Eat Right For Your Soul

There is only one you walking around this Earthly planet we all call home. You are unique, billions of cells and multi-trillions of atoms all consisting of matter that is (some of it at least) as old as the dinosaurs. Your soul hovers around all of that.  Just as you need to feed your body, you need to feed your soul too, and it doesn't follow all the rules about eating less, moving more, and it takes more than JUST food to feed your soul.

Your soul also takes a hit every single time you sit there and get yourself into a stressed out state before or during eating. Who hasn't had that 20 min conversation with themselves about WHY muffins are bad, and will add to us being bad if we eat them? or felt the guilt after reading someone else's rant about 'meat as murder' just after chowing down to a family roast dinner? It all gets too much for so many of us that we switch off - tune out the information coming in and go on autopilot while eating. And then the guilt and self-shame after the fact starts up and the whole vicious cycle starts again ("damn that greasy burger was a bad idea. Look at my stomach and OH GOD THOSE THIGHS! Mmmmmnnn burger. Enter workmate saying 'want to get McDonalds for lunch?'")

Or we become vicious advocates for some particular 'diet' or way of eating without respecting each individual person's food journey.

Wouldn't you rather be able to make a snap decision - say yes or no and be done with it - knowing you can handle the consequences whatever they might be? I knew I would, so I taught myself how.

I'm here to say there is a way around this. A way you can change any food habit you want to, a way to eat so that you get the nutrition you need and avoid diseases but can have FUN in your life. There is a process involved. There is a bit of 'work' to be done learning to listen to your own body properly, but do it once, stay accountable for your actions and you're pretty much set for life!

You also have to do this for yourself, and by yourself - and I can't stress this enough.

No two people are exactly alike, food affects us all differently, even in the same family. So why is it that we consistently buy into this idea that the same diet will work for everyone? Or even work for one person for their entire life without  changing? It's something I have become more and more passionate about fixing.

We see what someone else is doing and say 'it must have worked for her so it's got to work for me, right?'...WRONG. That's taking someone else's solution at face value if you don't go through your own internal process and experiment for yourself. I know I am going against the grain with a lot of what I say, and I know that the 'diet' industry thrives on people looking at others and thinking 'it must have worked for them'. But it's really really really just not that easy. There's something that IS that easy though - and it's these couple of food rules I have started to live by courtesy of Michael Pollen:

1) EAT REAL FOOD ( do you KNOW what the ingredients on the label are? Does it look like food?)
2) NOT TOO MUCH (listen to the signals, eat consciously, savour each bite)
3) MOSTLY PLANT BASED (plants are YUMMY!)

All the evidence points towards a healthy person if you can follow this at least 80-90% of the time - and the rest is all just optional, and can be handled through other work not involving food. It's not exactly a life or death decision when you live by those three rules either.

A very wise person once said that there is only one type of food you should eat - the food that sings to you. I've got a secret to tell you about this too - if McDonalds or muffins 'sing' to you today, after a bit of experience and experimenting with the fruits, vegetables and grains that you like you will realise that McDonalds is to food what Justin Bieber is to music (no offence to him, he's obviously doing pretty damn well for the corporations behind his success and happily enjoying the spoils, but I'd like to see him evolve a bit before I'd spend money on one of his albums). Myself, I prefer to listen to something more along the lines of Daft Punk, Mumford and Sons, U2 or any music which touches my soul.

If you want a free piece of advice to take away from this blog post with you it must be this - EAT RIGHT FOR YOUR SOUL and don't be afraid to try something new and different. To experiment. Then watch your life improve in every single way. No stress, no freak outs, no out and out binges on rubbish. Just nourishment, pure and simple.

I can help you learn to eat right for your soul, and have maintained the same weight for the best part of 2 years after dropping 10 kilos doing so. E-mail me or contact me via Facebook or twitter (@kaliannagrace) to get started.

Happy soulful eating x

Why I didn't take a #nomakeupselfie for cancer research

It's interesting to see the media and Facebook, instagram, twitter and other social platforms all-a-flutter over the latest 'good cause' - supporting breast cancer research with the #nomakeupeslfie hashtag. What's been achieved, raising something like AUD$3m equivalent for a cause is really commendable - the universe knows I'd be flying pretty high if there was $3m committed to teaching people the value of health coaching and supplying plants and organic food to needy communities. Something about this really bothers me though, and it's time to speak up about it. Before I do, here's my version - taken on a regular makeup free day. It was, until yesterday, also my facebook profile photo and I don't believe I was 'brave' to post a photo of myself without makeup (but that's really a subject for another post).

What irks me is the fact that all over the world cancer survival is considered living beyond 5 years after diagnosis, and that people still hold out so much hope for  a pill to deal with something so endemic, that impacts every physical and psychological level of the human condition. Do not misunderstand me, my position is that western medicine and cancer research are invaluable in the right circumstances. What I would say is that we've probably reached that point by now, especially with an affliction like cancer, so widespread and widely known. If I have a car accident, if I get blown up by a suicide bomber and need to be put back together, I'll be the one asking to be taken to the hospital, and for insurance dollars to help, but there is a limit to what these sorts of institutions can do. Ultimately my firm belief is that our own health is in our own hands. It involves choices (and yes, you do have a choice whether or not it's a hard one to make when it comes to what you put into your body and expose yourself to). Education, less carcinogens in your food and your environment and lots of love and laughter are never even talked about in any serious way. Western medicine except for a few enlightened practitioners at the very top remains helpless...hopeless, and we think throwing more dollars at the research looking for drugs is the solution?

Pills can relieve pain in someone who is days away form dying, and pills or drugs in the form of antibiotics can stem the onslaught of an infection in the short term, in a time of dire need - but people in their childhood, their teens, their 20s and 30s are going down with cancer. Stem cell research, quantum biology and areas where real progress can be made are still ignored or pooh-poohed by most of mainstream western society. The dollars go to big pharmaceutical studies from what I have read (correct me if I am wrong please!) - so that's really the issue for me. Where's the emphasis on prevention with all of the research going on? and the dollars going towards it?

Don't we all by now have some personal experience with this insidious disease? My aunt was a cancer survivor, and she just died in her sixties after her sister died a few years ago of a different form of cancer. Friends of my family have 'survived' cancer and more have been taken by the disease, or live with the knowledge that it might come back at any time. They live with what they were told: that cancer is irreversible, and that there's nothing you can do in your own life to mitigate it. Is that really the truth? Food Matters, The Gerson Institute, The Wellness Warrior and people like Anita Moorjani actually say otherwise.

Mothers and grandmothers, fathers and sons with everything to live for are subjecting themselves to the most horrific treatments mankind ever invented in the hopes of lasting another few months or years - with no guarantee of even that (doctors will admit that they are still CLUELESS in a lot of areas when it comes to cancer). At this point, when the dollars spent on cancer research number more than $200 BILLION per year worldwide, when as the research increases and intensifies the answers seem further and further away - and most treatments do more harm than good - can't we start to ask ourselves whether maybe, just maybe, there's enough money being spent on this type of research?Maybe there's a way we can all individually be more proactive about preventing and dealing with cancer in ways that don't involve using known carcinogens in the form of chemotherapy, radiation and surgery to make a bad situation utterly horrific? If the $200bn is being spent that way, well, then great! if not, then we need a new type of cancer research in my view.

I  know that so many people do the fun runs, colour themselves in rainbows, bake sugary cancer causing treats and do all manner of things to hold out some glimmer of hope, and ease feelings of helplessness. Here's a thought though - what if we're not helpless at all? What if we're just seriously misinformed and under-educated about what we can all do today to prevent and mitigate the risks of cancer? hmmmn

Now that the ranty part of this post is over, I'll quickly add that no, I am not a great fan of the 'selfie' and what it says about participants in this #nomakeupselfie project. Please check out this great article on the subject by Clementine Ford, who I agree with for the most part (except where she also says that cancer research just needs 'serious dollars' and does not address the direction the research is going).

I also took this one makeup free selfie way back in January 2011 before selfies were even that much of a 'thing'. I also never wear makeup except for a rare occasion a couple of times a year, and I love my life that way.

If you want to see more makeup free selfies just friend me on facebook, or follow me on twitter (@kaliannagrace) ;)