Kuel Life’s Health Coach, Liza Baker, is all about SOLE (Seasonal, Organic, Local, Ethical) food.
Her mantra of eating whole foods – those that are just like nature made them – is key to maintaining a healthy weight and lifestyle. If the concept of whole foods is new to you or you’re just not sure – well, check the list of ingredients. With whole foods, the fewer the better – and, best if it’s ONE ingredient. Fresh blueberries instead of a toaster pastry with blueberries; whole wheat toast instead of white; skinless chicken breast instead of nuggets. I think we get the picture. The closer you can get to what nature has produced; the better.
Whole foods in their natural state maintain all their vitamins and nutrients. The health benefits are numerous when selecting whole grains, meats, fruits, vegetables, and non-homogenized dairy products instead of frozen pizza and meal-helpers.
Some Benefits of Whole Foods:
- They are rich in phytochemicals –plant chemicals that have protective or disease preventive properties.
- Whole foods provide more vitamins and minerals than processed foods. In some cases processing can enrich foods with vitamins and minerals but as a general rule; whole foods are more nutrient dense
- Whole grains offer several benefits including the slowing down of the digestive process, allowing better absorption of nutrients; the fiber content helps regulate blood sugar by slowing down the conversion of starches into glucose; they allow healthful bacteria to keep disease-producing bacteria in check; they have strong anti-oxidant properties to help protect the body against free radicals, as well as phyto-estrogens and phytochemicals that break down carcinogenic substances. Grains also have a more concentrated amount of these phytochemicals than fruits and vegetables.
- Nutrient dense foods have fewer calories
Liza’s SOLE Food To SOUL Food – Nutrition For The Body, Mind, And Spirit article on We Love Ann Arbor her community’s ‘FRONT PAGE FOR NEWS, SPORTS AND MORE’ details out a bit more of her philosophy.
“Our bodies convert our food into our bones, muscles, blood, etc., and highly processed foods are not recognized as viable building materials. Eating SOLE foods moves beyond nutritional content and brings a higher energy to our food: when we nourish not only our bodies but our environment and the lives of everyone who touched our food on the way to our plates, we are making the best choices for all.”
In this article, Liza, addresses not only the physical benefits of rethinking our view on how our body is changing as we age but also the emotional aspects of how we might be feeling about our careers and/or relationships. Instead of trying to ‘fix’ what’s ‘wrong’ – maybe we look at it as another stage of our lives and tweak what we’ve been doing to support the new phase.
Enter her SOUL (Seasonal, Organic, Unique, and Loving). She contends that we need to pay attention to our individuality. Quit comparing yourself to others and focus internally to figure out what works best for YOU. And lastly, changing your self-talk (if it’s not there already) to supportive and loving is a MUST.
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