My next secret to optimal health and weight loss: The jar concept. Imagine your digestive system is one big jar. It goes from the top of your stomach down to.. well.. your bum. There's a tiny hole at the bottom the the jar and what you put in it eventually breaks down small enough to empty out the bottom.
When you look at "The Food Triangle" post, you see the order of foods from fruit to veggie to complex. The way you want to put those foods in the jar is by flipping that triangle upside-down. Fruit only takes about 30 minutes to leave the stomach because it is filled with enzymes that your body can use to digest easily. You want to eat fruit only on an empty stomach so that its at the bottom of the jar! If you had a big breakfast of carbs (like any normal breakfast of cereal, toast, oatmeal etc.) and then had a fruit salad or an apple and banana at lunch, the bottom of you jar is clogged! That's because it takes the system longer to digest a complex food, maybe a few hours! So if you have a bunch of complex at the bottom of your jar and the new fruit digests fast, it will sit on top until the complex is done. What does that mean? Fruit FERMENTING in the acids of your system! What does that leave you with? Gas and bloating!! Yes, you might be eating all healthy things but for optimal digestion, you have to eat them in the right order!
When you look at "The Food Triangle" post, you see the order of foods from fruit to veggie to complex. The way you want to put those foods in the jar is by flipping that triangle upside-down. Fruit only takes about 30 minutes to leave the stomach because it is filled with enzymes that your body can use to digest easily. You want to eat fruit only on an empty stomach so that its at the bottom of the jar! If you had a big breakfast of carbs (like any normal breakfast of cereal, toast, oatmeal etc.) and then had a fruit salad or an apple and banana at lunch, the bottom of you jar is clogged! That's because it takes the system longer to digest a complex food, maybe a few hours! So if you have a bunch of complex at the bottom of your jar and the new fruit digests fast, it will sit on top until the complex is done. What does that mean? Fruit FERMENTING in the acids of your system! What does that leave you with? Gas and bloating!! Yes, you might be eating all healthy things but for optimal digestion, you have to eat them in the right order!
So fruit first, in the morning. Then veggies at lunch. You can introduce a complex with that if you'd like. The heaviest meal at dinner [eat it 3-4 hours before bed and you're fine]! Most people are counting calories right? So they are all worried about eating a big dinner! So many people say eat big in the morning, less through out the day. WRONG. Because when you are eating the right food to FUEL your body, calories won't add up too high! With all the healthy veggies and stuff, you don't need to count calories. If you eat your most complex at the end of the day, your body has all night without eating to digest that properly!
This was the missing piece the other times I went vegan and was just bloated and gassy all the time. I was eating anything, any time, all mixed together. I would eat fruit for dessert and snack and breakfast. I would eat oatmeal first thing and veggies at lunch. I would eat LOTS in the morning and less though out the day AND I would snack to try and "Boost my metabolism". The problem with that is if you aren't hungry, you shouldn't snack. If you aren't hungry, the food you ate is probably still going through the jar! You don't want to keep piling up snacks and meals in the jar because then the jar is full of layers of different foods, fermenting fruits and veggies. It's piling up and piling up and the jar is getting so full that it needs to TAKE energy from YOU to try and keep up!! Now you feel tired and sluggish and bloated.
Make sense? I do recommend waiting until you FEEL hungry in the morning to eat breakfast. It's more rewarding and if your body isn't telling you "I need food" then it probably doesn't need food yet. For me this was a great practice because I always ate when I was bored. I got up and ate even if I wasn't hungry because I thought I NEEDED that food energy right away. Then I would just keep eating because I never felt hungry in the first place and by the end of the day I would sit there, feeling bloated and thinking back on how much I ate today when I wasn't hungry. That is a frustrating feeling I'm sure a lot of you have felt. LET IT GO. GET HEALTHY and FEED your body with health, don't treat it like a trash can.
This was the missing piece the other times I went vegan and was just bloated and gassy all the time. I was eating anything, any time, all mixed together. I would eat fruit for dessert and snack and breakfast. I would eat oatmeal first thing and veggies at lunch. I would eat LOTS in the morning and less though out the day AND I would snack to try and "Boost my metabolism". The problem with that is if you aren't hungry, you shouldn't snack. If you aren't hungry, the food you ate is probably still going through the jar! You don't want to keep piling up snacks and meals in the jar because then the jar is full of layers of different foods, fermenting fruits and veggies. It's piling up and piling up and the jar is getting so full that it needs to TAKE energy from YOU to try and keep up!! Now you feel tired and sluggish and bloated.
Make sense? I do recommend waiting until you FEEL hungry in the morning to eat breakfast. It's more rewarding and if your body isn't telling you "I need food" then it probably doesn't need food yet. For me this was a great practice because I always ate when I was bored. I got up and ate even if I wasn't hungry because I thought I NEEDED that food energy right away. Then I would just keep eating because I never felt hungry in the first place and by the end of the day I would sit there, feeling bloated and thinking back on how much I ate today when I wasn't hungry. That is a frustrating feeling I'm sure a lot of you have felt. LET IT GO. GET HEALTHY and FEED your body with health, don't treat it like a trash can.
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