In the March/April 2012 issue of the “American Journal of Human Biology” I read what I already knew, that what is essentially a Western diet is making Americans sick. As your chiropractor I believe in your whole body wellness. I strive to align your body so your nervous system operates at its full potential and without interference. In conjunction with this healthy habit you can pair a healthy diet and you may just find your healthy nirvana place. I’ve asked Austin local Allison Wegner to elaborate on how you can start changing your eating habits for good. Allison runs the popular Paleo Possible Facebook page where she encourages readers and followers on their quest to eat a cleaner and healthier diet. She offers more than recipes because she shares her successes and her failures and proves that in the end, Paleo IS Possible.
Below is the first of a series of blog postings we’ll share with you directly from Allison. We hope you enjoy her information and wit as much as we do.
Dr. Michelle Paris
What You Eat Matters…It Just Does
While I’m not a writer by trade it’s amazing what you can do when you are passionate about something. I have a ridiculous amount of passion about a couple of things. I’m passionate about my supportive family and I’m passionate about eating whole, real foods, also known as The Paleo Diet. I sometimes think I’m “just a wife and a mom” with three boys so I’m very flattered to have been asked to share one of these passions with the patients of Whole Family Chiropractors. If you are a believer in Chiropractic then I believe you are a prime candidate to learn more about a Paleo lifestyle.
How does a person even hear about the Paleo Diet? How does a person hear about Chiropractic? Usually from their friends and community. Here’s my journey. Four years ago I joined the gym at Crossfit Central with the intention of losing the weight I’d gained during my second pregnancy. With guidance from the coach of my Crossfit class and information I got from the nutrition class my gym hosted, I learned the basics of the Paleo diet. The premise of the “diet” was simple enough: eat whole real non-processed foods most of the time. I got a food list and with a head full of steam I jumped in with both feet. AKA, I went full-on Paleo! For 36 years I’d eaten a SAD diet (Standard American Diet) and surely the transition to this way of eating would be a HUGE challenge, right? NOT EVEN A LITTLE. It was one of the easiest things I’ve ever done. The minute I realized how good I can feel physically AND mentally when I eat clean, I never wanted to eat trashy food again. Adopting a Paleo diet didn’t just help me lose baby weight, it changed my life. I felt good. Really good. Probably for the first time in my life. I’m healthier, fitter and have more energy now than I did as a teenager. And now fast forward 4 years and my family and I are living this lifestyle every day. We are well, we are happy, and we are in control of our lives and our health. It takes some work, a little planning ahead and some budgeting, but we are living proof that it IS possible to adopt and maintain a Paleo lifestyle.
The one and only person responsible for what goes into YOUR body is YOU. Take control of your diet and you take control of your health. Take control of your health and you take control of your LIFE. Don’t let your efforts to achieve true healing and optimal health be wasted on eating a poor diet. You’re already headed in the right direction. Chiropractic works to fix the problem not just treat the symptoms. When you combine the effect of these measures with what the Paleo diet can do, you are close to perfection in caring for your health. Really, that’s what we want isn’t it? Health. Life. Living. Thriving.What I’ve learned since transitioning to a Paleo diet: What you eat matters, it just does. What you eat affects your health and how you feel. You don’t have to believe it or buy into it, it’s just a fact. It does. What you DO have to “believe” is that you CAN make a different choice. Believing; that is the first step. Believing that you have the power to determine your health is where you need to start. There is a BIG problem in this country. You don’t have to be a doctor or scientist to see it; you just have to look around. People are over-weight, over-stressed, over-medicated and unhappy. People are SICK and they are getting sicker and sicker every day. They go to the conventional doctors complaining about feeling awful, get a diagnosis, get a pill and go home expecting to get better. Unfortunately, they don’t get better. A lot of times they get worse. They almost never address what foods they are putting into their bodies. We eat 3-5 times a day, 365 days a year. To believe that this has no effect on our health is just ridiculous in my opinion. What we eat not only affects our health, I believe it determines our health.
I’ll be back next week to talk more about how to make the Paleo diet work in everyday life, and more about how the combination of chiropractic science and the paleo diet can lead to optimal health.
Allison Wegner
You can find me on facebook: Paleo Possible
