Yes, even healthy food can act like a stimulant; and it’s fair to say that if you’re eating nutrient rich or “natural foods” to overcome a personal energy deficit, you can get fat because you are eating for the wrong reasons.
This is one of the biggest mistakes people makes that get in the way of natural weight loss.
First of all, what is natural weight loss?
Natural weight loss is when you live at or near your ideal weight as a result of how you live, not heroic efforts at dieting or exercise.
One of the biggest errors in judgment that people make, including this author, is “eating” for energy and performance when what we really need is to recuperate our personal energy. I would venture to say that we eat more out of need for vital energy, (life force, chi, electrical energy, nerve energy) than we ever do, due to a need for nutrients or because of true hunger.
The minute we start eating we stimulate our body to process the food and get the illusion that we are increasing our energy when inf act, we are actually exhausting ourselves and overeating.
Really, the only time we actually get an energy “boost” from food is when a) we haven’t eaten for a long period of time, b) have been athletic and are physically depleted, but not tired or c) when you start eating nutrient rich foods after having eaten nutrient poor for far too long.
Ask anyone whose been eating nutrient rich for a long period of time, and it’s not likely they’ll get a major energy boost from what they eat, even it is is fresh fruits and vegetables.
The energy most people want comes from recuperation not eating. Food energy, while stimulating, won’t really help you increase your energy for long, when you’re yawning. Even it it is healthy!
Meeting down under would be a blast and also an incentive to perfect that handstand (us being upside down and all that)!
All the best
Colin
PS Many thanks for the contact. Cheers.
Hi John
Great points you make.
The yawn is a physiological response that opens the mouth as wide as possible to draw in much needed oxygen to help get us through the moment. Unfortunately most people interpret the open hatch to mean the need to shove down the jelly beans and caffeine instead! The underlying message, of course, is to get some much needed shut eye and to recuperate.
Hey, great meeting you at the MBG! Yourself and Jon are doing great things to help make the world a much better place; it’s a privilege to be tagging along with you guys!
Cheers
Colin (Australia)
Colin,
Great to meet you too and thanks for sharing your insight into the yawn.
Personally and professionally I think the management of vital energy, nerve energy, life force, “chi”, whatever you want to call it, is the single most important aspect of human function, performance, lifestyle and fitness there is. It affects everything from our thoughts to our attitude, our desires to how and what we eat, to our training schedule and our ability to recover from a workout; I could keep going. It’s a subject that everyone is talking about, but few know how to talk about it.
Of all that I do, I am most committed to sharing insights into this, probably because I have suffered greatly from living out of balance in my years, and because I know that managing your energy has the power to positively affect every other aspect of how we think and live. I will be sharing thoughts on the subject on a new website called ManageYourEnergy.com – a sight I started years ago, but didn’t quite have a grasp of the subject I do now year later.
I am looking forward to meeting up with you one day in Aussie land. I would like to introduce you to a buddy of mine Steve Baily from The Mankind Project out in Australia, I think you guys would enjoy meeting and networking.
The MBG week was wonderful in every way, and great to meet you buddy,
cheers,
John
Hey JAM,
This is really a fantastic point your making- one that I’ve really been exploring in my own experience and observing in my acupuncture training. I’ve been struck lately by the idea of what it means to consistently live on one’s edge and I think the kind of awareness that you’re pointing to in this blog is part of the answer. I’ve found in my exploration of this concept that when I am awake and paying attention to the experience of life, the information I gather is much more in tune with the reality of what’s going on, and as so the conclusions I draw from are much different than when I’m cognitively analyzing and hastily trying to come to some fix-it conclusion from my experience. As I continue to do pay attention in this way and respond to my experience from this place of deepened alertness and interest, the more trust I develop in being able to take care of myself. It makes health and wellbeing a much more lively and dynamic force to be reckoned with because you see how responsible you really are for your own wellness and that good health isn’t a static state.
Many thanks for sharing your insights,
Amber
Amber,
Great to hear from you.
Very insightful thoughts you share. I had to read a few times to really grasp all that you said. My interpretation is that when you are not in your thinking mind, and paying attention to our source of vital energy, intelligence and eventually wisdom, we (I) realize how in control of my well being and health I am. I think that’s what you are saying. I also think that overspending or not managing vital energy (as we tend to do in our relentless demanding world) especially without the knowledge of how to manage our energy well, has a big influence on our lives and that when we do, we are able to function and perform so much better with a better quality of life. And as you said, this subject requires awareness and alertness if it’s to be done well. In other words we need a mental dashboard and to understand various concepts from different fields of works from athletics to bodywork, like acupuncture, to understand the spiritual nature of managing your energy.
talk again soon.
JAM
In a course I took about learning styles, the teacher mentioned that kinesthetic people often eat in situations where they would otherwise move but aren’t able to. It provides both immediate oral stimulation and a half hour or so of bodily activity. This applies to the kid who sneaks chewing gum in class and the office worker who can’t be without snacks. I remember drinking coffee in lecture classes at college not because the caffeine would keep me awake but because the act of holding and moving the cup kept me from nodding off. (I know this is true because I eventually switched to water, and the movement still worked!)
Barbara,
What an amazingly practical insight. It makes perfect sense!
You are right on with this.
The reality is we only experience “higher levels” of personal energy when we are spending or “stimulating” it, unfortunately most people stimulate in ways that don’t give them a good ROIE (return on their investment of energy). Sometimes that’s all it takes is chewing gum, or water to stimulate energy and it’s the movement, not the chemicals alone. Coffee IS the sedentary mans movement. Water does do the same thing!
I remember coming to a similar conclusion. as someone who eats nutrient rich food at least 90% of the time, when I’m tired, I eat oranges… and get the same effect. But when I’m eating for energy, and I’m yawning, not hungry, i just pack on weight, meanwhile I’ve not recuperated any of the vital energy that I am needing. This is a powerful insight and connection to make, thanks for sharing this insight. Given that all people are kinesthetic, yet identify with that nature in varying degrees, I would assert this principle applies to everyone. Really powerful! talk soon, John Allen
JAM