Carolyn Hansen: Diet one of the keys to a healthy body

A healthy diet is the key to getting a healthy body, columnist Carolyn Hansen says.

Just because we live in the age where food is at our fingertips we think we are well fed and well nourished.

Unfortunately, one does not equate into the other because many of the easily obtainable and readily available foods are fast foods and convenience foods.

These preserved convenience foods can sit on a shelf for weeks…or months making them the go-to snack for breaks for those that have not prepared ahead of time.

Not only do we feed our bodies “dead, toxic foods” but we then further complicate and stress our bodies more by placing them on a severely reduced calorie diet. All this does is starve our already starving cells more.

Truth is, forcing our body into a low-energy environment…one that is designed to mimic famine or dieting gives the body unhealthy signals. It shouts “survival mode” loud and clear which in turn causes our bodies to slow down metabolically and energetically. Any kind of extra physical activity becomes difficult to perform.

Our body simply does not want to do it. Our once healthy, balanced metabolism is no longer the fat burning machine it was, we begin to feel sluggish and run down.

If we do finally muster enough motivation to exercise we don’t challenge ourselves but perform easy “low intensity” exercises that do nothing to aid with fat-burning or metabolism. The body simply cannot tell the difference between starving and dieting…it reacts to both situations the same way.

This low energy state is not a happy place to be. It opens the door to yo-yo dieting and you become a reluctant member of the weight loss/weight gain club becoming more miserable and frustrated every day.

You have now entered that extremely frustrating ‘’weight-gain merry-go-round” where you will stay until some serious lifestyle changes…regarding eating habits and exercise regime have been adopted. Your fat-storing/fat burning hormones cortisol and insulin both give signals to your body to turn on the “fat storing” switch regardless of how many calories you consumed.

Experiments reveal that when body cells are starved certain genes become activated in a way as to defend stored body fat. They are actually capable of turning the human body into a top-notch fat storing machine. Exactly the opposite of what you are trying to achieve with your diet.

Bottom line is…your body becomes a fat-storing mega monster when you starve it. The only way to combat arriving in the low-energy state when you diet is to have a basic understanding from the start of your diet that it’s the body’s hormones not the calories that are the main players in the weight-loss show.

You simply cannot starve away excess fat and when you try to the body’s barriers come up, it defends itself and it works very hard to make fat loss nearly impossible.

You will need to take your body from a low-energy state to a high-energy state…one of vitality… one in which you are eating healthy foods, getting proper exercise (both muscle building and maintaining), building strength, becoming fitter and burning more fat.

You will need to be deliberate with your eating and diet in such a way as to give the body everything it needs to create a high level of health so it can rebalance its fat burning/fat storing hormones. Only then will the weight start to come off and stay off.

* Carolyn Hansen is the co-owner of Anytime Fitness