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The Importance of Knowing What You’re Eating and Drinking

When’s the last time you actually were consciously paying attention to what you were eating or drinking? If you’re like most people, it’s been a while. We tend to get busy in our lives and grab the closest food that we can get without considering its ingredients or the toxins it holds which can negatively affect our bodies. We can be so consumed by other things that when we step back and take a look at what we are truly eating, it can be a shock, so it is no wonder that those who are trying to be conscious will make food swaps like rice noodles instead of wheat, or Polyphenol olive oil instead of regular oil. We’ve all been told that we are what we eat, but what are we eating?

Consider Natural Vs. Processed Foods

While the exact definition of natural food is not extremely clear, it’s easy to identify foods that are processed versus foods that aren’t. For example, meat that hasn’t been processed includes cuts like steaks, chicken wings, and pork shoulders. Processed meats are hotdogs and some lunch meats. Basically, natural consists of the types of foods that are in their original form, such as cut steak from beef or green beans from the field. Processed foods are those foods which aren’t in their natural form.

Limit Your Alcohol Consumption

While we all like to indulge from time to time, it’s important that you truly understand alcohol’s negative effects on your body. When you drink, alcohol interferes with your brain’s communication functions. This will alter your mood, behavior, coordination, and ability to make rational decisions. When you over drink, and don’t then take something like these detoxifying drops to help flush the toxins out of your body, your heart can experience high blood pressure and arrhythmias. Over time, excess alcohol consumption can take its toll on your liver and pancreas, the two organs responsible for removing the toxins of alcohol from the body. An alcohol detox treatment program might be necessary for those who find themselves unable to throttle their drinking on their own. Failure to treat an alcohol abuse problem will only make health complications more difficult to manage in the future.

Nutritional Demands for the Busy Mind

Fifty years ago, people ate for what keep their physical body nourished throughout the day. They figured out which foods would supply their muscles with enough energy to handle their day-to-day physically demanding jobs. Now, people are starting to notice that their mental capacity is what’s being challenged. There’s no denying that jobs today tend to be full of more mental tasks than physical ones. You need to eat in respect to the demands that you put on your body and mind.

When you are doing a lot of mental analysis, your brain tends to produce a lot of oxidants. Now, you’ve likely heard of many foods that have antioxidants. These are necessary to help counteract the excess oxidants in your body when in times of high mental peaking. So, you’ll want to consume more antioxidant foods. These include berries, apples, beans, and tea. All of these antioxidant options will help to get rid of those excess oxidants throughout the day.

We all learned in school that your brain was made up of 80 percent water. Therefore, you must consider hydration in your healthy drinking strategy. When your brain is active at work, it creates a lot of metabolic waste. This waste requires hydration in order to be removed from the body. This means you have two main tasks. First, you want to make sure that you’re hydrating regularly. When you experience brain fog, it’s a good indication that your brain needs more water. Second, you should limit the foods and drinks that dehydrate your body. These would be the sugary drinks with high doses of caffeine, like soda and excess coffee.

There’s no denying the fact that you are what you eat. By understanding how the body works, you can better craft your diet around what your body needs at specific times. As you learned above, there’s no one optimal solution for dieting. Rather, what your body will need is highly dependent on its environment. The foods you need when you’re putting your body through physically demanding tasks is much different than when putting your body through mentally demanding tasks.

Sam Roberts