THE ROAD TO HEALTH: Take care of yourself thoroughly, diet is not enough! I. Wierzbicka

We have never before had such an epidemic of chronic diseases, diabetes, insulin resistance, autoimmune diseases, cancer, and obesity as we do today.

Everything that affects immunity and health is free and should be practiced daily. We often look for a miracle pill that will save us in the face of a crisis, forgetting that the most important thing is what we do every day. We should take care of the body’s immunity and health every day and treat our body as an investment. An investment in a shield that will protect us for many years to come. Take care of your immune system!

Our immune system depends on what we do for the body and the mind. It depends on what we eat, how we sleep, and how we spend our free time.

According to scientific research, inflammation is thought to be the basis of many diseases. It may also affect the development of cancer, as well as auto-aggressive diseases, which include, among others, hashimoto’s, lupus or rheumatoid arthritis.

Another cause of disease can also be the body’s impaired detoxification system. Each of us is – more or less – exposed to toxins in food and environmental ones. However, some people get ill even though they pay attention to what they eat.

The reason may be the lifestyle. Our detoxification and repair systems depend on the condition of the intestines, whether we sleep, go for a walk, make use of the benefits of sunlight or use harmful artificial light from electronic devices.

What we eat and how we live are both important. A proper diet alone, without taking care of other aspects, may not be enough.

Hippocrates said that was a great mistake of his time that doctors separated the soul from the body. Nothing should be left to chance. Don’t omit anything. Contradictory information should be considered. Take your time to draw conclusions.

That’s why I encourage you to put all the pieces of the puzzle together. There is no single disease factor, there are comorbidities. Although store shelves are full of contaminated and processed food, we can always make sure that it is nutritious and as little processed as possible, and that our lifestyle activates the natural repair processes that we have in the body.

 

Health-promoting actions are based on three pillars:

• lifestyle,
• mind,
• diet.
  

 

 

Daily health-promoting activities

What can you do for your own health on an everyday basis? And do it for free? Below I have compiled a list of important factors. No pill can replace them! You can print the entire list and put it on the fridge, or select only the ones that are most important to you. I know this may sound like “shamanism” but it works!

1.  A walk – the average 10 thousand steps a day, but if you do fewer steps it’s fine, too.
2. Sleep – 7–8 hours a day. It’s important for your sleep to be of high quality. If you have a small baby, use the time during the day to ahve a short nap, too.
3. Seasonality – eat what is available in the season where you live. 
4. The sun – make sure you have some sunlight every day.
5. The sky – look at it every day, feel light as a cloud, let your imagination run wild (“What if there were no limits?”). You can lie down on the grass and look for some birds in the sky, you can also look out the window if you can’t go outside – I call it “the window of life”.
6. The stars – go out in the evening and look at the sky, look at the moon… Did you know that the phases of the moon regulate the ebbs and flows, but also women’s menstrual cycle?
7. Smile – smile at yourself in the mirror, smile at people and the world.
8. Positive thoughts – nurture them, focus on them.
9. Love – love yourself, love the world – with unconditional love.
10. Gratefulness – practice it daily. It is a powerful tool for seeing the good things happening around you.
11. Forgiveness – forgive yourself to make life easier.
12. Kindness – be kind to yourself, to others, even if they are not. What you give to others will come back to you, but not always from the same people.
13. Nature – stay in touch with nature, walk barefoot on the grass, grow plants at home, go to the forest, hug a tree.
14. Grounding – touch the earth (the planet) with your hands or feet, give it all the accumulated charges, draw energy for life like plants do.
15. Hugging – hug your relatives, animals, trees. You can hug yourself (wrap arms around you, rock, love your inner child in your mind).
16. Meditation – meditate, you can sit in silence, you can use some helpful applications. Even 5 minutes a day is enough.
17. Breath – breathe deeply, slowly, calmly. You can use lots of breathing methods available, such as the Wim Hof method.
18. Eat well – eat nutritious food, with no chemical additives. Do not eat to cheer yourself up (food is not for comforting or hugging us, it is not a teddy bear). Don’t count calories, focus on nutrition! First of all, eat what nourishes you instead of counting the numbers. Be moderate and have breaks between meals – Research shows that a large number of meals in terms of health is a myth. Two or three meals are optimal, with a 4-6-hour break between them and a longer night break necessary for the regeneration of the body, lasting 12-18 hours. Many studies show that a person should consume a daily portion of food within six to eight hours (the food window), and not eat anymore for the rest of the day. This is called intermittent fasting (IF).
19. Stay hydrated – drink water! Water is life, it cleans, detoxifies, hydrates and regulates. For most people, about 1.5 liters of water a day is the optimal amount.
20. Interpersonal relationships – we need touch (some need it less, others more), the presence of another person, a smile, a conversation. Man is a herd animal and has lived in groups for centuries, relationships in social media will not suffice. Sometimes it is enough to sit in silence next to someone.
    

 

 

It is thought that even obesity and atherosclerosis are the result of chronic inflammation. Eating processed, junk foods with a huge number of artificial additives also causes inflammation in the body. When choosing food, we often get out of the frying pan into the fire. For example, we think gluten is harmful, and we buy gluten-free food, but it is usually very processed and fortified with some additives. Because of these foods, a gluten-free diet, research shows, increases the risk of type II diabetes. The problem is that we don’t try to understand the health effects of food and we often blindly follow what commercials tell us.

 

Change food to nutrition!

Not everything that is allowed to eat helps our health. Products that come from nature, not from the factory, will always be the best for your health. In your diet, follow one of the most important rules: eat what nourishes your body. And see whether what you eat helps you or causes flatulence, heartburn, overflow. This is the easiest way to check whether what you eat is the right food for your body.

There are people who cannot eat everything because, for example, they have allergies, intolerances or autoimmune diseases, and many foods are harmful to them. For them, finding good nutritional solutions is more difficult – leave it to a dietitian.

However, a vast majority of people will recover if they follow the rules listed below. You can hang them on the fridge. You can read them aloud as an affirmation every day, which will definitely facilitate their implementation:

• I eat real food.
• I eat when I am really hungry.
• I eat what’s good for me (intuitively, my guts feel great).
• I eat products that have nutritional value (a doughnut doesn’t).
• I don’t count calories (I check nutritiousness and the feeling of satiety).
• I eat food that is little processed (almost in its original, raw form).
• I don’t fry.
• I avoid sweets.
• I hydrate my body with water.
• I feed my brain with good information.
  

 

 

In my daily practice as a clinical dietitian, I meet people who, despite high caloric restrictions, are still obese and cannot lose weight, as well as those who are slim and very sick. Hence, today scientific publications report that the cause of obesity is not always a caloric surplus, but often also inflammation.

The same one that is responsible for many other diseases. Inflammation can be triggered by food, but also by many other factors, such as lack of sleep and its poor-quality, stress, lack of contact with nature, electromagnetic radiation, and many more. All these factors, as well as the diet with good products, which I encourage in detail and with reference to many scientific sources, I describe in my latest book “How to strengthen immunity. Diet, lifestyle, mind, supplements. ” Zwierciadło Publishing House 2020.

 

Inflammation can be caused by eating foods that are

1. Processed – fried, canned, preserved, etc.
2. Allergenic – some people are allergic to a particular food, to an ingredient in many foods, such as nickel or biogenic amines, or to inhalants. In the case of inhalation allergies, the so-called cross-reactions with food allergens can be of great importance, which in practice means that, for example, if you are allergic to grass, you should not eat products from the group of grasses, such as cereals, corn, etc.
3. Not tolerated – some people have a third degree allergic reaction called late immune response, commonly known as intolerance.
4. Containing additives, especially preservatives, dyes or flavor enhancers. Even the World Health Organization (WHO) has reported that food additives can be carcinogenic despite being approved for use.
5. Indigestible – Many people experience digestive problems due to stress, but there are also foods that are physiologically non-digestible, such as high in cellulose or digestive-resistant starch.
6. Food that can hardly be called food, which is rather a more or less edible product. These are: azo dye drinks, calorie-free products, fiber products with dyes and flavors, products based on wheat flour, glucose-fructose syrup and dyes. Most sweets have such a composition that you should rather say “I’ll pray for your health when you eat this” rather than “Enjoy.” They don’t have much in common with health.

 

Good products diet

Good products are nutritious! Change food to nutrition, because we as a society have been far from it for a long time.

Many people compose a menu of random products. We often hear that you need to cut down on fat, eat whole grains, lots of vegetables and fruits, and you will be healthy. Unfortunately not! We often buy products in cans, packets or already completely processed, and get bread from a supermarket.

We have never before had an epidemic of chronic diseases, diabetes, insulin resistance, autoimmune (autoimmune) diseases, cancer and obesity as we do today.

Let me quote a piece from Zbigniew Hałat’s publication: „The unexpected health effects of processed foods were revealed by an experiment to which two five-year-old twin brothers Krzysztof and Michał Parker from England were subjected in 2003. For two weeks, Michał’s food was completely devoid of any E-substances, but Krzysztof was not deprived of the pleasure of carbonated drinks, sweets, flavored chips. After a short time, Michał became more confident, talkative, cheerful and much calmer than his brother. Before the experiment, the same IQ was found in both twins. After just two weeks, Michał’s IQ was 15 percent higher than that of his brother who was given products containing food additives. British researchers found the results of this experiment an important reason to revise the safety assessments of the effects of additives on children’s health. It’s worth adding that for every IQ point below the average, 2 percent of your entire life income is lost.”

Nutrition and lifestyle – you need to change it right now and start living healthy! ?

 

Bibliography:

1. Hałat Z. Wpływ jakości (pochodzenia) żywności na zdrowie człowieka, konferencja: Wpływ rolnictwa na środowisko. 7 października 2004 r., Wrocław.
2. Jurand H. Nic, co ludzkie… Aforyzmy, sentencje i przysłowia. Ludowa Spółdzielnia Wydawnicza, Warszawa 1982.
3. Kahleova H, Lloren JI, Mashchak A, Hill M, Fraser GE. Meal Frequency and Timing Are Associated with Changes in Body Mass Index in Adventist Health Study 2. Journal of Nutrition. 2017, September, Vol. 147, No. 9, s. 1722–1728.
4. Zong G, Lebwohl B, Hu FB, Sampson L, Dougherty LW, Willett WC, Chan AT, Sun Q. Gluten intake and risk of type 2 diabetes in three large prospective cohort studies of US men and women. Diabetologia. 2018, October, Vol. 61, No. 10, s. 2164–2173.

Iwona Wierzbicka

Clinical dietitian

Clinical dietitian and herbalist, phytotherapist with many years of experience in working with dietary patients. Since 2008, she has run her own Ajwendieta diet clinic. She approaches the patient holistically, i.e. head, body, diet, lifestyle, supplementation, looking for the root cause, not the symptom. She is primarily a practitioner, but also a theorist who follows the results of scientific research.