ONE TOO MANY BANANAS
How many bananas is too many bananas?
I don’t know but your body knows.
You can overdo and overeat the GOOD stuff too. My partner, John Allen, and I talk about this concept all the time. Contrary to that popular belief that “eating healthy doesn’t taste good and is boring” reason/excuse that many people give for eating poorly, we’ve discovered that, actually the opposite is true. Nutrient Rich foods that include green vegetables, juicy fruit, nuts, seeds, beans are satisfying and delicious. They make you feel good too even after you eat them because you are getting the nutrients your body needs and wants.
We buy bunches of ripe bananas, peel ‘em and freeze ‘em. That way we can dump them in smoothies. They are so sweet and creamy that we make ice cream out of them.
Using our beloved Vitamix high powered blender, we add bananas, dates, natural unsweetened cacao powder, and walnuts and whip up a creamy delectable ice cream. It’s so good you can finish it off in one sitting. And if you don’t listen and stop, you can eat this ice cream until the whole thing is finished off and you bust!
The actual challenge we discovered is that nutrient rich “healthy” food is so good ~ you want to keep eating. And justification for this overeating comes easy – you can simply convince yourself that since it is healthy you can keep it coming.
Over the past two years as I started to eat more and more nutrient rich foods, I found myself gaining some unwanted pounds, and I didn’t do it by eating potato chips. Nope. I ate too much of good things. Grant it there were emotional eating situations going on as well, however, I figured I was eating healthy foods so it didn’t matter. But it does matter. Too many bananas is too many bananas. I was certainly eating for health but overeating even healthy foods is not a healthy idea.
Nutrient rich food is truly yummy. I can’t say enough about Dr. Fuhrman’s EAT FOR HEALTH 2 book set. Book 2 is full of amazing recipes. I started to experiment and cook up these recipes and was truly wowed by the ease it took and the taste that exploded. You should try a recipe or two. I recommend the healthy chocolate cake on page 262. It’s literally made with vegetables but you wouldn’t know it unless I spilled the beans. I guarantee if you have the “healthy food doesn’t taste good” mentality – eating this cake will flip that switch off immediately.
When you start eating nutrient rich, amazing things happen to your health. You give your body the true nutrients it needs to function and perform well. You feel really good and energetic. You’ll want to eat this way and your body will start craving the good stuff.
But how do you know when enough is enough, when you’ve had enough and when you should stop? There is no complicated answer here. It’s actually the simplest concept you probably ever heard. LISTEN. Listen to the signs and eat when you are hungry and stop when you are full.
These “simple” rules are key to nutrient rich living and eating and natural weight loss – eat only when you hungry and stop when you are full. That will be the sure fire way of not overdosing on one too many bananas. Your body doesn’t want one too many bananas and it will give you signals to stop. Your body knows best – when it has had enough – it lets you know – you just need to LISTEN.
Can you spend today just taking the time to notice how you feel before a meal? If you are not really hungry, wait a bit longer to eat. As you are eating notice how your stomach feels. Do you feel satisfied? Can you stop now? It takes practice to hear and notice your body’s signals but once you connect and the more you listen, the more you will hear and you will naturally lose weight.