Brea Getting Fit

As I sat staring at the bottom of an empty bag of pretzels (which were delicious!), I had to wonder if I really needed all 11 servings…granted, it was over the course of a few (3) days, but was my body really sending me hunger signals? Or was it possibly that I was not getting enough of the right kinds of nutrients? I am leaning toward the latter assumption. Perhaps this is because I’ve been reading an amazing book, Thrive: The Vegan Nutrition Guide to Optimal Performance in Sports and Life lately. There is so much emphasis on getting the right types of nutrients in your diet, and it’s really made me think (obviously I should have had this thought BEFORE I devoured the wonderful sourdough goodness). Refined carbs (like pretzels) really don’t do ANYTHING for our bodies. The nutrition has been stripped out of the grains during processing, which explains why so many of todays food stuffs make claims like “enriched” and “fortified”. So when we eat these virtualy empty calories, do we eat because of true hunger, or rather because of a lack of proper nutrition. Sure, I take my supplements, and drink lots of water…but it doesn’t seem to be enough. When you devour more than 500 empty calories “because”, there’s got to be an underlying issue…and yes, boredom is part of that. The boredom I can deal with. I need to find tasks to keep myself busy-virtually curing my boredom AND cleaning my house at the same time! YIPEE! So, back to a lack of nutrients, what really got me started on this kick was reading (and loving) Dr. Fuhrman’s book Eat to Live: The Revolutionary Formula for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss, which describes true hunger as a back of throat sensation, rather than a stomach grumbling. HMMMM. I had NEITHER, so what does THAT mean? I’ve learned that I am truly hungry when the back of my throat starts to feel irritated, but I don’t generally let myself get to this point, as I try to snack on fresh fruits and veggies throughout the day (just don’t have any at the moment). If I were snacking on something as nutrient dense as fruits and veggies, more than likely I wouldn’t keep eating everything in sight. Their fiber and essential vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients would replenish my system and I’d be good to go…so why do I keep going back to empty nutrition? Because it’s cheap, quick and brainless. Yup, brainless. As ashamed as I am to admit it, digging into a bag of pretzels doesn’t really require alot of thought. So now that I’ve identified my issues, it’s time to make a change. I’m tired, quite literally of having blood sugar highs and lows, so I am going to go forward focusing on increasing my nutrition as well as my fresh/raw intake. I’ve been working at it, but sitting at a desk is proving to be a challenge. I just need to remember to cut up my fruit before I get to work, so that I can have HEALTHY, nutrient packed munchies on hand. What do you think? If we all ate nutrient-dense foods, would we eat as much?