As a child, I would walk into the house and would head directly to the kitchen. I’d fumble in the fridge, eat anything simmering in a pot and then rustle together something from leftovers. So I was clearly destined to be a foodie.
Those of you who consider yourself a ‘foodie’ will know that at breakfast we are usually thinking about lunch and lunch what we will have for dinner & then it starts all over again!
So, I even surprise myself today when I think about how much I have grown in my journey with food.
You see for most of my life, food was really about how it tasted and how much of it I could eat!
I’ll never forget the day in my personal training session when my trainer sat me down and said, “Elika, it’s simple you need to change the way you eat!” Woah! So profound we had a 20-minute nutrition lesson on macronutrients and how my food could be divided into protein, fats & carbs. So there it began, the first time I started looking at food as a form of energy and realising the impact of its quality to my performance.
For most of us on the road to health, we start off here or some other form of restrictive eating that has limitations around measurements on the food we eat. We replace most of the processed foods with real food, not because we value real food per se but cause we need to measure the foods we eat and we realise that avocados and lettuce leaves are easier to measure than bread.
Owning my own health restaurant means I encounter the majority of my customer base at this stage, and it’s a beautiful part of the journey because we are the most open to change when we see something that works, but we also have a hidden fear that it’s not sustainable.
The next stage, therefore, comes when measurements become too tedious. They’re either not a great use of our time or our inner soul is screaming for us to consider just eating the foods we love! This can come in signs of cravings or if we’re lucky we are just interpreting our emotions that we feel good when we eat certain things.
So then we become alive, we start focusing on the quality of the foods we eat, foods that are grown from nature, regardless of their calorie count or fat content but we consume these foods and use our bodies to tell us whether we have had enough and inevitably because we are flooding our bodies with the nutrients we need we are satiated.
We start seeing the impact of these foods on our cognitive function and general well being that pushes us to look at other areas of our health. From hormones, joint & ligament issues, to deep digestives issues and from here we unlock the deeper wounds that even kale smoothies can’t heal. The emotional baggage and deep wounds that lay in our bodies are the root cause of our health concerns, whether it be weight or metabolism.
On this journey to health my wish for you is to not count all the way to the end, but instead to embrace the journey as this is the unfolding of you to your optimal state, and in this state, you will understand truly that life is actually that, a journey and not a destination!
Do share this article with anyone you believe would like the support to reach their health goals. You can watch my short video on my facebook page vlog and be sure to sign up for my newsletter at elika.co
