Chef Marie

ARTICLES

Is Your Health Your Life?

I don’t know you, but to me, my health is my life. My health is directly affected by what I eat, my environment, and my lifestyle. Without my health, everything else has very little meaning or use to me. You would think that most people acknowledge that, but apparently not. 

As food and lifestyle are my specialties, I will leave the environment to experts. However, as a chef, I can certainly contribute to a better environment by re-cycling or using vegetables and fruits peel as fertilizers for my organic garden. I also can use citrus peels as deodorizer for my place. Just heat the oven on the lowest setting and place the peels on a baking sheet in the oven. After an hour, leave the door slightly open and continue to heat for another hour. Turn off the heat and leave the peels in the oven, still slightly open. Now you have wonderful citrus aromas all through your place for hours. 

Now back to food and lifestyle. I actually would like to talk about food today. It is part of lifestyle anyway. 

Everyone knows the saying: You are what you eat!

So if you are over-weight and your health is not good, one of the first places you need to look is what you eat. Why? Because I assume your environment does not make you sick. I don’t believe that your environment is what make you over-weight, as you are in charge and can ultimately make the right choices. I also believe that your lifestyle can make you over-weight and sick, primarily due to poor eating habits. Ok, exercise and stress play a role, but not as important as what you feed your body. It is a simple concept that is unfortunately overlooked by many. People keep eating too much of the wrong foods and not enough of the foods that will give them back their health. People will take a pile that makes them quickly feel better. They also believe it will take care of their health problems or make up for their bad eating habits. They are forgetting a few major points. No pills can make up for the damages they are doing to their body with unhealthy foods. They are not treating the root of the problem and, giving up to such easy solution may actually have worse consequences on their health. The good news is that the body can heal itself in many cases by simply giving the nutrients it needs.

By changing eating habits, many health problems can actually disappear fairly quickly. Of course you need patience, will-power, and discipline; but the rewards are worth a little sacrifice, don’t you think? If you give your body the nutrients it needs to function well, it will generally reward you by making you feel a lot better first. It may even help you recovering from a number of chronic diseases you suffer from. I personally experienced this and, I can assure you, I will never go back to my bad eating habits. Eating healthy will also be a lot cheaper on your wallet, as you won’t have so many medical bills or expenses. You won’t have to take many medications either which can also have a negative effect on your body. Don’t you think that just those facts are worth investing in your health by eating healthy?

Let me give you a basic starting point. Feed your body organic foods (or as natural as possible from your local farmers) and consider portion control. Portion are too big in the U. S., moderation is key to health too. Stay away from processed food as much as possible. Cook at home using healthy cooking techniques, and give priority to healthy meals in your life. Do sit down when you eat and take your time. It is ok to eat out on occasion, but choose restaurants that offer reasonable portions and healthy choices. If you want to learn more about healthy eating, I highly recommend you order, Cooking Well: MediterraneanBook or any of my other books. See Chef Marie’s Boutique. You can also come to my seminar “Healthy Chef”.

Finally, I will say this. If you were to eliminate everything you do in your life and just focus on feeding your body well, you would be amazed how quickly you would feel better. But you don’t have to do that, just give a priority to healthy eating habits and you will see the difference in your health. And guess who will be proud of his/her accomplishments at the end, YOU! It will empower yourself not only physically but mentally. You are the only one who can make this happen; no one else can do it for you. Take charge now, your body will thank you later. Start to give your body the nutrients it needs and make

Your Health Your Life!