Evolving Warrior: November 2013

I get asked a lot of questions on how to be healthy and expressions of frustration on its difficulty. To me, good health is not a stringent diet or strict workout routine. I find that true health comes from balance amongst many contributing factors. A good starting point to a healthy life is a healthy diet. Eating fresh, organic, ingredients that my body responds well to, is my basis. I am not anti-carbs, I don’t count calories, I enjoy a nice cocktail, and I don’t shy away from sweets. I am mindful of what I eat and how my body reacts to it. As I get older, go through different external stresses, or have a change in environment, my body is impacted. If I don’t like the reaction I’m getting from food (breaking out, fatigue, excess weight gain) then I change what I’m eating. It is a learning process of understanding the constant evolution of my body.
A clean diet gives me a strong foundation to be able to attain an all encompassing healthy lifestyle. Going for a run, sitting in meditation, spending quality time with family, reconnecting with old friends, making new ones, lifting heavy weights, stretching in pigeon pose, laughing until it hurts, sharing a bottle of wine over good conversation, snuggling with my dog, reading a good book, passing on knowledge, surrounding myself with people that make the light in my heart grow bigger, going on a hike, falling during my handstand attempts and taking photos of things I find beautiful (apologies to all the writers for the run-on sentence). These are the things that make me healthy.
I am healthy means I am happy. It means I am balanced both mentally and physically. The hardest part is to acknowledge that which does not serve me well and to let it go. That means everything from food, to certain workouts, to relationships with people. It can be emotionally and/or physically difficult at first but the rewards far exceed what the challenge ever was. This is what healthy means to me. Explore what it means for you.

Inflammation in my knee and tendonitis in my shoulder once played a haunting role in my life. They arrived on separate occasions and snatched away my mobility faster than I was able to comprehend the severity of what was happening. The pain was excruciating and left me in devastation. It felt like my independence was stripped away due to my lack of strength. Physical activity gives me balance amongst the chaos of life so I was determined to find a remedy quickly.

I was never fond of the idea that a pain killer could get me through the day. Pain killers tend to numb everything. Personally, I would rather not go through life in a numb state. A little research helped me find the alternative solution I was looking for.

It turns out, good fats play a significant role in reducing inflammation. Omega-3s are particularly potent in doing this, being comparable or superior to aspirin. Omega-6, in high concentration, does the opposite. The foods that would normally have a balanced omega-3 to omega-6 ratio, like meat, have been distorted tremendously due to factory farming. These factory farms produce ninety-nine percent of the meat being consumed in the United States. Farm animals are fed corn and grains (high in omega-6) rather than the grass they were born to eat. Not to mention all the antibiotics and hormones they are being pumped with. The consequence: meat is concentrated with omega-6 and scarce in omega-3, which causes an unhealthy imbalance in anyone that consumes it. Aside from meat, most packaged and processed food uses soybean oil and other ingredients that are densely packed with omega-6. Though our bodies do require both omega fatty acids, the discrepancy in their balance promotes some major health issues and I was feeling the effects of one of them.

I had never been so ecstatic to treat myself to fish oil than I was the day I attained this knowledge. Increasing omega-3s in my diet made a HUGE difference. Strengthening the muscles around the joints to take the strain off the tendons that connect muscles to bones is also very effective. For me, yoga and CrossFit (with cautious weight increases) already took care of that, which is why I looked into doing something more. My diet is now heavily seafood based, with grass-fed organic meats, and organic produce. I eat out a lot but remain mindful of the food I’m eating, accepting that I cannot eat perfectly all the time. I can happily say the pain in my knee and shoulder has never made an appearance again.

**There are many different remedies for treating or preventing inflammation and various degrees of its severity. I am just choosing to focus on one remedy (omega 3's) that I personally have experience.

Cordain, L., & Friel, J. (2012) The Paleo Diet for Athletes. New York, NY: Rodale.