The health insurance sector shows an annual growth of over 20%. In our search for guarantees, we compete with each other to insure our future, our belongings and even our health. But have you ever considered the fact that health insurance doesn’t actually guarantee you health? In seeking permanence, we have forgotten that life is all about the journey, not the destination.
Of all the living creatures on planet earth, plants alone have the capacity to convert the sun’s energy into chemical energy through photosynthesis. The very survival of all other living creatures is dependent on this. Man consumes either the plants directly, or animals that have eaten these plants, or animals that have eaten other animals which in turn have consumed plants. Ultimately, all the way down the ladder, it is the plants that can give us that energy.
Why do human beings, considered to be the most evolved of God’s creations, not have this capacity to convert the Sun’s energy into chemical energy? Because we are not capable of photosynthesis. However, we are capable of assimilating energy from the plants we consume. That is one of the primary jobs of this apparatus called body – digestion. Without understanding this principle, that digestion is a process (just like life being a journey) and not merely the end produce of specific chemicals (like life’s destination being death), humanity has started providing processed chemical supplements as food! The very word supplement means ‘in addition to’ or to make good any current imbalances in nutrition brought about by an unhealthy body incapable of manufacturing its own energy from the raw materials provided. Unfortunately, we have become ‘goal’ oriented rather than ‘process’ oriented.
The normal range for blood calcium in adults is said to be 8.8 to 10.4 milligrams per deciliter (mg / DL). Calcium is stored in the bones and when blood calcium levels drop, the bones release calcium to bring it back to a good blood level. Very often women nearing menopause believe they are prone to osteoporosis (loss of calcium in the bones making them brittle) and without any proper medical guidance, self medicate themselves with calcium pills. Little do they realize that it is not about having enough calcium intake, but actually more related to calcium absorption that depends largely on other hormones, phosphate and Vitamin D. Unabsorbed calcium leads of calcification and kidney stones while still not rectifying osteoporosis. It is actually not about ‘what you have’ but more to do with ‘what you do with what you have’!
As Paul Chek, founder CHEK institute often says ‘You are what you eat, what you assimilate and what you don’t eliminate’. Digestion actually begins not when you eat food but even when you think of food. The very thought, smell or sight of food triggers the body to respond by preparing for digestion by secreting the gastric juices needed for digesting the ‘stimuli’. So you are not even really what you eat, you are what you think you eat! Every morsel of food needs to travel down approximately 25 feet of small intestine allowing the microvilli to absorb the various nutrients. Every meal lasts any where between 52 to 72 hours in your GUT.
I was recently helping my daughter study for her biology exams. Trying to remember and reproduce glycolysis was a challenge; krebs cycle even worse. Yet by the end of the hour, both of us were in awe of the process. To make it simple, the body converts food we eat into glucose from carbohydrates, amino acids from proteins and fatty acids from the fats. Excess glucose is stored as glycogen for use later. Whenever we need energy, ATP the energy currency of the body, is manufactured. ATP cannot be stored so its synthesis must closely follow its consumption. Before ATP is manufactured to provide energy, our cells need raw materials – oxidation of the foods we eat.
Each one of us need a basic continuous supply of energy to run our body’s natural processes to facilitate protein and DNA synthesis, food metabolism and transport of various ions and molecules to enable the body to function. This basic requirement is called the Basal Metabolic rate – BMR. This amount of energy is sufficient only for the functioning of the vital organs. In an attempt to shed the excess stored fats in our body, people began to believe that by finding out the individual’s BMR (calorie requirement), increasing the calorie expenditure by way of exercise and ensuring that there is a deficit by way of food intake by calorie controlled diets, we should be able to use up stored fats to release energy. With a poor understanding of the body’s metabolism, many a fitness studio unfortunately propagates this calorie intake versus expenditure model for weight loss. However, our body is not a profit and loss account of income versus expenditure! It is more like a balance sheet of genetic assets versus liabilities!
Imagine you are stranded on an unknown island with a mere Rs.1000/- in your pocket to help you survive till your pick up arrives three days from now. In that situation will you spend the entire Rs.1000/- to pick up gifts and memorabilia for family back home or will you be stringent in your usage ensuring the money lasts the entire 3 days? Naturally our instinct for survival far supersedes any need for fancy gifts. In the same way, when your body feels threatened for energy by not having enough for its daily basic activity (BMR), it will not use up its stored fats. Instead it will burn healthy muscle tissue for fuel and store even that up as fat for future use. Most people on such a calorie restrictive diet for weight loss will find they have dramatic initial results – they lose weight too soon. But within a couple of months they gain it all back and some.
Again we have misunderstood the body’s need for calories. Just like how a diesel car would not run on petrol, the very basis of food metabolism is that the food you eat must be convertible into energy by your body. If I were to present you an apple pie of 411 Kcal, would you call it kinetic energy or potential energy? It remains potential energy or capable of giving 411 Kcal of energy. But that energy will be released not even when you eat it but only when your body is capable of assimilating it. It takes energy to convert food into energy. Only when we invest 2 ATPs can we get 36 ATPs. Junk food is that which costs your body more in terms of nutrition to digest than it is ever capable of returning to the body.
Let me go further as I am sure we still live in a world of calculations and logical mathematics. I am sure some of you while reading this would have thought if the body is spending more energy to digest the food, that is good right? Isn’t that what we want to spend more energy? No! You want to convert more of the stored fat into energy for use by the body and then use that energy. However right now that conversion is not happening. Our foods have become so much processed and inorganic that it is costing our body enormously to try and convert it into energy. And as it fails to use it all up – to put it simply, not able to digest most of the stuff we end up eating, they are stored as toxins. Ideally they should be eliminated. But what happens when the garbage overflows? Our organs of detox are so overworked that most of us have an enormous backlog of stuff our body doesn’t actually want but hasn’t found the ways to eliminate.
Toxins are normally stored along with the fat. So when someone tries to loose too much weight too soon, they are not only trying to burn up fat but also the excess toxins. Unfortunately, they stress they detoxification system too much by overloading them beyond their capacity. This results in enormous strain on our liver and kidneys and causes unimaginable damage. It is time we understood that 40 years of aberrant eating cannot be set right in just 60 days! It takes time.
To repeat Paul Chek’s words we are what we eat, what we assimilate and what we don’t eliminate. Every morsel that we eat which is not being converted into energy by the body is a toxin. A toxin is nothing but that which doesn’t belong inside your body – it ought not to be there. The same goes for every experience man has with his external environment. We are a cumulation of all our experiences and interactions; what we assimilate out of those experiences to mature and change; and what we do not eliminate from our psyche retaining them as our inhibitions and pre-conceived notions. We hardly ever renew our perceptions on others. In that sense each one of us has a toxic overload of judgements based on past experiences unwilling to conduct new evaluations.
Healthy living is a prerequisite for a healthy body. This can first be achieved by ensuring that every morsel we eat counts in terms of nutritive value; and every experience we have becomes a foundation for positive change. Second, we must appreciate that as a unique biochemistry, your body’s needs are your individual requirement; and your emotional needs your personal responsibility. Finally taking the garbage out is as important, if not more in today’s scenario, than even bringing in new food. Throwing out the garbage automatically makes place for new stuff. This holds true even for our thoughts and perceptions. Break the pattern of old negative thoughts. Flushing your emotional baggage out of your system creates the ambience required for more positive experiences. You are what you eat, what you assimilate and what you do not eliminate!
Written by Gita Krishna Raj | Published in Food & Health in October 2012
