Day 7 of 35 (one week down) -- Whole9 Seminar

Today is completion of my first week on the cleanse that I am doing to try to heal my body from any potential leaky gut and/or inflammation. I have eight days left in the first stage. It hasn't been that bad thus far but we will see what the next few days bring. 

I went to a nutritional seminar by Dallas and Melissa from Whole9. I must say it was a great day. Although I may not have "learned" a lot, I definitely had a lot of things reinforced and a lot of things presented in a slightly different way. For instance, it is pretty clear that food we eat either improves your health or does not. There really is nothing else. It is good for your body or it isn't. While you may choose to eat something that is not healthy for you, but you should do it knowing the consequences. An analogy I loved was when Melissa described eating a food that you have been craving like carrot cake with cream cheese icing, it's like the Vegas strip in your mouth, all glitzy and such until you see it in the day light, also known as reading the label, and you realize how dirty and grimy it really is.

I also appreciated the statement that there is nothing in grains that you cannot get from more nutritionally dense foods. I have been living my life over the past few months believing this, arguing this with others, but it was nice to hear the confirmation today. In fact, it doesn't make sense to make foods that are not nutritionally dense a major part of your diet. Many things that were said today about grains, legumes, sugar, and dairy made it clear that what I have been doing to clean up my diet since January have been the right things for me.

I am also so glad that I have given up artificial sugars. It's crazy that the stuff is so much sweeter than anything found in nature and that you may even have a psychological response to it that will rewire your brain. I do believe that the brain is a very powerful thing and holds onto things in much stronger ways than we may realize.

The graphic that they are currently entitling the "Metabolic Bow Tie" was quite helpful in understanding that bad food choices can result in this endless loop of bad reactions in your body, including leptin resistance (the inability to distinguish when you have satisfied your hunger) and insulin resistance (the inability to appropriately lower blood sugar). I hope you all will get to see the graphic at some point.

The good news is that you can change things. You can clean up your diet and work on positive changes for the future. That is what I am doing. All of this applies in so many ways in my lifestyle at this point in my life.

By the way, they are also the authors of the article that convinced me to take time to recover from a workout. I am going to give their ideas on pre and post workout food a try after the first stage of my cleanse is over. I can't do it now because of the timing of drinking the gut healing RepairVite and my workout schedule. I also understand a bit more about why working out too much, too intensely and too infrequently may not be ideal for optimal health.

I am sure there are a lot of things I will think about after I post this and I will fill in anything I have forgotten in future posts. Check out their website and upcoming book if you want more information.