Eating unhealthy foods leads to my unhappiness. Eating unhealthy foods leads to my unhappiness. Eating unhealthy foods leads to my unhappiness. EATING UNHEALTHY FOODS LEADS TO MY UNHAPPINESS.
It feels better to choose to avoid it and be healthy as I truly deserve!!!!
Here's the truth of the matter. By eating a clean, healthy diet you are treating yourself very well. You are respecting your body as the temple of God. You are nourishing it with all manner of love.
By eating unhealthy foods you are committing an act of self-hate and murder. Sounds extreme - I know... but we all hear the news. Type 2 diabetes in on the rise due to the growing obesity in America. Many children will die before their parents. Cancers continue to take the lives of many, and if not take their lives, force people to go into surgery and horrible treatments. Heart disease continues to be the number 1 killer. And where does heart disease come from, blocked arteries due to our poor diets of animal proteins. Cheeseburgers and pizza are the staple of our diets. Add to it chinese food and ice cream and we feel plenty happy and fulfilled and we are eating ourselves into the grave!
You may tell yourself... well, my parents ate those foods and they are healthy or lived into their 90's so I think that I may be immune from these problems. The truth is that until the 1950's, no one ate quite this badly. After WWII convenience foods were on the rise. In the 1970's fast food became more prevalent and as we get busier, more families are running out for a burger, fries and a shake more often. We can't count on our genetic pool to save us and thinking that it just won't happen to us is sheer self-denial.
The whole truth.....Eating unhealthy foods leads to our unhappiness! If we trace it down this is what it looks like:
You eat a food that you're craving.... it tastes VERY good. Now let me just say that those foods are EVERYWHERE. It's hard to eat out without getting something smothered with cheese and grease. A salad doesn't look good compared to the plate of ribs and mashed potatoes. TV commercials, billboards, smells barrage you all day long and entice you to pleasure your ego with yummy tastes. You have been conditioned to eat like this. You may even be addicted to different foods. It's all you know, it's all you want and it may even consume you. Even if you have a bit of resolve, peer pressure will talk you out of it very quickly for we figure if we all do it, it can't be that bad. We are in good company.
So you eat it.... and it's everything you dreamed it would be and more. It's really good.
So good in fact that You would like some MORE....
You eat it....
You feel guilty because you know it's really not good for you.
or you don't feel guilty and don't care because you figure TOMORROW you'll eat right....
like tomorrow you will feel like eating the spinach instead of the wet bean burrito... right
If you ate too much of a tasty food you may feel guilty for over eating.....
Self-punishment comes in for not having will power....
or to avoid that feeling of self-distain we eat to cover up the emotion thus starting the cycle again.
You gain weight.... There's a recipe for real unhappiness. Clothing doesn't fit, you are forced to buy a larger size thus costing you money that you wouldn't have had to spend. You are no longer able to find clothing easily that expresses your true nature. You feel ugly. Your self esteem plummets. You can't walk by a mirror without feeling terrible about yourself. You avoid photographs striking yourself from the family record books. You do worse on your career or at your job because you are self-conscious. If you are single, you doubt you will ever attract someone of the opposite sex that you would be interested in. It's hard to walk across a room or up the stairs without getting winded. You have trouble sleeping because you can't get comfortable. You develop things like sleep apnea and other health issues. Your blood pressure rises. Your pantyhose split. Your shoes are uncomfortable. When you sit on a plane you are squished right into a complete stranger and God forbid, they are heavy too. And the worse problem is that you can't get away from the fat... it goes with you wherever you go! Pretty soon it shows up in your face. You feel it when you put your arms down. You fold your arms around your waste as if to hide it. You are a wardrobe of black, black and more black and people accuse you of being 'goth'. You break toilet seats, rub against glass items in the store where you may break them and have to pay for them. You are self-conscious during sex. Need I go on?
You undercut my personal growth because you don't listen to my soul when it gives me a message of what needs to change in my life to make it more effective. Instead, I pop something in my mouth and ignore the messages, thus continuing in painful life situations that could be improved.
You hide from others, thus isolating ourselves from friends.
So, here's the question.... is that dish of ice cream worth ALL of that? Does that yummy girly drink or 3rd glass of wine going to make up for the misery that is now upon you.
Yes, we say.... just this once. OR, I'll start on Monday or when I get back from this trip. Famous last words.... TOMORROW I will take care of business and do it.
And we know that TOMORROW never comes.
The good news is this: Once you develop healthy eating habits, it is really not hard to continue them! Yes, 9 weeks as a Vegan - and it's become so easy I almost think that I'm cheating - but I'm not. I'm very happy with my menu these days and I don't have all the side effects that I used to have from eating. In fact, this week I had a cold. It was very mild. Today I woke up with kind of an upset stomach... again, very mild. I wonder what I would have felt like this week had I been in poor shape.
Do yourself a favor. Raise your happiness quota. It really is within your power to do. If you are not overweight, you still raise your joy by eating right because you are doing something good for your body. You are raising the chances of a long and healthy life. You are honoring God with your body and you will feel really good about yourself for it.
I find that if we can fix just ONE area of our life, we can directly affect all areas of our lives in a positive manner. It's like pick up sticks or a domino effect. The areas of our lives intersect like lace. If you heal your body, you can heal your relationships. If your relationships are going well, then you are better able to put yourself into work and be effective. If your body is functioning well, you will be sharper and more productive at work and kinder to your loved ones. If your job is going well, you will have a better outlook on other areas of life. It all goes together. One little part becoming unravelled can affect the other parts.
So here's my little tip for today - another Daily OM course called...Heal your Body Image, Lose the Weight by Max Highstein. It consists of two days with recordings that you can play over and over again of meditations and affirmations. It's a pay what you can afford course as the others and I'm really enjoying it.
So, do something today to MAKE you happy - not lead to your unhappiness! Yes, it will take time to establish good habits and feel good about it... but aren't you worth it?
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