You Only Need to Change One Thing

We went to a phenomenal nutritional course today. Our local health and wellness grocery store puts on free lectures from time to time about different subjects. I was very excited to go to the class they had yesterday from Kary Odiatu and Dr. Uche. They are a married couple living in Toronto w/ 3 children and we found out yesterday that a 4th is on the way. She is a life coach, competes in fitness competitions and was Miss Fitness Universe. Dr. Uche is a dentist, holistic lifestyle coach and professional  member of the American sports association. So, an amazing super couple. Well, that was one of the best 1.5hr long classes I have ever taken.

Dr. Uche began the day w/ talking about obesity, health, stress, eating well, etc. He discussed how much he can tell about our everday health through our teeth. If your gums bleed very easily or if you have bad gingivitis, then you are experiencing dehydration, inflammation and overall poor nutrition. He stated several times that “what is happening anywhere is happening everywhere”. What he means is that any inflammation you are feeling in your body, such as inflammed gums, lower back pain, neck pain, means that your body is unbalanced and needs more attention. We need to deep breathe throughout day. Air in needs to come out somehow. Deep breathing from your lower abdominal is something we all should be doing throughout the day–it helps relax you so that your muscles arent’ so tight, clears your mind and brings peace to you. Also, there is new research that alzheimer’s may actually be Type 3 diabetes. This is amazing. On the topic of diabetes, the prescription meds help 37% of the time and lifestyle change helps 70%. I was given so much info on the health side of nutrition and how our bodies react to poor nutrition, lack of exercise and dehydration.

Then, Kary began to speak. She talked about the other aspect of getting healthy and that is the motivation part. Throughout the class they would get us up to swing our arms, deep breathe and move the blood around a bit. She discussed how she used to be very unhealthy, but had a breaking point where she made the change. We all need to make the change, but most times it is b/c of something. For instance, a serious health scare will usually make people wake up and start exercising, eating healthy and make the lifestyle changes needed to live. As I stated before, lifestyle change has a higher percentage of curing, helping, recovering people than prescription meds. I hope that people will start to make the change before they get sick or have a problem. All we need to do is change one thing at a time. Try eating only half of your dinner portion. Cutting back to 1/2 a cup of pasta rather than a whole cup. make sure to drink 8 glasses of water. If you eat 5 pieces of bread throughout the day, trim it to 4 pieces. Don’t change everything at once. Only change one thing and once you are comfortable with that, change another unhealthy thing. Try going for a walk, then a fast walk, maybe a light jog or take the stairs instead of the elevator. See where I’m going? Also, you don’t have to give anything up forever. Kary suggested to have a free day every 10-14 days. This way you aren’t missing out forever on your favorite chocolate bar, you just don’t need it every day.

The strange thing is that when you start to make the changes, it is very difficult, very challenging and uncomfortable at first. Then, you get used to it and enjoy it. Once you start to take sugar out of your diet, after a while you just don’t enjoy it that much. I used to have a small double double at Tim Horton’s (meaning for 6oz of coffee I was having 2 sugars and 2 creams–yikes!). Now, I have a medium coffee w/ just a dash of cream. At first, I didn’t love the taste, but now I can’t have sugar in my coffee. It makes it way too sweet. This change has only happened over the last 3 weeks. So, it doesn’t take long. Now that I’m comfortable w/ reducing sugar in my coffee and my other foods, I am moving on to taking chips away. Not for good, not forever, but not having chips for a couple of days. Then, I’ll have a few chips, then not again for a week. I’m choosing to make change.

I want to live to be 100 yrs old, but a healthy, happy, able to do for myself 100 yrs old. The only way to achieve that is to respect my life and my body. Therefore, I’m making the choice today to eat better, continue to workout and largely reduce my stress. I’m choosing life. I’m choosing to live. I’m choosing to make one change at a time that will help my body stay healthy, active and reduce my risk of disease. So, I’m asking all of you to make a change, a healthy change. Do something uncomfortable and make your life better.

“Make It A Great Day–Go Inspire!”