In excess, we are at our weakest.

How is it possible that, in a world of excess, we, as a species, are at our weakest? We have lone since been removed from the need to hunt our own food, or be vigilant to ensure our safety. Is it not a strange behavior to be able to not stress over our next meal or our safety, but yet be at the weakest we have been in human history?

In the past, we often had to elude other animals, much stronger than we are. We have had to defend ourselves, and strive to get a meal. Currently, we have none of these needs, as we are, due to tools, at the top of the food chain. Imagine if those tools just disappeared, and we had to start from scratch. What would we first have? I sharpened stick for a spear? How many people could even take down a beast with just a stick? How many people would fall prey to even something small?

We should be at our strongest in such abundance, yet we just indulge ourselves in unnatural and unhealthy foods. I am not, by any means, a nut about diet. My 2 biggest weaknesses are sugar (I love sweet tea) and ice cream. I have realized I have moved far from fruits, hardly ever eating them. Meats, veggies and carbs make up most of my diet. In nature, fruits are your natural sweets, and they are indeed very sweet, unless you, like me, indulge in sugar. When I cut all sugars out, and was eating quite healthy, the sweetness of a fruit certainly stuck out. Interestingly enough, when I drink sweet tea, and eat sugary junk, the fruits taste seemingly less sweet.

So, perhaps we should look at food as a fuel source as opposed to an indulgence. When eating food for fuel, you eat far less, and aren’t hungry between meals either. This was quite a surprise for me the first time I began really eating healthy. The problem is that we are so spoiled with such variety of flavors and textures the it often becomes very boring eating exceptionally healthy. It is interesting because if eating is boring, and drinking water is all you drink, you really aren’t even thinking about eating as you do now, but more like an annoying task to get your day going.

I just figured I would share a revelation I had a few years back. It is easy to eat healthy, and lose weight. Exercise is easy to do as well, yet we do not, at least relative to all the energy we put into our systems. If we, at least in the US, ate healthy for fuel instead of junk for indulgence, our money and food would go much further. A diet I had adopted for a short time (I lost 39 lbs in 6 weeks) was very cheap. Oatmeal for breakfast, chicken and broccoli for lunch. This cost me very little. Luckily, at my work place, we have fresh(ish) fruit, so, working evenings, I would have an apple for dinner. After the first 3 days, I was no longer hungry, and after a week, began exercising again.

Just think about what you are putting into your body, and what your goals are in life in general.