Jean’s Word of the Week: Food

Here Are a Few Healthy Tips to Improve Your Relationship with Food

Jean Edelman: It’s great to be with you. It is the month of August, our self-care month. So we're going to talk about food because this is a big piece to our health. Yes, I know food is a part of who we are, our culture, our habits, and we all have relationships with food. I'm going to suggest that we look at adding whole food to our diet. That's lots of vegetables, fruits, lots of legumes, nuts, seeds, things like that.

I'm going to suggest that we try to eat three meals a day. When we've just created this nice morning routine, let's wake up and let's nourish ourselves with some breakfast, make sure we're making time for lunch and have a nice dinner in the evening. We do want desserts. Desserts we can easily put into our menu because we can substitute the sugar with applesauce, mashed bananas, and dates. So let's make sure that we're planning our meals and let's make sure that we're eating three healthy meals a day with some snacks.

Okay. So some quick guidelines. Let's make sure that we're cooking, because when we cook, we're putting our love and our energy into that meal, and everybody benefits from it. The other thing is we want to sit down to eat, and we want to chew our food. Did you know that our digestion starts in our mouth and so when we chew our food well, then when it gets to our stomach, it's a whole lot easier to digest?

I also recommend stop eating 3 hours before you get to bed. So these small changes over time are going to be very beneficial to our health. One last thing for breakfast. Try to eat it no later than 9AM. For lunch, try to eat it no later than 1PM. And then for dinner, no later than 7PM. This way, by the time we get ready for bed, we've digested most of our food.

And so can you guess what my word of the week is going to be. It's going to be FOOD. 

F is for fresh. We want the freshest possible food on our plate, colorful and a variety.

O is for open, allowing change and try something different.

The other O is for obtainable, achievable. You know what? We can make these changes. Just make the decision. You can do it.

And D is for dawn. The beginning of something new. Today could be the first day of the rest of our life.

We can make these changes. We can feel better. We can affect our mood and our health in a positive, positive way. Have a great week, everyone.