No matter what your reason for practicing meditation, energy work, or internal martial arts, there are a few basic principles which, when incorporated into your daily lifestyle, can help to supercharge your practice and boost your overall success and wellbeing in every facet of life. In this series we'll be looking at a few of these suggestions and how you can use them to create a better you.
(Note: The info given here is generalized for everyone. For any specific concerns or personal applications for your own unique goals, consider contacting me directly or signing up as a student.)
1.) Proper Nutrition
First and foremost, if you want to have success in anything you've got to make sure you give your body proper maintenance. The physical body is your vehicle through which you experience this physical reality. Like any vehicle, your body will not run well if you give it the wrong fuel. This is no joke. Anything else you do for yourself will have minimal effect so long as you are still dumping poisons into your system and your cells are not being nourished. This means you need to adopt a correct diet for your needs and get off of the things which aren't serving you. This is easier said than done for most people, especially with our societal obsession with cheap restaurants and comfort food, but it is an absolute necessity if you want to have optimal function and results.
I'm not one of those guys who pushes a one-size-fits-all dietary plan. We're all unique and have unique metabolic types. So without going into technical details here, what I will say is that when we are considering what sort of diet will best suit our needs, we ought to first look at foods in three basic categories: foods that are never beneficial, foods that are sometimes beneficial, and foods that are always beneficial. This is based on simple chemistry and is a universal principle.
Foods that are never beneficial are mostly obvious. Anything artificial is not food. If it isn't found in nature in a natural food that you would naturally be able to get ahold of... in nature, then you aren't designed to eat it and, yes, your body knows the difference. It may not kill you outright (although it often will), but it isn't serving you either. Cut it out.
Next, anything overly processed. Many foods start out natural and healthy but are then for whatever nonsensical reason processed to death and beyond until they become unnatural abominations which, again, are not food. These things don't mesh well with the body and serve only to clog up your system, leading to inflammation and excess mucous from which manifest virtually all known forms of disease.
Foods that are sometimes beneficial are those foods which do well for some and not so well for others. These foods are dependent on the individual and should be experimented with on a personal basis until you can gauge what works for you and what doesn't.
Most significantly in this category we have grains, meats, and dairy. Beyond just your own personal predispositions, the type and quality of these foods goes a long way in determining whether or not they are beneficial. Conventional animal products (raised on factory farms and pumped full of hormones and medications) are among the most toxic substances you can put into your body. Any animal products you consume should absolutely be organic, grass-fed, free-range only. As for grains, stick with organic sprouted grains only. Again, conventional varieties have generally been covered with hormone-altering pesticides and have been grown and processed in ways which strip most of the valuable nutrients anyway.
In the end, these foods are not necessary for the human diet and should only be consumed so much as they feel beneficial to you. Test them out and find the right balance for your needs.
Foods that are always beneficial are the foods the human species was naturally designed to eat. These of course are the fruits and veggies. Like any ape, we are designed to operate primarily on this high-vibrational plant matter with occasional supplementation of meat or other things. These are the most cleansing, energizing, nutrient rich foods available to us and should always comprise the bulk of any diet.
Again, exact ratios will vary based on the individual (many hereditary factors come into play which are beyond the scope of this simple article), but the above guidelines are a solid foundation for finding out what works to give yourself the best vessel you can for your journey in this world.
Comments