Whatever triggered your oxytocin in youth built a pathway that turns it on today. Food anxiety is usually linked to that circuit because it’s linked to your early social experience. If you enjoyed social trust around a table in youth, that will activate your sense of safety today. If your table was full of conflict, you have some different associations. Most of us have a combination of positive and negative associations for shared meals, which is why food can evoke social pain and the joy of belonging at the same time.

Myths of Eating a Wholegrain Plant Based Diet

Digestion and Immune System Foods

Wholegrains Strengthen the digestive system – It is a well-known fact among my family and friends that I do love to dispel a myth or two. I adore teaching clients and students the foods that aid in digestion and are amazing for immune system support.

The myth about wholegrain being very difficult to digest alongside people claiming that it is the cause of constipation or how expensive it is to eat a healthy diet have to be at the top of my list.

Foods to strengthen the digestive system are of paramount importance in achieving a healthy intestinal tract to allow optimum food absorption particularly when introducing wholegrain into your diet.

We live in an obesogenic society filled with mental, emotional, and physical cues that make us the most overweight population in history. This is not sustainable, and our fragile healthcare system will soon collapse under the stress of this immense disease burden. 42.4% of Americans are obese, this number is expected to increase to 50% by 2030. There is good evidence that 87.8% of adults are metabolically unhealthy, a term that identifies how excess fat mass exacts a heavy toll on health. Metabolic dysregulation, typically due to obesity, is causing an explosion of chronic disease – type 2 diabetes, cognitive decline, heart disease, autoimmunity, and cancer. Obesity has surpassed smoking as the number one preventable cause of death. There are a staggering 900,000 lifestyle related deaths a year just in the USA. Our obesogenic environment is a despicable hate crime being perpetrated on our fellow citizens. It is exacting a horrific toll of unnecessary mental, emotional, and physical suffering. Understanding and ending the obesity crisis must become a national priority.

You can literally eat your way to optimum health and achieve your ideal weight by following my wholefood plant-based vegan dietary snack and meal recommendations.

Several people who recently watched Crazy Rich Asians asked me if it’s true that women in Asia are all that skinny.

Honestly, when you are walking on the streets in large cities like Shanghai and Beijing or in the countryside, you just don’t see overweight people that easily, and here are a few facts to make it more intriguing:

A nap would give you a boost, but that seems impossible. A call from the lover who dumped you last year would give you a boost, but that seems impossible. A brownie is possible. Hunger was a huge threat for most of human history. Our brain is good at looking for food because that relieves the threat. When you are anxious, you may find yourself looking for food. Then you may get anxious about what you eat. This thought loop can ensnare you. One minute you’re longing for something to nibble on, and the next minute you’re fearing the consequences. The information that follows helps you escape that loop of food, fear, and anxiety.

Exercise does much more than just burn calories. The calories burned during exercise, unless you’re a professional athlete, make up a very small portion of our total calories burned for the day; what we eat has a much greater influence on our body weight. So why should we bother to exercise? The answer is that burning calories is just one of the many benefits of exercise – there are surprising benefits of exercise for heart and brain health.

We all have difficulties in our lives. Sometimes our problems may seem small in comparison to others but ultimately, they are a large part of what defines us. Our personal story has great potential value to us if we can learn and grow from it. Sometimes it can be of value to others as well. I hope that my story can be of value to you. In my latest book, Go Vegan, I am telling my story as a way of explaining why the issue of health has always been important to me and why I moved to a whole food plant-based diet and vegan life.

Your most intimate, personal and permanent relationship is with food. That is why it is crucial that we learn to eat consciously for lasting health. Food is your constant companion from the day you are born until the day you die. Therefore, it is important that this relationship is a healthy one. For most of the population, it is a relationship filled with conflict. More than 74.1% of Americans are overweight or obese.  In every other relationship when you experience conflict, you can disengage. You can withdraw from people, society, work, and church, but you are intimately and permanently locked into a relationship with food.