On Target Living

Your Guide to a Life of Balance, Energy, and Vitality

Chris Johnson

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781118632963
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Personal Success

Make your company—its employees and its culture—healthier inside and out

Energy and wellness are of ever increasing importance. With an increase productivity and job satisfaction that come from a healthier life, now is the time to get healthy. A poor food environment and the demanding pace of modern day life continue to contribute to a downward spiral of health, On Target Living offers focused strategies to achieve positive results. Everyone knows that exercise and physical movement contribute to better health, energy, and performance. The challenge comes with knowing what to do and how to do it. Author Chris Johnson has taught thousands how to live a life in balance, and here he shares his practices with you.

• Developing healthy eating habits
• Incorporating exercise into daily routines
• Prioritizing rest and rejuvenation
• Learning the keys to living well and applying this knowledge to enhanced performance, increased productivity, and positive results for your life and work

The journey to optimal health and performance begins with the ideas in On Target Living. Building sustainable changes into your company culture will decrease health risks and sick days while contributing to higher productivity rates, but these improvements will also contribute to healthier and more enjoyable lives for your employees.

III

EAT

Chapter 13

So What Is Nutrition?

What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?

—Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Today more than ever before we are fascinated with the subject of nutrition. Around the world everyone is talking about nutrition.

The Food Network, reality television shows, infomercials, magazines, newspapers, movies, radio, Internet, everywhere you turn, the talk of food has turned into big business. But even more interesting to me is why we know so little about one of the most important sciences of all, nutrition. Growing up in Michigan I learned how to spell, read, write, math, history, but a subject that impacts our energy, welfare, health, and our existence, we know so little about? My first year in college I took “the basics,” which included subjects like psychology, geography, creative writing, chemistry, biology, but the subject of nutrition was not included in any of my choices. It was not even an elective class at my university, unless you were going to major in dietetics or another similar discipline. With my graduate degree in Exercise Physiology, we were only required to take two classes on nutrition, and both of these classes had very little if any practical application. Even today most medical schools have little training on the subject of nutrition.

I still don't fully understand why a science that is so amazingly powerful in keeping the human body healthy is not in greater demand with our educational systems. Why is it that over 90 percent of all our cancer research dollars spent in the United States are spent trying to develop medications that help boost the immune system. I believe more of these dollars need to be spent on research learning about the role superfoods and quality nutrition can play in boosting our immune system. We all need to get on board with changing our mind-set towards prevention. We have a wonderful health care system especially when it comes to trauma care, but if you want to stay healthy and prevent most illnesses, our current health care system has no investment and little training in prevention—yet prevention is our future.

Nutrition 101

So what is nutrition? I like to think of nutrition as the process of being nourished. When you eat or drink, the body breaks down the nutrients and uses them for fuel, growth, and repair. Is it possible to be deficient in valuable nutrients with all the food we are currently eating?

There are two types of nutritional deficiencies:

1. A primary nutrient deficiency occurs when the body is lacking a specific nutrient, such as vitamin C, calcium, iodine, or omega-3 fats.

2. A secondary nutrient deficiency occurs when your body fails to absorb or utilize the food or beverages you consumed. You may be eating the necessary foods, but for some reason your body is not absorbing these nutrients.

Nutrition begins with the quality of food and beverages you ingest. Next, how does the body break down these nutrients and absorb them into the body? It is what we ingest and assimilate that fuels the body. This process is called digestion. During digestion the entire body is working not only to break down the foods or beverages you have consumed, but also to help these nutrients to be absorbed into the body. After the digestion process is finished, the body then moves into the elimination phase. Elimination is the process of excreting what is not needed during the digestive process. So what happens if the body is not using the foods or beverages that were ingested along with not being eliminated? These foods become stored, leading to toxicity—and this is where many of our problems begin!

Good Digestion

Upwards of 75 percent of our immune system is based on the health of our gut. If your gut is not healthy, you are not healthy! We have seen an explosion in the amount of digestive health problems, from acid reflux to irritable bowel syndrome, constipation, diarrhea, gluten intolerance, food allergies, bloating and gas, skin problems, asthma, cancer, headaches, inflammation, low energy, type 2 diabetes, poor immune function, along with liver and kidney stress just to name a few. The digestive aisles in most grocery stores and pharmacies continue to expand across our planet. A person who is not digesting food well cannot obtain the optimum amount of nutrients to help build, repair, and regenerate the body. So how do we improve the digestion process so our bodies have the right nourishment it needs? Here are a few steps to follow for improved digestion:

1. Cut out eating the crap!

It all begins with the quality of what you are eating and drinking. If you are overloading the body with a bunch of processed foods and beverages, it will only be so much time before the body says “uncle.”

2. Chew your food!

The digestive process begins in the mouth. Your mouth is full of digestive enzymes that help break down and absorb nutrients. This is one reason you should not gulp down beverages: the mouth needs a little time to absorb and activate these powerful enzymes. Also, a major way to improve digestion is to chew your food into liquid. Chewing your food into liquid sounds simple and truly makes a difference. Slow down and chew your food!

3. Eat more “live” foods!

You need valuable digestive enzymes to help break down and absorb nutrients. If you bite into an apple, we all know the apple begins turning brown in just a few minutes. The apple is a live food, full of enzymes, and begins to turn brown after you take a bite as the oxidizing process begins. If you opened a jar of processed applesauce and left it out all day, why doesn't it change color? The enzymes have been compromised in the processing.

This is big contributor to our digestive health problems in our world today. We are consuming too many dead, processed foods and beverages. Have you ever wondered why some of our foods have a shelf life that goes into the next century? Processed foods have little if any enzymes, making our digestive systems weak and helpless. Consuming “live foods” increases the amount of fiber, anti-oxidants, vitamins, and minerals along with necessary digestive enzymes. You may also buy digestive enzymes at your local health food store, but I suggest starting by eating more live foods first!

4. Balance your pH!

Having a balanced pH in each area of the digestive tract is crucial for optimal digestion and absorption. The stomach needs to be acidic, the small intestine more alkaline, and the large intestine a neutral pH. Balancing pH may take some time if you are currently consuming too many processed, acidic foods and beverages. Consuming more alkaline-based foods and beverages is your first step in balancing your pH, along with daily exercise and controlling your stress.

5. Control your stress!

Have you ever had problems with digestion when you were stressed? I believe we have all felt stressed at one time or another, and our digestion has been compromised. If you are chronically stressed, your digestive workings shut down. This is another way chronic stress can cause disease.

6. Bring on the “Friendly Bacteria”!

In the intestinal tract lies an intestinal flora containing large amounts of friendly bacteria that aids in the digestive and absorption process. When transit time in the intestinal tract slows down, speeds up, or food is not completely digested, our intestinal flora balance can take a hit. Another major reason for a compromised intestinal flora is the widespread use of antibiotics. Antibiotics kill bacteria, including the friendly bacteria, again compromising the digestion process. Adding more friendly or healthy bacteria back into the body may improve digestion.

Flora-enhancing foods are miso, organic sauerkraut, organic yogurt, organic kefir, and chlorophyll-rich foods such as wheatgrass, spirulina/chlorella, sea vegetables, and most greens. You may also add a high quality probiotic to get more friendly bacteria back into your digestive system. A probiotic supplement may be purchased at most health food stores or from our website.

Five Super Highways of Elimination

A key component in the health of the human body is in its ability to eliminate on a regular basis. The old adage “out with the bad and in with the good” fits when maintaining great health. The human body is designed to eliminate unwanted intruders and toxins. Without regular elimination processes, the body can become toxic and the quality of our health can be drastically impacted. During my seminars I am fascinated by the subject of elimination because for one, most don't truly know how often they should eliminate, and two, this is a subject that is considered private and not to be discussed. Well if your goal is to lose weight, improve energy, decrease disease, and enjoy amazing health, then we need to learn more about elimination. Here are the Five Super Highways of elimination:

1. Bowel: How often should you have a bowel movement? This really creates a stir in most of my seminars; most of the time the entire room sits in silence, not knowing for sure the correct answer. Is the correct answer once a day? After every meal? Every other day? What is it? The answer is 1.6 times per day, and your bowel movement should look like a soft banana. The shape of your stool depends on how long it has been in the colon, with 72 hours being ideal. If your dog did not have a bowel movement every day what would you do? Take your dog to the veterinarian? You want to have one to two bowel movements per day, and remember your bowel movement should look like a soft banana. Anything less, you are probably constipated. If you are going more than three times per day and it is still shaped like a soft banana, you are most likely eating too much. Do we really need to know all of these details about poop? Just remember the next time the conversation drags, bring up the subject of bowel movements; you are now an expert.

2. Urine: Another way the body elimina...