There’s lots of metabolic action happening in your cells, but mostly what you might think of when you hear the word “metabolism” is how easy, or not, it is to lose weight. So let’s focus on that aspect of metabolism for now because it happens to influence the rest of your body’s metabolism.
In Chinese Medicine, digestion is carried out by the Spleen and Stomach organs, which also includes the pancreas. The Spleen/Pancreas and Stomach are responsible for receiving food, transforming the food into usable nutrients, then transporting the nutrients, via the blood, to the whole body. In a word: metabolism.
If you’re over the age of 40, this factory has been working long and hard. The factory likes whole, nutrient-dense food that has been broken down well by chewing. But the factory doesn’t always get that. Then it has to compensate, it gets tired, delivering nutrients becomes difficult, and metabolism suffers.
There are many hormonal signals that are part of this process affected by what we eat, when we eat, as well as how much we eat, how much stress your body is registering, that all greatly influence this communication. Think insulin resistance, leptin resistance, serotonin, cortisol etc.
The bottom line is before 40, we got away with a lot. After 40, not so much. Not that 40 is some magic number, it just seems to be an average age that people begin noticing they can’t get away with what they used to. BUT, we still WANT what we want, don’t we? We want our cake and eat it too! I SO get that.
There are 9 Primary Metabolism Recovery Steps. I’ll list them below and then I’ll outline them one at a time in the following blog posts. Going in this order and getting a grip on one step at a time tends to work well for most. And, it’s perfectly fine to take more than one step at a time. For metabolism recovery, every step must be part of your daily life.
- Remove all blocks to eating in ways that support your body, mind, emotions, and spirit.
- Stop eating sugar (there are ways to satisfy your sweet tooth but it can’t be of poor quality sugared treats).
- Replace ALL processed foods with Real/Whole Foods.
- Balance the 3 Macronutrients which are: Protein, Carbohydrates, Fat into proper ratios for a human body
- Move your body regularly
- Get the proper amount and quality of sleep
- Proper supplementation (this might include specific nutrients, hormonal support, herbs based on your body’s needs); and decrease of medications that can be safely and appropriately decreased
- Proper Breathing throughout the entire day (this is SO vital and is one of the two ways we rebuild our Qi/Energy every 24hrs…..Oxygen/Breath and Nutrition), this helps mediate the stress response that wrecks havoc on metabolism
- Right relationship with your Higher Wisdom/Self and the LOVE that is circulating through your body.
I have personally cycled through each of these steps countless times. It’s what keeps me healthy. I’m always improving upon a step or two because there’s always room for improvement. Also, when something is off, it has never failed that I’ve let a step or two “slip” or I need to upgrade a step or two and that always seems to get my system feeling better and back on track.
I often get seduced by the idea that there is this place to arrive and then I’ll be golden and won’t have to do anything more. But that’s impossible because energy is always in motion, it’s always changing, so there are always tweaks and improvements required. I think after more than five decades, I’m beginning to make peace with that.
It’s possibly why many people wish for a tidy answer (like in a medication) and then they can quickly move on to all the other things keeping them busy in life. I heard the other day that when you take a medication, that means you’ll have to heal twice. Once from the original problem, and again from the medication itself. I found that powerful.
Most people are beginning to realize that if they don’t get to the root of the problem, it’ll keep coming back, often stronger to get your attention that something is off. Might as well pull up the roots, to begin with!
So your metabolism is either healthy or not. There is no superfood, drug, herb, or fad-diet that’s going to magically make it better. There is simply cultivating a healthy metabolism. And there are minimum requirements for a healthy metabolism (see 9 steps above). And it doesn’t happen overnight. But the great thing is everything you do for your metabolism, you do for your heart, your blood sugar, your brain, your mental/emotional state, your outlook, your ideal weight, your bones, your pain…everything is healed and supported by tending to your metabolism in the proper way.
In other words, every aspect of your being wins. Next post….Step 1 ~ Making Way for Metabolism Success by Removing the Blocks to making good nutritional choices and crushing cravings. If you have any doubt that your emotions contribute to how your body works, you can read this article.
I use several different versions of EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) in removing blocks for people. It’s powerful and it works.
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