The Importance of Diet in Healing the Body

Ponca City Oklahoma Chiropractor Dr. Leon Bristow, D.C. talks about how diet is important in healing the body once it is damaged. What is so important about what you eat? We will start with some facts from different sources. In the book 3 Minutes to a Pain-Free Life by Dr Joseph Weisberg, P.T., Ph.D., and Heidi Shink they state “ Did You know That... The three leading causes of death in the United Stated are associated with poor diet? Only 9 percent of all American adults consume enough healthy foods to reach the minimum recommended daily intake of nutrients?”

In Dr Al Sears book The Doctor’s Heart Cure he says “ A 1992 US Department of Agriculture study concluded that only 4 percent of the 22,000 Americans studied were getting even the minimum recommended daily allowance of their essential vitamins. A more recent US government survey found that none of the 21,000 people surveyed managed to eat the recommended daily allowance of all the ten basic nutrients studied. On any given day, 91 percent of Americans do not consume the recommended amount of fruits and vegetables, with 70 percent not consuming any vitamin-C-rich fruits and 80 percent not consuming any carotene containing vegetables.”

Another study that was reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine, April 2005 done by Michigan State University looked at four criteria for Americans to be healthy. They do not smoke, they eat right meaning they consumed five or more fruits and vegetables per day, they maintained normal weight, and they exercised 30 minutes most days. They estimate that only about 3% of Americans meet these four criteria. That means 97% of Americans do not meet these four simple criteria to be considered healthy.

Did you know that french fries are the number one most consumed vegetable in the US. The Department of Agriculture reported that the most consumed substance by an American in a year was carbonated drinks at over 400 pounds per person per year.

The above information should give you some idea of the problem we face today with our diet in the US. I commonly ask some simple questions about diet in my practice and the answers show me why the above information is true. The first question I ask is how many meals per day do you eat? The most common answer is two meals per day. And one and three tie for second place. The next question I ask is how many of those meals do you eat protein with? Protein is meat, eggs, and cheese. When I do this I find many of the people eating three meals per day are only getting protein with two or one meal per day. This information when combined with the above facts tells us why many people are having health problems today. Dietary deficiencies can easily be the main cause behind any or all of the problems we talk about on this site.

So where do we start with nutrition? First you need to understand that eating three times per day is the absolute minimum that any one can get by on and come close to meeting the requirements of your body to be healthy. Any thing less and you are slowly starving your self. Think of your body like a car for a minute. When you fill up the tank you can only drive the car so far or run the engine so long before the gas tank is empty. When the gas tank is empty the engine will not run any more until you put more gas in.

Unlike the car your body has back up systems to keep this from happening to you or every one would be falling over out of fuel at some point almost every day and probably several times per day. You see if this happened we would all be dead. The body knows this and can not allow this to happen. If you have eaten properly your last meal you have a very short supply of fuel stored in the liver for this emergency. Once that short supply is gone your body then begins to break itself down to keep you going until you eat again. Your body starts robbing from Peter to pay Paul. Or in other words you start eating yourself to stay alive. So what does your body start eating? Your body starts eating your protein. In other words you start breaking down your muscles and tissues to send to the liver to be made in to fuel to keep you going. So you are eating your own muscles and tissues to stay alive and function. This is the simple truth. It will be very hard healing the body if you are breaking it down.

Why do you not break down your fat to be used as fuel you ask? Good question. The simple answer is that it is harder to break down the fat to be used as fuel. It actually takes more energy to break the fat down before it can be turned into fuel which is something the body does not have to start with which is why the body breaks down your muscles instead as it takes less energy to do so. This is why people who are overweight do not loose the weight they want when they go on a starvation diet. Up to 50% of the weight they loose in this fashion is muscle. Then when they go off the diet they gain all the weight back and more as 100% fat. They do not replace the muscle when they start eating again. Since the body thinks it may be starved again it puts all the weight back on again and more as fat to be ready for the next famine. Diets that do not support the body with the proper amount of protein with each meal to maintain the muscle will always do this. This is why many diets do not work and are dangerous.

So how should we be eating? First do not skip meals. You must eat at least three times per day no mater what. Actually you may want to consider eating three meals and two or three snacks which are just smaller meals. The diets that are successful and help people lose fat and not muscle all have people eating five or six times per day to keep you from ever breaking down your muscle. This is one of the secrets to a successful diet, you never break down your muscle. Next nutritionally we need to be sure that you are getting adequate protein with each meal. Remember protein is meat, eggs, and cheese. Adequate protein for women is usually around 3 to 4 ounces and for men around 4 to 5 ounces. Cheese has less protein than meat and eggs so it would take more. This is the minimal amount of protein you should have with each meal. Snacks would be less, generally around 1 ounce of protein per snack.

After we have the protein in your diet figured out then we want to add 2 servings of vegetables or 1 vegetable and 1 fruit per meal. The current information suggests we should be having 6 to 9 servings of vegetables and fruits per day to be healthy. Snacks would include one serving of a fruit or vegetable.

Next we would add a little good fat with our meal and we are done. Good fats would include olive oil, coconut oil, some avocado, or a small hand full of nuts like almonds. This completes your meal or snack. Once we have all three ingredients we have a balanced meal or snack nutritionally. The only difference between a meal or a snack is the meal is larger and the snack is smaller. We still want to combine all three ingredients for both your meal and snack to have nutritional balance.

So if you are looking to recover from one of the problems we talk about on this site or any other health problem or you just want to be healthy you must be meeting these simple requirements or you are setting yourself up for a problem somewhere down the road. Poor diet is one of the main reasons that many people have a hard time recovering from a health problem. Depending on the situation it could prevent you from ever recovering if not corrected. Nutrition is so much more important than most people realize. If you have a problem you want to improve start with improving your meals and snacks. It may not improve everything all by itself but it is always a good place to start and you can not go wrong by improving your nutrition. Learn to meet the basic nutritional needs of your body with a proper diet and you will be rewarded as you continue through life.

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