Nutrition is key to overall balance

Eating a nutritionally balanced meal doesn’t come easy to me. It takes planning. As a young child, I can remember riding my bike or walking to the store to get a bag of Skittles and a cold Dr. Pepper.

By the time I was in college, I was drinking six or more soda’s a day. This habit followed me into early adulthood and it was a struggle to break the soda habit. I’ll have one from time to time, but I have to limit consumption.

Nutrition plays a huge role in the way our body functions. An improper diet can have significant repercussions as we become older. Throughout my adult life, I’ve ate healthy for some of it, but ate poorly at other times. When I’ve ate healthy I functioned better, didn’t have headaches and my clothes fit a lot better. Other times, when I made poor nutritional decisions I was more tired, didn’t feel good and struggled with headaches and digestive problems.

Dr. Eric Braverman, author of the book The Younger (Thinner) You Diet, wrote in an article for the Huffington post that our reaction to illness in our body is similar to the domino effect. One small change in the body can change the way the entire body functions.

“The first domino falling is a symptom of a brain chemical imbalance. A simple loss in proper dopamine causes feelings of hostility and anger to increase. Stress levels rise as to blood pressure and respiratory rate. Serotonin is burned off as a result of increased breathing, blood pressure and heart rate causing insomnia. When serotonin levels are low, your carbohydrate cravings go up which causes you to eat more and become obese[1].”

[1] Braverman, E. (2009, March 16). When the Brain Goes, So Goes Your Health. Retrieved November 23, 2015, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-eric-braverman/when-the-brain-goes-so-go_b_175323.html