other stressors. Personally, it's relieving to know I have food already cooked and prepared! I know that if days get busy, or interrupted, I'll be okay knowing my food can be ready at a moments notice.
Summing up
If you know certain things will cause stress, or prevent you from doing what needs to be done, put yourself in a position to win! Set yourself up for success by taking the necessary precautions allowing you to stay on the path that you want to be on! Action! Action! Action! I'll repeat it again... “We Generate Fears While We Sit. We Overcome Them By Action.” –
Dr. Henry Link
This is something we help with for all of our clients! We offer guidance, as well as understanding, in all areas of health and wellness. This includes movement, nutrition, meal plans, mindset, motivation, and tips/tricks to stay the course. If you find yourself struggling in any one (or even all) of these areas, take action NOW and let us help you help yourself!
TIPS:
1. OWN THE MOVEMENT: Never do an exercise with a weight that owns you! This means you are dictating the movement and in control at all times, performing the movement safely and targeting the muscles you want to target. Do not allow the weight to pull you forward without your consent.
This movement can target the thighs more, or the glutes/hamstrings more, depending on the position of your torso (more upright versus more forward/bent over). In this video Melissa is performing the squat to target all of the muscles as a whole. The thighs, the glutes and the hamstrings. Her rear delts and upper back also get worked indirectly from her good posture and by keeping her shoulder blades retracted and chest up: http://bit.ly/2pEVl82
