It is Saturday morning and as I sit here contemplating the week ahead and the pledge I recently made to clean up my diet, shed a few sneaky kilos, and generally get myself feeling a little more chipper, I truly wonder … “Can I be bothered?”
The other frustration I face is the repetitive nature of the situation I find myself in. With life being inhumanely busy, fraught with highs and lows and the endless juggle that comes with being a mum, I find that inevitably I fall into a ‘who cares' slump. For me, this means pouring myself a glass of wine every night, buying a crappy chocolate bar when I stop to buy fuel, eating more than I need during the day, not exercising, and watching an extra episode of Suits on Netflix when I should be heading for bed.
The simple truth is that these behaviors are addictive, the crappy chocolate, the wine, the eating to fuel emotions, the feel-good telly that hints at another life, are all giving that hit of dopamine that ensures I come back for more. However, IT IS NOT A HEALTHY HIT. Doing this for the past few months has robbed me of my vitality and my zest for life.
Jumping off this downward spiral is no easy task in the depths of winter, however, the time has come!
It is little wonder that so many of us struggle to fight the urge to fall back on fast, cheap, easy, convenient foods because the simple fact is that as mums WE ARE BUSY, WE ARE LACKING IN ENERGY, and WE ARE SEEKING A HAPPY HIT in our days.
… and ‘they' know it! Big industry has invested millions of dollars researching exactly how to tap into our desires. Everything, from the flavours, to the sounds that packets make when you open them, to the colours and wording in advertising, is carefully engineered to seduce us … and it works! It is enormously seductive!
The uncomfortable truth is that the Agricultural and Pharmaceutical companies are the biggest, most profitable, and therefore the most powerful industries in the world today. These are the companies that are slowly but surely destroying not only our health but the health of our planet.
To make truly educated decisions you must look further than mainstream media. Australian media ownership has been described as one of the most concentrated in the world. For example, 11 of the 12 capital city daily papers are owned by either News Corp Australia or Fairfax Media. (I don't doubt the situation is similar wherever you are on our beautiful planet).(http://newscorp.com/business/news-corp-australia/)
Did you know that companies paid to get the ‘healthy tick of approval' on their products? And that The Australian Dieticians Association is heavily sponsored by several massive food companies, with a vested interest in promoting their own agenda, e.g. Nestle.
This explains their vile attacks on people like Chef Pete Evans, whose only real agenda is to get people eating vital, unprocessed, real food (shock, horror!) His documentary The Magic Pill is currently being slammed as irresponsible by the Medical Association … >> insert eye roll here <<
(I would suggest you hop onto Netflix and watch the documentary The Magic Pill, before ‘they‘ get it taken off, as it is brilliant!)
The agricultural industry designed the Food Pyramid that has been responsible for untold damage to the health of our society for generations. How we can still be advocating these guidelines, when the consequences of such stupidity are clearly being reflected in the disease-ridden state of our society, is beyond me.
We are all being bombarded with endlessly conflicting information, which I know can be truly overwhelming when trying to do the best thing by not only our own health but also by the health of our families. To cut through the confusion, I urge you to look to what nature provides. We have evolved to eat what nature provides for us, not to eat products scientifically engineered to look like food.
‘Dis'ease is NOT the consequence of a lack of drugs! It is the consequence of a lack of nutrition. Therefore logic would say … what?
Our bodies are innately intelligent, and if fed the right foods we have the ability to be vitally healthy, without the need for pharmaceutical intervention. The discovery of antibiotics was indeed an enormous success story and have been responsible for saving countless lives. However, due to relentless promotion by pharmaceutical companies to Dr's, and the perks that came with prescribing vast quantities of these drugs, we are now facing a situation where antibiotics are often no longer doing the job that they were intended for.
Let's use the medical industry as it was intended, and that is for crisis care. Last winter I ended up in emergency at our local hospital with my 10 yo son. A particularly spectacular maneuver on his scooter left him with a broken wrist, this is the type of occasion when I am INCREDIBLY GRATEFUL to our wonderful medicos and their hard-earned skill in caring for our community. As we entered emergency I was devastated to see the room packed to the rafters with people. Taking a deep calming breath, I knew we were in for a long night.
Whilst we stood patiently in line waiting to get our paperwork sorted, it dawned on me that everyone there was displaying symptoms of a cold or at worst the flu. There were obviously some with fevers, and others with nasty colds. I have to say I was absolutely dumbfounded. Why weren't they at home in bed, drinking plenty of water, staying warm, and chowing down some chicken soup as their nanna would have prescribed. Since when did a nasty cold become a crisis! I know there are going to be many that want to tell me people die of the flu, and yes in extreme cases, when people are frail with severely compromised immunity they may, however for the VAST MAJORITY it is simply uncomfortable, it is inconvenient, but it is OK.
When did we lose our ability to care for ourselves?
I will tell you when … when pharmaceutical companies convinced us we were to dumb to do it ourselves. When pharmaceutical companies invested MILLIONS into driving a fear of sickness so deeply into the psyche of mothers that we lost our ability to trust our own judgment.
It is time to trust yourself again. It is time to take back control and responsibility for our own health and it is time to remember …
IT IS YOUR BODIES MOST PRESSING DESIRE TO KEEP YOU HEALTHY AND ALIVE AND
IT IS YOUR DIVINE PURPOSE TO SUPPORT IT IN DOING THIS!
HOW? Flood your body with abundant nutrition by eating vital, real, unprocessed, chemical-free foods, drink fresh filtered water, move your body, prioritize sleep (7.5 or 9 hours per night), give yourself time in nature…and… You will be rewarded, as will I!
So this is my REASON, this is my WHY. This is the knowledge that I will tap into to help me bypass the ‘I can't be bothered‘ feelings and simply get on with doing what I know I should be doing. I will say, however, that this means I will undoubtedly be finishing off the beautiful bottle of preservative-free, organic wine that I opened last night and indulging in a tasty treat or two over the weekend, however, come Monday I will be all in on The Abundant Nutrition Weightloss Formula.
If you want to join me or follow along stay tuned to my Facebook page for daily updates, recipe ideas, thoughts, and support!
With passion, compassion, humour, and style
x Edwina