Written by Virginia Eaton —
Warning: I’m feeling the need to rant and rave! If you aren’t in the mood to hear me vent my frustration with the medical community, then you may want to skip this week’s blog and tune in next week when steam isn’t coming out of my ears.
Just this week, I’ve had a number of clients and friends say the following words to me, “My doctor said that my blood sugar is too high and I should ‘watch’ my carbs.”
When I ask the obvious follow up questions, including, “What did he tell you to eat and to avoid?” — the response is, “He didn’t say, just that I should watch my carbs.” That’s when the steam starts coming out of my ears.
It is irresponsible for your doctor to have concerns about your blood sugar and give you the unhelpful, blanket advice of watching your carbohydrate intake. It’s also irresponsible for you as a patient to not to ask questions when the doctor gives you ambiguous advice.
Very few doctors have had much exposure or training during their pre-med or medical school experience in helping their patients understand how to eat healthy. If your doctor tells you to eat fewer carbohydrates, be an empowered patient and get more information. If nothing else, you should ask your doc to clarify what he means so you understand his recommendations precisely.
When clients come to me with any type of situation that can be helped by improving the quality of what they eat, here is what I tell them constitutes healthy eating:
• Eating real food and avoiding processed foods
• Eating often – every 3 hours
• Combining healthy protein, carbs and fats in every meal and snack
• Eating fermented foods such as yogurt or taking a quality probiotic
• Avoiding refined carbohydrates even if they are organic or labeled as healthy
• Eliminating sodas, juices, high sugar smoothies
• Drinking a lot of water daily — 60 to 80 ounces
• Exercising or moving everyday
Processed foods get in the way of your health in many ways. There really aren’t ‘healthy’ processed foods because the additives, stabilizers and other unnatural chemicals that are added to processed foods can play havoc with your gut and your gut bacteria as well as other body systems. One of the biggest favors you can do for your health is eliminate processed foods from you life completely.
On Tuesday, May 17 at 5:30 p.m., I’m hosting a discussion at Class, The Body Pastiche on the topic of eating in a way that improves your health. The event is free and should make you think differently about commercial diets, how to eat healthy and how exercise fits in to equation.
For details follow this link to the workshop page for Class, the Body Pastiche
Read more of Virginia Eaton’s blog posts here.
Virginia Eaton is the owner of Oakhurst wellness center Class: The Body Pastiche
