Inspiring Change

By Eve Prang Plews
Licensed Nutrion Counselor
(Originally published in Sarasota's Natural Awakenings magazine March, 2010)

Behaviors are based on beliefs.  If you believe that being disabled for eleven years prior to death is normal, then you can eat the SAD – Standard American Diet and make that belief real.  As awful as that sounds, it’s true.  Americans suffer many years of low function in the last chapter of their lives, something that is rare in many cultures and countries.  Average disability prior to death in Japan is 3 weeks.  What are they doing right?  Not only is the Japanese Okinawan period of disability brief, women live 8-10 years longer than American women and Japanese men live 6-8 years longer than American men.  What gives?

You can see that people who eat the greatest volume of fruits and vegetables have the lowest rates of Americas 2 biggest killers:  heart disease and cancer.  Yet it is common to see up to 63% of all calories consumed daily come from sugar and white flour.  What we need are the carbs with color.  Eat a rainbow every day of high nutrient rich foods not denatured calories missing critical nutrients.

Carbs became the enemy when people mistakenly thought only of bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, cakes and the like as carbs.  Yet carbohydrates include all plants that grow from lettuce to apples, broccoli to oranges.  There are only 2 carbs that are not plants: lactose (milk sugar) from dairy products and honey from the bee.

It’s not more carbs that we need but better carbs.  Carbs with color.  Everyday.  Every meal.  That’s behavior change that matters.  But it must be based on the knowledge that you can make a difference in your health and in your future.

How are you inspired to change?  Do you wait till something isn’t working in your body before you quit the fried food or excess meat protein?  Or will you look at the good science of survival for keys to add to both your vitality and your functional life?  It doesn’t require another study or book reviewed by Oprah for you to make even a few positive changes that science has already concluded will help insure your health.

We all want the same things; to be happy and not be in pain, to be able to do all we would like to do without our body saying, “No way!”  Being true to your cells, your body’s systems, means giving your body the nutrients it needs to perform beautifully.  The body is smarter than the brain.  It will always seek to do the very best job it can with what it has to work with.  If you give your body a load of toxins and lots of molecules that don’t exist in nature, your body will give you poor performance.  You can improve your longevity, function and sturdiness if your behaviors are based on the fact that the body can change, at any age.  It’s never too late to improve your choices.

Awareness of better choices is the first step to altering the habits that rule our behaviors.  Virtually everyone has become aware that fish oil does something good for the body.  You may not know it lowers inflammation everywhere; in the brain, heart, joints, lungs, gut and skin.  But at least you’ve heard fish oil is good for you.  Has that awareness activated an understanding that taking fish oil daily is good for you and the behavior of actually taking the pills?  If not, it’s just interesting but not beneficial, to you.

How can we make the dozens even hundreds of little changes necessary to really optimize great health. The answer:  one at a time.

Today, if you believe you can change your future, change your choices.  Drink an extra glass of pure water.  Eat an apple at 5 o’clock instead of having snack food.  Remember, if you’re not hungry enough to eat an apple, you’re not hungry.  That’s boredom eating.  Put 3 vegetables on the dinner plate tonight with a smaller serving of meat, fowl or fish or even have a bean-based vegetarian dinner.  Try for Meatless Mondays as a way to change behavior.

Awareness is always the first giant step on the road to a behavior change.  When you become aware that water is what the human body evolved on, not hazelnut soy latte or cherry diet cola—something in your brain rings in recognition of the truth that water, pure water is what your body wants.  Just reduce the many novelty beverages, especially ones with calories. Even if you don’t eliminate them entirely, this is a huge reduction in the load on the kidneys as well as your pocket book.  Since kidneys help regulate blood pressure as well as filter the blood, there’s only a good benefit in keeping bad compounds out of the kidney.  This understanding will allow you to skip the next soda or double espresso by having more dedication to your kidneys than to being entertained by a cup of whatever.  We should drink to be hydrated not to be amused by the latest artificially flavored beverage. 

You can reduce the “disability zone” with wiser choices today.  Drink an extra glass of water today and skip a poor beverage choice which surprisingly includes juice unless you made it yourself.  Eat a piece of whole fresh fruit instead. There is a limited time before the October picked organic apples and pears will be gone, and it is soon.  Add an extra serving of veggies today.  A side salad with your sandwich, perhaps slaw at lunch and an extra veggie with dinner add up to 100 gallons of healthful vegetables by year’s end.  That’s a HUGE powerhouse of nutrients to fuel your cells, repair your DNA and add spark to your engine of life.

You’ll do it all if you believe and understand that changing choices changes your future.  You can eat better and be better.  Your body is a statement of your beliefs.  Inspire yourself to better health and start with the very next meal.

Eve Prang Plews, a Licensed Nutrition Counselor, has been practicing at her Sarasota clinic, Full Spectrum Health, for 21 years. You may contact her at 941 952-1200 or www.fullspectrumhealth.com.  Her previous articles are available at www.eveplews.com.  Eve’s radio show: No Nonsense Nutrition, airs Mondays at 9 AM on WSLR 96.5 FM, or stream it live at www.wslr.org.