Better Eating Through Meal Planning - Overcoming the Overwhelm of Changing Eating Behaviors

I talked a little bit last time about one of my goals for this year - for 2021 - is to up my eating game. Meaning making different choices, eating better, eating less sugar, eating more variety, that sort of thing. And I want to go into that a little bit more today.

My two crystal clear reasons for doing this is one, I want to eat healthier. I know that what I eat affects how I feel now that might be from eating too much. I feel full. It might be the food that I'm eating. If I'm eating too fast, I get kind of gassy. It could be abdominal discomfort. It could be heartburn. Things such as that.

The other thing is is that the food I eat, if it's not good healthy food, and contain the vitamins, minerals, and substances that I need, that my body needs, it can also affect my neurotransmitters. These are the messengers in my brain and my body - hormones and all of the other substances that our bodies secrete to keep us running in good shape.

Another thing I want to do especially - is eat less sugar. This is a little tough because sugar is addicting. I mean, we're wired to eat sugar - to go for sweet stuff!

The problem here is sugar is very inflammatory. It causes a lot of inflammation in the body, and that means joint pain. That means a 'foggy' brain. It means high blood sugar and it also impacts the the function of our liver and all the work it has to do, as well as depressing our immune system.

It also impacts our gut microbiome or the bacteria in our guts. Why is that important? Because 70% of our immune function resides in our gut, and is hosted by, and taken care of by all these bacteria.

The second reason that I really want to change my eating behavior is because I want to get rid of some abdominal fat around my waist. Now this fat is really unhealthy fat. It's metabolically active, and it produces a lot of inflammation.

So once again, you're adding more inflammation to your system and this inflammation, remember, impacts our whole body in a very unhealthy way. That fat also can contribute to insulin resistance to pre-diabetes and diabetes.

So it's something that we really want to eliminate. And as we get older, we tend to accumulate fat there anyway. And I just want to say things like this (magazine cover shown) "Trapped fat dissolves easily" and "The fat just disappears!"

None of that is true. And none of it happens instantly. This is something that happens over time. Hence, a true lifestyle change for me to eat differently.

Okay. So what do I do? Where do I start for me? It's about meal planning right now. The food I eat is convenient. I know what to get the store. I know how to put it together. I can pull things out of the refrigerator, heat it up, and I'm good to go.

So my new meal plan has to have that too. It has to be easy. It has to be simple to prepare and it has to be convenient. And I'm going to have to learn some new things. I'm going to have to shop differently. I might have to learn some different ways to prepare food, and store it.

So to that end, since I'm sure I'm not the only one in this boat, I am going to be offering a free webinar called "Better Eating Through Meal Planning, Overcoming the Overwhelm of Changing Your Eating Behavior." It's going to be on Wednesday, January 27th, at 4:00 PM Mountain Standard time.

I invite you to come along and learn how to make these changes and use this meal planning tool to make these changes for you.

Please sign up here!

Thank you so much for watching.

Dr. Elaine

Link to the free webinar:

https://www.drelainestewart.com/better-eating-through-meal-planning

This information is for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace the medical advice of your doctor or healthcare provider. Please consult your healthcare provider for advice about a specific medical condition.