We have all heard the expression “you are what you eat”. What does it mean exactly? It obviously doesn’t mean that I look like the food that I eat, as much as social media will make those jokes. I never particularly liked the expression because it brought shame to food, and we should never shame food. Honestly, I am a food lover, I love new tastes, spices and trying anything you can put on my plate. Sadly we have this concept that loving food means you deserved to be shamed. I always felt that the expression is used in a negative light, but it shouldn’t be anymore.
I have mentioned in previous posts that I am trying a new program to give me my inspiration back, to becoming the healthiest I can be, to get me back on track (What Stress did to my Body). The program comes with some great workouts, but I got the program because it was the eating that I was having a hard time with, I was losing motivation to make meals, I was too tired to make proper meals, so I would make grab and go food. Where the expression “you are what you eat” comes into play was that the food I was eating wasn’t packed with energizing nutrients; I was eating a lot of pasta, bread, rice and even though all of this was whole grain, I wasn’t putting any other nutrients in my diet, which was causing me to be tired and drained. I was what I was eating, because I wasn’t eating enough other nutrients to give me the energy I needed to finish my day properly. After I gained a lot of weight from stress and realized I needed to make a change in my life, I was starting to notice a difference. Weight loss is slow, which is the healthier way for it to be, but my energy levels were drastically different. Instead of getting into my pyjamas and not moving until bedtime, I was able to be more productive, clean the house, do the dishes, work on some writing. I was more awake to get my afterwork routines done. I was eating more fruits and vegetables, legumes and protein, I was getting more nutrients; I was “eating” more energy, so I was getting more energy.
In my perspective the expression, “you are what you eat” is just referring to how much energy we are putting into our body. It is okay to have a meal that is a treat, we cannot restrict ourselves, but if the food we are eating on a regular basis contains less nutrients, it will give us less energy. So no matter how much we exercise, if we aren’t putting enough energy in our bodies, we won’t be able to produce as much energy.
Expressions around health, fitness and wellness can be taken in a negative light to put down those who wants to get into the path, in order to motivate us we need to start looking at them through a positive light, a logical light, one that makes sense and gives us some guidance into trying to better ourselves. Society will always try to make us feel like we can’t be the healthiest we can be, but we can take charge, we can be the healthiest we can be, for ourselves.