Christian Healthy Lifestyle 

David Sandstrom 0:00
Welcome to the Holistic Health Matters podcast where it's all about maximizing your health potential, so that you can pursue the abundant life more effectively. I'm your host, David Sandstrom, Naturopathic Doctor and Biblical health coach. And this is episode number five.

In this episode, we're going to be talking about a foundational health building concept. It's the thing that most people want to talk about when they talk about health and wellness. And that is nutrition. Our bodies have to take whatever we give them, whatever fuel we put inside and turn it into us. Our bodies have to take that Twinkie, or the pizza or the burrito, the Taco Bell, whatever it is, and turn it into skin cells, bone cells, nerve cells, stomach cells, you name it. And it's an extraordinarily complex process. If I were to give you a Ferrari, let's say, you would know that that car, because it's a high performance car needs premium gasoline, you wouldn't dare put diesel fuel in your Ferrari gas tank and expect to get maximum performance out of it. Well, how is it that we think we can do that with our bodies, we can put junk food or junk fuel into our bodies and expect them to perform it their peaks. fact is they want our bodies are far more complex than a Ferrari or any car for that matter. Today, we're going to cover what everyone should know about food.

Now you probably know that I am a Naturopathic Doctor and a Biblical Health Coach, but you may not know that I'm also a Certified Nutritional Counselor. So I've got a few things to say on this topic. Now this episode is based on my ebook "Top 10 Tips for Healthy Eating." If you'd like to get that ebook, you can go to my website DavidSandstrom.com. This is episode number five. And there you can find a link to download a free copy of the ebook so it's going to cover most of what we're covering here in this in this episode. Nutrition is a foundational health building concept. And for most people, it should be their starting point. cleaning up your diet is a really good first step when it comes to making adjustments to your lifestyle for a better health outcome. Healthy Eating tip number one is this. Eat food as close to its God-given natural form as possible. If you get nothing else out of this episode, except that one point, you've got a lot. This is pretty huge. I'll say it again. Eat food as close to its God-given natural form as possible. The Bible once again has some wisdom here. And the book of 1 Timothy chapter four verse four, we find this "For everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected. If received with gratitude." Now, in context, this verse is talking about eating meat that had been sacrificed to idols. But don't miss that phrase, "for everything created by God is good, " not created by man in a laboratory. It's really amazing how The Bible was written thousands of years ago. But it has really good application to our everyday lives today and this is one of them. So when it comes to choosing what we shouldn't, should not eat, this is a good starting point. Food created by God in nature is better than food created by a man in a laboratory. I know it sounds basic, but people need to hear that because the standard American diet, the SAS diet is upwards of 90% processed food. This is not natural. A good rule of thumb is this. buy food that spoils, and eat it before it does. See when man gets his hands on food, the more he processes it, the worse it becomes for us. They add chemical coloring, artificial flavoring, they put anti caking agents in there texturing agents, chemical preservatives, they heat it, grind it, pulverize it, compacted or even puff it up. Chemical cleaning agents for the processing machines also work their way into processed foods. You see, most food manufacturers care more about next quarters profits than they do about our health and well being. I feel like I need to say this. I'm a fan of capitalism. I think it's the greatest economic system that's ever been thought up. But it works best capitalism works best when it's done ethically. When people the people that are running corporations apply the golden rule and they treat their customers the way They would want to be treated. That's the way to maximize profits. And that's when capitalism works best.

Back to processed food, if it's in a box or package, it's suspect. If you pick up a box or package with some food inside, read the ingredients. If it has more than five or six ingredients, you're probably well served putting that food back on the shelf or what's masquerading as food back on the shelf. So here's what it looks like. When you go to the grocery store. Instead of buying hamburger, you could buy some steaks and ask the meat department to grind it up for you into hamburger. You could buy pork chops instead of sausage because you don't know what they put inside that sausage. The same thing applies here. You could have the meat department grind that into ground pork as well. If you want a cereal, you're better served buying wheat berries in their whole wheat form and not not a whole wheat bread, but actual wheat berries. A lot of people have never seen a wheat berry. It looks a lot like a small grain of rice, it's dark, and you cook it like you would rice you boil it in water. And once it's cooked you season to taste that's much closer to its natural form than a box of cereal. Again, go back to the rule, buy food that spoils and eat it before it does. A box of cereal can sit on the shelf for six months. That should tell you something. That's not the healthiest form of that food. Another decent grain is amaranth, you cook it the same way as you would rice or wheat berries. Puts maple syrup butter on top it tastes great but for breakfast, along with a protein source. You could buy potatoes, bake them yourself instead of buying potato chips. So it's pretty simple once you understand these guidelines. food preparation is also an issue. We should cook legumes, grains and meat but fruits and vegetables should be eaten raw. This is one of the best benefits for eating food is close to its God given natural form as possible. Raw, in this case with vegetables is that the critical digestive enzymes are still intact. Once food gets heated above 115 degrees Fahrenheit, those crucial digestive enzymes that help us digest the food start to break down, and they're completely lost at about 160 or 170 degrees or so. Now, eating food this way can be more expensive. But a lot of the times it's actually cheaper because we're not paying somebody to process that food. A good place to find food and it's God given natural form is a farmers market. And of course the outer aisles of the grocery store. I'm sure you've heard that before. The center aisles have more processed foods and the outer aisles have more natural foods. A good place to shop for natural food is at a farmers market.

Healthy Eating tip number two is prepare food in advance. We all leave busy lives. And especially when we're hungry, it's a lot easier to pull up to the drive thru and get some junk food to go than it is to eat healthy. So we want to stay on the offense here. So the best way to prevent this is to make a large batch of something and keep it for a couple days in the fridge. On the weekends, you could make a large batch of soup or a chili. Sometimes we boil some eggs and they last a couple days in the fridge. Another cool cool way to prepare food in advance is you can prepare a salad inside a large wide mouth mason jar. Just put the harder items like maybe some carrot chips or the cherry tomatoes on the bottom and then the lettuce and whatever else on top and then when you're ready to eat it. You can put some extra virgin olive oil was vinegar or a good healthy dressing. Shake it up and it's ready to go. One of the things I like to do is I have a tilia FoodSaver Vacuum sealer and they sell an attachment that will vacuum seal a lid on top of the mason jar and pull the air out. Not all of it but most of it, and that will keep whatever's inside fresher longer. It's a good investment. It's Tillia Food Saver. I'll put a link to that in the show notes so you can look it up later. I also use the plastic wrap with the FoodSaver Vacuum sealer, but I don't put the food directly inside the plastic bag. I wrap the food inside of parchment paper first. Another thing you don't want to do is you never want to boil food inside of a plastic bag, you'll be leaching toxins from the plastic into your food. cooked meat should be stored in the refrigerator no longer than three days. A slow cooker or crock pot is a must for healthy kitchen. You can put a whole chicken in the bottom of the crock pot, few potatoes, onions, maybe some carrots and some bone broth. Put it on low go to work, come back and viola there's a healthy dinner waiting for you. It's a good way to stay on the offense on your healthy eating. If you go to work, you come home hungry, you're tired. It's far more tempting to make a poor food choice then.

Here's healthy eating tip number three. It's kind of related to tip number two. Be proactive when going out. We've all been there; you get invited to a party or maybe a friend's house for dinner. And you just know that there's going to be some junk food there for in the form of potato chips or Cheetos or some kind of unhealthy processed dip. And there's going to be a strong poll to just you know, get along and go ahead and abandon your healthy eating plan when you when you get there. The best defense against this scenario is have a healthy snack before you leave the house. It's a lot easier to just say no when you're not famished and really hungry. Also, you can limit your portion size. If there's an unhealthy food on your plate. You don't have to eat as much to feel satisfied, and you won't feel deprived that way. Another defense against this scenario is prepare a dish and bring it with you ask the host first for sure. And you don't want to just simply eat the dish you brought that would that would make you look like a zealot. So you have some of what you brought, and have some of what they prepared, it's the social thing to do. And if it's really unhealthy food, limit your portion. Don't think that a single meal is going to break the bank when it comes to your eating program. It won't, but we just ought to be planning and staying on the offense when it comes to this. Don't let these situations take you by surprise.

Healthy Eating Tip number four, consume healthy fats. If you're into health and wellness, you've probably heard that by now. But what is a healthy fat? Well, one of the things I want to cover here we can't we can't turn this into a masterclass on fat. We'll probably do that in a later episode. But there's a couple things I'd like you to know right now. Saturated fat has gotten a really bad rap over the last couple of decades. Saturated fat does not cause heart disease. Let me say that again. Saturated fat does not cause heart disease. I know that sounds like heresy, you say, how could that possibly be true, Dave? Well, I have a couple studies that I found for researching for this episode. One is a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition published in March of 2010. And it was a meta analysis, which means it's a study of studies. And this study included a span of 23 years of follow up, and almost 350,000 people in this study. The conclusion? I'm reading quote, "A meta analysis of prospective epidemiologic studies show that there is no significant evidence for concluding that dietary saturated fat is associated with an increased risk of coronary heart disease, or cardiovascular disease." Here's a second study. This one was done with the assistance of the Department of clinical epidemiology and biostatistics at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. This study is also a meta analysis where they looked at multiple studies. Here's their conclusion: "Saturated fats are not associated with all cause mortality, cardiovascular disease, coronary heart disease, stroke, or type two diabetes. Trans fats are associated with all cause mortality, total coronary heart disease, and coronary heart disease mortality." So you're probably saying right now, how can this be true, Dave? I haven't heard this before. I mean organizations that we trust like the USDA, the American heart Association, the World Health Organization. They've all been telling us for the last 50 years that we need to switch to a low fat diet in order to reduce our chances of having a stroke or a heart attack. Well, their advice is based on poor science. One of the things we've got to keep in mind is the federal government is not a good reliable source for information on what we should and should not eat. There are massive conflicts of interest going on, and they're too connected to the medical field. You may not know this, but in four years of medical school, most doctors get about two days of nutritional training. How do I know that? I once knew a guy who was a teacher, a professor at medical school, and he taught their nutrition program. And he told me yeah, Dave, that's what they get. They get two days of nutrition and most of their time is spent studying pharmaceuticals. The diagnosis of disease. Medical School students do not get a lot of training and nutrition. Because I know that this is a controversial subject. I want to give you a little more background as to how this hypothesis came to be accepted in scientific circles. Back in the early 20th century, a Russian researcher by the name of Nikolai Anakov, was studying the relationship between dietary cholesterol intake and heart disease. Well, he made a fatal flaw in his research. He fed rabbits diets high in saturated fat and cholesterol, and those rabbits developed heart disease. They developed arthrosclerosis, which is hardening of the arteries and that lead to heart disease. The fatal flaw is that a rabbit would never eat any cholesterol or any animal product in the wild. We all know that rabbits are vegetarians. If you feed a rabbit are very unnatural diet, you should expect some adverse health outcomes. And that's what happened. But they ignored that fact, and went full speed ahead with their research anyway, and publish the results and presented it as fact when it always was a theory. Then in 1953, Dr. Ancel Keyes here in the US, also theorized that saturated fat was a contributor to heart disease. So he did a study looking at 22 different countries around the world. And he was comparing the various saturated fat intake to heart disease. He chose seven of the countries to make a chart out of and publish that information. He ignored the other, what 15 countries that contradicted his theory, and he chose these 7, cherry pick those seven and publish this chart. And this chart does show an association between higher saturated fat intake and heart disease. But the problem is association does not necessarily mean causation. Another thing about the Ancel Keyes chart is that if you look at those same seven countries that did show an association between saturated fat intake and heart disease, if you look at their sugar intake on those seven countries, you would see almost an identical graph. So it's very weak evidence, and I would call it very poor science, leading to the idea that saturated fat leads to hardening of the arteries, which leads to heart disease. It's simply not true, and it's been debunked. So what does this mean? Well, it means that you can start eating butter again, as long as the butter is from a grass fed, pastured cow, preferably organic. It's not detrimental to your health. You can put butter on your food you can cook in butter. The same is true with coconut oil, very high and saturated fat, but a very healthy fat. Coconut oil is loaded with medium chain triglycerides, which is an excellent energy source. It has a very high Flashpoint which makes it good for cooking. And we need not be afraid of these fats, they're actually quite healthy and good for us. Of course fats like extra virgin organic olive oil. fats from healthy low mercury fish, such as wild caught salmon is an excellent choice. When it comes to choosing fish, the larger the fish is, the more mercury accumulates into a system because they're further up the food chain in there eating smaller fish that ate smaller fish, and that mercury content starts to build up. So generally speaking, the smaller fish have less mercury in them. So sardines is an excellent choice for protein as well as good fats. Another thing to remember is We absolutely do not want to consume butter substitutes. You do not want to eat more margarine. I don't care if you can't believe it's not butter. All right, these products go through a high degree of processing to make them look like butter and tastes like butter. But they're not. They're a highly processed chemical alternative. And they're very unhealthy for us as this product, this study that I just referenced up above. Let's see from the Department of clinical epidemiology and biostatistics at McMaster. I'll read this again, trans fats are associated with all cause mortality, total coronary heart disease, and coronary heart disease mortality. So the trans fats are these processed butter substitutes that have been sold as a health food. It's a complete scam. They are very detrimental to our health. Stay away from them.

Tip number five. Avoid hidden sugar. Now, if you're listening to this program, I don't think I have to tell you that high sugar diet is not a it's not a A healthy lifestyle choice, but we should be aware of our glycemic index. The glycemic index is a measure of how rapidly that food will raise our glucose or blood sugar levels. Now, we do need to consider metabolic individuality, which means different people will respond differently to a given blood sugar rise. So when you look at the chart, it's it's an average is what we're looking at. But it is very useful. If you just do a Google search for a glycemic index chart, you'll see a bunch of them come up, and our blood sugar needs to be in a surprisingly narrow range. So when our body detects that our blood sugar is rapidly rising, the response is to release insulin. And that will drive the blood sugar into the cells to keep our blood sugar within normal ranges. It's the insulin high insulin levels that are responsible for obesity and type two diabetes as well as metabolic syndrome. So we need to stay away from From foods that have a high glycemic index. Another thing we need to understand is the difference between simple and complex carbohydrates. simple carbohydrates have a simpler chemical form, which makes them easier for the body to break down, and therefore, they will raise our blood sugar levels more rapidly. complex carbs, on the other hand, have a more complex chemical structure, and the body takes more time to break them down. So therefore, they won't spike our blood sugar as rapidly as simple sugars do. So natural sources of simple carbohydrates are fruit, honey, maple syrup, molasses, these are all natural, but they're still sugar sources nonetheless. Processed sugar sources our high fructose corn syrup, cane sugar, brown sugar, agave nectar, that's another one that's packaged as a health food. It's a highly processed simple sugar; stay away from it. too much sugar from any source is harmful. We need to be careful with some seemingly healthy sounding foods such as flavored yogurt, or stuffed in a bottle like barbecue sauce, or most marinates are very high in sugar. Most salad dressings are as well. Dried fruit sounds healthy, but it's very high in sugar, fruit juice, that's also another intense source of sugar. Again, going back to rule number one eating food in its God given natural form, I could easily eat an orange, maybe two, but it takes four or five or six oranges to make a glass of orange juice. I would never eat that many oranges in a single sitting. But when we process it and make juice out of it, it becomes a mega dose of sugar. Most snack bars are loaded with sugar. Most breakfast cereals are loaded with sugar and not only that they're loaded with carbohydrates from the grains. Muffins pastries also flavored vitamin water, usually very high in sugar. Another thing to mention is, grains have an incredibly high glycemic index and they will raise the blood sugar much more rapidly than most people realize. A good rule of thumb is when you consume a piece of toast or a sandwich, think of the bread that goes along with that sandwich as a sugar source because it behaves very similar to any other sugar source that we consume. The glycemic index is very high. And don't think that whole wheat flour solves that problem. It doesn't. Is whole wheat bread or Ezekiel bread better than Wonder Bread, the white stuff? Yes, it is. But it's still a source of grain and it still has a very high glycemic index. Another hidden source of sugar is root vegetables. All root vegetables such as potatoes, beets, turnips, carrots, It's, they're all very high sources of sugar. And here's another important point. Forget the sugar substitutes. You don't want to eat chemicals like Splenda nutrasweet, any saccharin containing product. And I'm not even a fan of stevia which is natural. It's not a chemical, but it's so intensely sweet that it keeps your sweet cravings up. And that's not a good thing when you're trying to eat healthy. So, limiting our sugar intake is one of the best ways to improve overall health because it will lower your insulin levels and lower insulin levels are very health enhancing. Healthy.

Eating Tip number six, practice smart hydration. Except for air, water is our most important nutrient. Most people can go a few weeks without eating food, but go more than a few days without water in it could be fatal. Water is is an especially important nutrient. Our bodies are made up of upwards of 70% water. We need water to digest our food. We need water for our muscles to work. We need water for our joints to function, it lubricates our joints, we need water for brain function. Water is a very important nutrient and without adequate water supplies, we're going to compromise our health in a hurry. Let's talk about water quality for a minute. municipal water in the United States is generally safe to drink, but they put chlorine in it to keep pathogens from growing. And it's a very good idea to put that chlorine in city water, but it's a very bad idea not to remove that chlorine before we drink it or bathe in it. You can buy an inexpensive charcoal filter that will remove most of the chlorine. I think the best way to go is to buy a whole-house reverse osmosis filtering system. We have an under sink our r/o system for our drinking water and I bought it from Freedrinkingwater.com. Again, I'll put that link in the show notes. So as good as an r/o filtered water is it is quite good. The best way the ideal water for drinking is spring water. But we want to avoid drinking it out of plastic bottles that are often contaminated with the chemical BPA or Bisphenol-A. It leeches from the plastic into the water. You see, water is a universal solvent. So when you have a plastic bottle with water in it, especially when it gets warm, you're making plastic tea and the chemical constituents from that plastic are leaching into the water. And one of the more harmful ones is BPA. And the reason why BPA is harmful is it mimics estrogen in our bodies. And especially for young men, extra estrogen is not a good thing. So the ideal drinking water would be ozonated, spring water bottled at the source, stored in glass. That's as good as it gets right there. There's a company here in the southeast. It's called Mountain Valley Spring Water. I see a lot of their bottled water at health food stores, but you can get that water delivered to your house. So I'll put a link in the show notes to them as well there. It's quite good. We have it at our house. Tastes great too. So let's talk about hydrating properly. A lot of people will talk about the total water intake for the day and it is important and a good rule of thumb is consumed half your body weight in ounces per day. So if you weigh 150 pounds, you'd be shooting for 75 ounces of water in a day. But here's the problem. You can't just chug a couple of big glasses and expect to be rehydrated. It takes time because our bodies can only assimilate about one ounce of water every five minutes. So the best way to get rehydrated and stay hydrated is to sip water all day long. Now, there are exceptions to this rule. When our body's demand for water is higher, it makes adjustments and can assimilate water more rapidly. One of those times is when we wake up in the morning, because while we're asleep, our bodies are busy detoxifying all night long, and they need water to flush those toxins out of the body. So when you get up in the morning, it's a good idea to drink a couple of eight ounce of classes two full eight ounce glasses in the morning. I know that sounds like a lot. But after you do that for a couple of weeks, you'll see that if you don't have that water, you're going to miss it. You're going to be very thirsty, you're going to know you're missing something. You get used to that pretty quickly. Another time that you can absorb more water is during physical exertion. You're at the gym, you're sweating a lot. You're working outside in the yard, those kinds of things. It's okay to chug along then. Just let your thirst be your guide, that's fine. And here's another time where you want to drink more water than just an ounce or two is 20 minutes before your meal, drink a full eight ounce glass because we don't want water in the stomach, but we do need it in the small intestine to facilitate digestion. So if you drink a full glass of water 20 minutes before the meal, it will be completely emptied from the stomach and in the small intestine when the food gets there, that's where it needs to be in order to maximize digestive efficiency. And one more point on this water consumption topic is soda or soft drinks, coffee and tea. Do not count towards our total water intake because they are diuretics, they actually deplete our water supplies, not enhance them. So don't count that in your total ounces for the day.

Healthy Eating tip number seven. Eat natural and organic when possible. Prior In World War Two, all farmers were organic farmers. They didn't call it organic farming. They just called it farming. Well, during the war, chemical companies were in the process of manufacturing chemicals for chemical warfare. Now, thank God it was never used for that purpose. But after the war ended, these companies were looking for ways to repurpose what they manufacture. So they found a use in agriculture. So wow, this stuff is very toxic. So it would be good at killing insects or shrubs, we can use it as an herbicide or a fungicide, those types of things. So they started marketing these these products that way. And in the 1950s, Dow Chemicals came up with the slogan, "better living through chemicals. "And that was it. We weren't we were we're going headlong as a society into embracing these chemicals into our food supply. And the problem is, no one asked, what are these chemicals going to do to our bodies and our brains? Well, we now know that it's causing a lot of harm. Another problem is it's a science experiment that no one knows the outcome to is genetic modification. Most soybeans and a lot of the corn crops are genetically modified today. They modify the the genetics to these, these seeds in the laboratory so that the plant will be more resistant to chemical herbicides such as Roundup, so they can farmers can soak their fields with Roundup, a very toxic chemical, and the plant is unaffected by it. That's a good reason to stay away from genetically modified food. Again, going back to healthy eating tip number one, eat food as close to its God given natural form as possible, and that will take care of a lot of the problems in our food supply. It's worth understanding what organic food actually is years ago, it used to be organic just simply meant it was growing In the ground, but the USDA did do us a favor and came up with a new organic standard. And here's the organic definition from the USDA website. organic foods are not grown with chemical herbicides, pesticides, or fungicides. sewage sludge is not permitted as fertilizer. Nor is genetic modification allowed. And in the case of livestock, routine use of antibiotics or growth hormones is disallowed. So that's a pretty good start. That's a pretty good standard for food. I often get asked the question, Well, how do I know date that I'm getting organic food when I go to the grocery, they might say it's organic, but how do I know? Well, organic food has a different number on the label. If you pick up a pair or an apple, it's gonna have a sticker on it with a number. If that number starts with a four, it's not organic. If it starts with a nine, it is organic. So that's how you can know when you're at the grocery store and the follow up question I get is, well, how do I know the grocery store is not just playing games and labeling it that way and charging me a bunch more? Well, there are some really stiff penalties for doing that. And I don't think any reputable grocer or certainly organic food store is going to play those kinds of games because they could ruin their whole reputation in the marketplace, as well as experience and very stiff fine by doing that. And so that that would not be a very good business decision. So another objection here is well organic food is just so expensive. I can't do it all the time. Well, that's okay. Buy as much organic as your budget will allow. And I'll give you a couple of tips here on how to bring incorporate some organic food into your week without breaking the bank. We all know that whole foods is more like Whole Paycheck they're very expensive. But if you use your Amazon visa you do get 5% cash back towards your next Amazon purchase your on your Amazon account. 5% is you know, it helps. Another way to get cheaper organic food is a farmers market. There are a lot of farmers out there that are enlightened and are producing their food organically, but they haven't gone through the hassle and the expense of getting organically certified. So you can talk to your local farmers, ask them what they're doing. And a lot of times you'll get some food that may not be certified, but is produced in an organic fashion. Another way to reduce the cost for organic food is you can join a co-op. If you live in the southeas U.S. like I do. There's a company called Global Organics, they're out of Sarasota, Florida. Again, I'll put a link in the show notes for them. They cooperate with food co-ops, and they'll deliver organic food, fresh, good stuff right to your house, but it's going to be in bulk. You have to have several homes get together to make this work. So talk to some neighbors and it might work might work for you. Another thing you can do is start a garden, grow some of your own The best thing to do would be enlist some of your neighbors to do the same thing. They could grow different products than you do. And you guys can barter and trade together. Another way to reduce the cost of eating organic is to buy some frozen frozen fruit is not so bad. You know, it's it's picked and frozen, right right from the farm and a lot of the nutrients do stay intact, and it's a lot cheaper to buy frozen. Obviously not ideal, but it is one way to reduce the cost of eating organic. So again, consume or eat as much organic food as your budget will allow. Nobody executes perfectly. No one ever eats 100% organic 100% of the time; it's absolutely impossible. So just simply do the best you can.

Healthy Eating Tip Number eight unwind before your meals. You are what you eat is true, but it's more accurate to say you are what you assimilate. Stress is detrimental to digestion and assimilation. We don't want to eat when we're stressed out, or our fight or flight reflex is engaged. digestion is not a priority. When we're running for our lives from a wild animal, the body will shut down digestion during that response during that stress response. Now, most of us are not running from lions or T-Rex these days. But we may be tempted to sit down and eat a meal. right after we've had a fight with our spouse, or maybe a stressful drive home from work. There's a lot of ways we can, you know, sit down to the table in a stressed out condition. It's better to wait until you feel more relaxed, take a few minutes to chill out, chillax a little bit before you sit down for your meal. It will help your your assimilation of those nutrients a great deal. A spirit of gratefulness is the perfect state to be in. There's a reason why we say grace before the meal. If we're in a grateful state, we have a very difficult time being angry. We can't be grateful and angry at the same time. So a spirit of gratefulness is the ideal mood to be in when you sit down to a meal. Another way to reduce our stress when we eat is turn off the television. The news media are experts at getting us wound up. You do not want to engage your, your sympathetic or your fight or flight portion of the autonomic nervous system before a meal. Another thing that'll help is put the cell phone down as well; put it on silent, leave it in the next rooml Eat together, eat with another person, look them in the eyes and have a conversation. That's a much better way so much better, much better way to set the mood for a meal to enjoy your meal. I challenge you the next time you go to a restaurant, take a look around and count how many people are staring at their cell phones. It's a very unhealthy practice. Healthy Eating tip number nine practice Intermittent fasting. Now, fasting can save us money, but that's not the real reason to do it. Fasting has benefits for the body, the mind and the spirit. I'm a huge fan of fasting, but you got to do it properly. The chore of digestion consumes a lot of metabolic energy. Our bodies have a limited amount of metabolic energy going around, and they have to conserve sometimes. So if we're using up a lot of our energy digesting food, our bodies have less energy left over for other functions such as detoxification and autophagy, cellular repair and replacement. It's kind of like a power company that's forced to implement rolling blackouts on a hot summer day. The power demand is so great that the power company can't produce all of that energy at once. So they're forced to shut down some of the power to certain neighborhoods, so that they can keep power going to other neighborhoods, that's what our bodies do. They shut down processes that they would like to do. But they have to prioritize to keep us alive. Our bodies are programmed for survival. So they direct the energy towards the most urgent task. And when we're, when we're sending food down there, that becomes an urgent task that food has to be digested. One of the ways to get started doing some fasting is to push your daily fast, everyone fasts when they're sleeping, right? That's why we call our first meal break-fast, because we're breaking our fast. So you could push that fast if you stopped eating at seven o'clock, let's say the night before, push it to push breakfast to nine o'clock or 10 o'clock or maybe even wait till 12 o'clock. And that way you could have a 14 or 15 maybe even 18 hour fast every day. Now if you do that, if you go and have your first meal of the day, around noon time, you can still consume three meals a day. You Just eat your first meal around noon, another meal around three, and another meal around six or seven, and then stop. And you'll have a 17 or 18 hour fast going every day. It's a it's a good way to get broke into or start to exercise your fasting muscle is to skip breakfast. So you could also do intermittent fasting one day per week, you could just skip all food for for one day. That way, you could have 24 hours or maybe 36 hours, once a week. You could choose to do three days per month. Or you could do a longer fast like five days every quarter, something like that, but certainly don't want to start there. You want to work your way up. You want to start slowly, because fasting can be challenging, especially for some people. A water fast is the most productive or the most efficient way to fast, but I wouldn't recommend starting out with a water only fast. Your body has a high need for electrolytes when you're fasting especially sodium, potassium, magnesium, you can get all those electrolytes from a good healthy bone broth. You can make the bone broth yourself or you can buy it at the store. Just make sure the ingredient list is very short and small. Another thing to consider when you're fasting is drink lots of water. Consider doubling your normal water intake instead of drinking half your body weight and water and ounces per day, drink 100% of your body weight in ounces to better way to go when you're fasting. You need more water during a fast. Couple more rules on fasting. children shouldn't fast. Their bodies are growing too fast. They need that nutrition on a regular basis. pregnant or lactating women should not fast and be careful if you've been diagnosed with adrenal fatigue, because fast is stressful, and that stress can put additional stress on the adrenals. So if you've been diagnosed by your MD with adrenal fatigue, it's best to consult them, and bring them into the process of doing so fasting.

Healthy eating Tip Number 10. Have fun. You want to be patient with yourself and allow time for these routines to develop. Once you start to make the changes, it's going to be a little difficult at first. But once you start implementing these things, they'll become more routine and you won't even think about it just become your new normal. Remember, healthy eating is a marathon, not a sprint. Don't beat yourself up if you slip up once you have one unhealthy meal, no big deal. Just go back to eating the way you normally do. After that, no one executes perfectly. But the good news is perfection is not necessary. Trying to be perfect in your eating will only bring more stress and stress when you're trying to pursue health is a bad thing. Chronic stress is a bad thing. Temporary stress such as exercise or fasting is a very good thing. quick stop. We have four kids. And years ago when my kids were younger, I was a little bit more militant about what we ate. And if our kids when they were kindergarten, first grade, second grade, and they were invited to a birthday party, Mom and I, we wouldn't allow them to have birthday cake, or a cupcake. And it probably we didn't know it then but it brought a great deal of stress into their lives. And now that they're a little older, my oldest is 19 right now, and she'll share stories about how incredibly stressed she felt during those times. So I would suggest that you be flexible, have fun, cheat once in a while. That's okay, just go back to your healthy eating plan when you're done. In fact, there's research coming out lately, that supports the idea that mixing it up a little bit, and having a binge day, can act once in a while can actually be a very health building. Actually. So we're gonna be talking more about that when we have some more episodes dedicated to fasting and that type of thing. So to summarize, tip number one, eat food as close to its God given natural form as possible. That's rule number one, and it's the most important rule to prepare your meals in advance. Healthy Eating tip number three, be proactive when going out of the house. Number four, consume healthy fats. Don't be afraid of saturated fat and stay away from hydrogenated oils. Healthy Eating tip number five. Avoid hidden sugar. Number six, practice smart hydration. Number seven, eat natural and organic when possible. Number eight, unwind before meals. Number nine, practice intermittent fasting and number 10, have fun along the way. Don't forget to go to my website. DavidSandstrom.com and you can download a free copy of the E book that this episode is based on. It's called the Top 10 Tips for Healthy Eating. And while you're there, check out the show notes. I'll have links to everything I mentioned all the resources that are mentioned in this episode. And there's also a full transcript that you can read online. Or you can download full copy if you want. Once again, thank you for tuning in. I appreciate you and I'll talk with you next week. Be blessed