12 Practices of Optimal Healing: Nutrition Basics
What should I eat when I want to heal? The answer is of course, it depends! Depending on what is going on for you when you are not feeling well, different foods will be healing. That is why there are so many diets and so many healing foods. No one way of eating works for every situation. However, these three universal principles that I suggest; create dietary rules, control your portions and plan your meals will greatly support Optimal Healing, and help anyone use healing foods.
In greater detail, the three principles are:
Consider the types of foods that are most healing for you today (Make dietary rules),
Choose to eat the right amount (Control your portions )
Plan and prepare your meal ahead of time(Proper meal planning).
Make Dietary Rules: There are many ways of eating for healing, if you are reading this likely you have read or tried out a few yourself. Pause for a moment, think back to when you were young, what did your mom prepare for you when you had a tummy ache? Chicken soup? Crackers? or maybe Jello? For thousands of years, our families had clear knowledge of what foods to eat to support healing. A consequence of the modern technological era seems to be a loss of convention healing wisdom. We reach for drugs now rather then home cooking. Yet, even with easy access to over the counter medications, learning what foods support healing can have a huge impact.
One simple way of deciding which foods you should eat for healing is to consider whether your symptoms are from excess or deficiency. Symptoms of excess can often be found with eating too much, working too much, or burning the candle at both ends. This may bring on excessive discharges- runny nose, leuccorhea, fever, perspiration, even diarrhea. Symptoms of excess suggest that the body is trying to correct itself by letting go and discharging. What types of foods help? Foods that help bring about contraction, slowing things down. It would make sense that spicy food and sweets tend to stimulate excess, salty foods and animal proteins are contracting. Simply eliminating sweets alone helps lower excess. Eating low fat foods help as well.
How about symptoms of deficiency, such as low energy, chilliness, weakness, inability to concentrate. Healing foods that are expansive help here. That's where the chicken soup works its wonders. Fats are naturally expansive, think of fats as concentrated fuel cells. Simple starches also help provide energy and expansiveness, though not too much, they convert to sugar easily. Eating small amounts often can have a big impact on shifting one beyond deficiency. No matter what the illness, take the time to consider what foods will support healing and make those foods the priority!
Control Your Portions: Once you know what foods are going to heal, next step is to eat the right amounts of these foods. Not too much but enough for your system. When we eat too much, it naturally creates excess-- healing slows. We don't want to struggle to deal with a gastrointestinal system having too much stress. Pick the right foods, and proper amounts. You can break it down to servings of protein, carbs and fats, but no matter, learning to have the proper portions supports healing thoroughly.
Proper Planning Is Essential: Eating the proper foods and the proper amounts won't really happen if you don't plan ahead. With a functional kitchen, there is little reason not to prepare enough for several meals. Having healthy meals easily accessible is a huge benefit for healing and your health in general. So as you spend time figuring out which foods to eat, consider making the time to prepare the food and the time to eat the food.
Dietary choices can have a profound impact on healing. With so many possible foods to chose from, this post has focused on more the planning and preparation of healing foods. For Optimal Healing , making dietary rules, controlling portions and planning meals ahead are essential when you need to bring yourself back to health. Carving out the time for meal planning is well worth it.