Eating is Living

Or is it Living is Eating?


How do you view your diet?  Yes, diet.  Everyone has a diet.  A diet is defined as "food and drink considered in terms of its qualities, composition, and its effects on health."


Do you view it as "I eat to live" or as "I live to eat"?


I am not writing this to make people feel bad, but we really need to consider what we're putting into our bodies and what our bodies are giving back to us.  I have been on the dark side of these phrases.  The "I live to eat" side, and I often fall back to it.  I like food.  A LOT.  I'm not going to hide it.  But, I have also learned things about my body that are clearly better for it than others.  Everyone's body's are different and different in how they react to what you put into yours.


Those people with great metabolisms (God bless you, you lucky lucky people) can eat a lot of different things and not have it effect their body composition (whether or not that effects your health in other ways, that's for a different post in the future).  Those of us with not so great metabolisms, well, for me anyways, I've had to learn what I can and can't eat so that my body goes in the direction I'd like it to (lately it's been either trying to lose weight or just maintain).  But that also depends on what type of exercise I am doing as well.


Typically if I'm wanting to maintain or lose weight, I have to remind myself "Eat to Live" and not "Live to Eat".  It may seem very simple, but it helps so much.  It keeps me accountable, and not only that, but it also makes me really appreciate what I'm putting into my body (and to be honest, I am actually enjoying eating fruits and veggies).


Another thing that kind of ties into this discussion is "Do you love yourself?"  This isn't to be confused with being conceited or egotistical and all into yourself.  There is this show "Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition" (which is on Monday nights on ABC 9 ET, you should watch) where a guy who is specialized in transformation works with someone for a year to try and help them tackle their problem with obesity.  They take the hour of the episode to show the whole year as the client progresses towards their goal.  It really is moving.  I bring this up because Chris, the transformation specialist, told one of his clients when his weight came up on the loading dock scale, "That's a weight of someone who doesn't love themselves.  At some point, you stopped caring."  Think about it.


Shouldn't we love ourselves enough that we make the right choices of what we put into our bodies so that we can live easier and longer?  The older we get the harder it is for us to accomplish certain things.  Daily tasks become more difficult.  Exercise is limited based on your health conditions (not just weight, but things like bad knees, hips, backs, etc).  We should take advantage of the time we have now to make our lives easier as it is supposed to get harder in the future.


I'm not sure where each of you are at with your body composition, whether or not you are in the underweight, normal, overweight, or obese categories.  But I do know something: what we put into our bodies now will inevitably effect us down the road.  I'm not saying you shouldn't ever eat bad foods again (I still plan on enjoying certain foods throughout my life), but I am saying we should make a majority of our diet include healthy foods so that we can enjoy life as long as possible.