Don't just eat foods to fill gas tank

Food is fuel. Our brains need it to think. Our muscles need it to move. The heart needs it to pump, the liver needs it to detoxify, and glands such as the thyroid and adrenals need it to make the very hormones that help drive your metabolism. Our organs, tissues, muscles, and bloodstream all need fuel (nutrients) to function, nutrients that we get from – guess where ? – food!.

But here’s the key: If that food doesn’t provide the right combination of nutrients and macronutrients (protein, fat, and carbohydrate), then eating can be like putting sugar into a gas tank. It will fill up the tank, but your car won’t run very well. Too many of us use food merely as a way of staving off inconvenient hunger, rather than as a valuable asset in the quest for optimal health and energy.

When you give the body what it needs, it can and will do miraculous things. Remember, depression is not a Prozac deficiency and heart disease doesn’t happen because you don’t have enough Lipitor in your diet. Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, had it exactly right he said, “Let food be thy medicine and medicine thy food. The right food is truly the secret to high energy!

Would you ever sit down for a final exam when your blood sugar is plummeting? Would you go to an important meeting or interview when you’re lightheaded from hunger? Do you feel like playing a competitive round of golf or tennis or running a race immediately after finishing a holiday dinner/ of course not, and that’s precisely because food is fuel, and not having the wrong kind, sets you up for guaranteed failure in any task you undertake.

Bottom line: If you want to perform like a high-energy person, you’re going to have to eat like one. You should select your food the way Formula One drivers select their gasoline. Those Ferrari teams racing in Monaco don’t just stop at any local gas station when they need fuel-they’re driving highly tuned, multimillion dollar machines that require the highest quality gasoline on the planet. You can be sure they’re not making pit stops at the local AI’s Stop and Gas. Your body is at least as complicated and intricate and potentially as high performance a machine as a Formula One racing car, and it deserves the same quality of care.

It all starts with food. Rich, nutrient-dense, whole food carefully selected to give you the maximum nutritional bang for your buck, which means food that:

• Keeps you off the blood sugar roller coaster.
• Provides you with sustained energy throughout the day.
• Gives your body all the nutrients – vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals – it needs for every metabolic, energy-producing process.
• Provides adequate protein for growth, repair, and performance.
• Provides adequate fat for energy and health.

Final Note: Absolutely everything we do, feel, and think is influenced by the food we eat.