Eating Practices: How is your health influenced by personal diet

As many of you know, food is an area of intense interest for me in my healing practice. At home, buying, preparing, cooking, and eating great food are among my passions. I have always loved good food, but it wasn’t until I made the connection between food and health that it became a way of life for me. Put simply, what we eat profoundly influences our health! We are what we eat…

One of the main reasons I like to work with my patients on diet, is because I see so many cases in which a person’s diet is causing, or at least significantly contributing to his or her condition. Eating is something we do 3 or 4 times EVERY day, and as such, is probably the single largest factor influencing a person’s health. What we eat has tremendous power to both heal us and cause disease.

The human body has a natural tendency towards a path of health and balance. But when we eat improperly, it nudges our body off that path a little bit. A little nudge now and then is usually not a problem. The body has the strength to right itself. Now imagine that 3 or 4 times each day, for many years, we nudge our body off that path of balance and health. Over time this can take a toll.Acupuncture has a strong ability to help put our bodies back in balance and back on the path towards health. I like to think of it as a strong push in the right direction. But if a person is getting one strong push in the right direction but continues to receive 20+ nudges a week in the wrong direction, the results aren’t going to be as good. By eating the right things, we can turn those 20+ nudges a week into ones directed towards health. Working with people on proper eating ensures the maximum benefit from acupuncture and Chinese medicine, and ensures that they aren’t coming back a few months later complaining that their condition has relapsed, or worse, hasn’t improved at all.

There is so much confusion about food out there. Misinformation, confusing marketing, and a strong food industry focused on profits over health all work against us. Add to that all the different diet fads out there like no carbs, no fat, Paleo, South Beach, Atkins, the blood-type diet, etc. and it’s no wonder people are confused! And then consider that we are all different. We have different genetics and body constitutions, live in different places, and lead different lives. So each person’s dietary requirements are different.

So what then should we eat? There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question. In the next installment of my blog I will share some tips and general guidelines I recommend to my patients who are looking to improve their health by eating better.

Thanks for reading!