What I Eat In A Day And Why

Functional Eater, Not Perfect Dieter

To begin, I would like to share something with you: I am not a perfect eater. I don’t always eat what’s best for my body and my digestion. I do overeat sometimes when stressed or bored. And I do love my sweets, even though they might be considered ‘healthy’ by general standards.

But what I do on a daily basis is make sure that I nourish my body with nutrient-dense food and a light dinner 5 days a week. I am  a normal gal, just like you are, and just as vulnerable to stress. Food shame, occasional ice cream, and chocolate do still happen. I learned to make peace with it and not let my mis-steps ruin my relationship with my body or to affect my digestion. I do my best every day to be true to my body’s wisdom and to honor it with my actions. Some days it happens with ease and some days not so much.

There is a big difference between clean detoxed digestion and a strong digestion. Eliminating all irritants and all heavy to digest foods will reduce the symptoms but it won’t necessarily make your digestion stronger. If someone with a virgin immune system that was never exposed to any virus is placed in sterile conditions she will feel good. But as soon as she is exposed to the real world full of microbes and bacteria, she will get sick.

The same way some who has a weak digestion might feel well in a controlled home-cooked easily digestible food but exposure to a restaurant meal will make then almost sick.

The goal is not to have a super pure digestion unless you are willing to eat only home-cooked strict meals for the rest of your life. The goal is to have a strong digestion that can digest anything without making you feel tired or sick. A powerful digestive fire is the goal!

My Diet – A Permanent Experiment

My diet is not set in stone but I do have an attitude that I maintain. The attitude is that my body is very adaptable and that my needs change overtime. The first part of my attitude is based on the fact that there are many different people that I admire who follow a very different diet. Nevertheless, they look very healthy, healed their health issues and often look much younger than their actual age.

If we look back, there have been multiple approaches to eating that worked for humans. From a high fat animal based diet of Eskimos who never had cavities or diabetes until modern foods were introduced to tribes in the tropical regions who ate lots of fruit and veggies. Our body is amazing in its resourcefulness and adaptability.

Some of the commonalities of the highly variable traditional diets was that there are occasional periods of fasting or very little food (cleansing/detoxification), there were no processed foods, and no fake sugar.

At the time of writing this post, Summer 2013, here is what a day of my eating looked like.

• Water with lime in the morning. Then 10 mins trampoline and 1 hour yoga and meditation at home.
• Breakfast 10 am: fresh apricot or peach 10:30am: Green blended soup with dandelions, zucchini, cilantro, some carrots, 1/4 avocado and lime. 2 eggs without egg yolks.
• Snack around 12pm: soft juicy pear
• More trampoline, a walk, or a workout
• Lunch between 1-2pm pm: wild salmon on top of a large salad with sunflower sprouts, raw lactro-fermented carrots or cabbage, and baby greens or arugula.
• Snack 5pm: soaked apricot, prunes, or figs with 1 tbs pumpkin seed butter
• Dinner 7:30pm: Asparagus & daikon soup with fluffy curried quinoa, or lightly cooked sprouted mung beans with squash and sauteed kale. All sprinkled with lime.
• Warm water and fennel tea throughout the day.