Balancing the Balance
Dealing with balancing your food intake is only half the battle. In fact it is less than half. The rest is mainly about not eating.
Stress
First and definitely foremost is stress. Most of us make a relentless big deal out of this. We wake in a morning, get that coffee on, clamp our jaws onto the bone of modernday life and do not let go until loosened by some booze later on. This is also foremost because it affects the way we view the other sub headings on this page, mostly by stopping us attending to them. Whereas attending to them actually counters the affects of stress. I do not have lots of answers, there are many on the net. I would say three things though.
1. Attending to the things listed below this will help alleviate a fair amount of stress.
2. Things that nag your mind, like health problems, relationship issues, work issues, even simple things like every time you open the broken cupboard door and think “I must fix that”. Just bloody well fix it, along with all the other things that keep nagging you. Eliminate as much internal nagging as possible.
3. Following Foodmod combinations means that all boxes are ticked to around or above the 100% mark every day. Vitamins; minerals; fibre; protein and fats. Knowing that you are giving your body exactly what it needs for it to be able to operate at optimum along with reigning back the grazing and overeating, can give you the satisfaction that you are making a difference, and so diffuse some of your stress.
Sleep
Most of us have an abusive relationship with sleep. It is generally disregarded. Our bodies when not in digestion mode gradually ease into repair and restore mode. The top level repair bots come out to do their work during the deep phase of sleep. But to foster deep sleep you usually have to create certain conditions. Like making a routine for bedtime. The circadian rythmn in all of us responds best to heading for bed at the same time every night; Cutting off stimulants like caffeine by early afternoon; keeping away from blue light a few hours before sleep and again leaving out the booze.
Snacking
This is perhaps the most difficult thing to attend to. Life is so hard we have to treat ourselves constantly, and food is just there dangling from ready-made food trees. We often eat because we are bored, or because we need comforting. Or we simply graze throughout the day. I know from collecting food data, that the end result from a day of grazing is quite sobering. Conversely if you look at eastern traditions of eating, which are encapsulated by monasteries, they tend to eat well at just two points in the day. Often late in the morning and early in the evening. Western minds tend to see this as fasting and as such requires effort.
Water
I have struggled with this all of my life. For me drinking water is like doing press-ups. But eveyone should get a couple of litres down them every day (you will probably take in another litre through other drinks and food). I find it is best have a couple of glasses as soon as I rise and then drink the majority of that two litres in the early part of the day. Also, take a water container out with you.
Exercise
One of the latest ideas, which I like, because I tend to get injured when running. Is that it is now proving more beneficial to build muscle. So I do morning stretching and a mixture of yoga, and dumbell excercises later on. If you can do running, the couch to 5k is pretty good.
Breathing
The problem with most of us regarding breathing is that we spend a lot of time not doing it. If you work in a job that ramps up your stress, dealing with deadlines and crisis, just stop and check yourself. You have probably stopped breathing. Even a non stressful job in front of a screen will seriously interrupt your breathing. It is your main lifeline. I countered this myself, by buying a digital watch with a built in timer. I set it to go off at 15 minute intervals. It would go off and I would restart my breathing and reset my watch. At some point I would forget to reset the watch, but the moment that I became aware of the watch, it would remind me to breathe. Doing this is markedly better than not doing it.
Below are three Qi-Gong videos that I have used for a few years. You can soon memorise them and do them anywhere and anytime. They help greatly with breathing, exercise and stress.