You Are What You Eat and Drink

Most of us have heard the old adage “You are what you eat,” but have you ever considered that you are what you eat, drink, breathe, think, and do? Every food you eat, every beverage you consume, every breath you take, every thought you think, and all the actions you take in life are creating you. This may seem hard to believe but it is true, as you will soon discover in the next two chapters.

Consider that the foods and beverages you consume will be brokendown by your body into vitamins, minerals, enzymes, amino acids, fatty acids, and simple sugars, all of which your body will then use as raw materials to create new liver cells, skin cells, brain cells, bone cells, or whatever your body needs to replenish at that time. But what if you eat foods that your digestive tract cannot break down into the building blocks it needs? Or what if the foods and beverages you consumed had very little nutritional value and therefore very few building blocks for healthy cells and tissue? Worse yet, what if these foods and beverages were also laden with synthetic chemicals which your body had to work harder to eliminate but which did not provide the energy your body needs to do that? Even worse still, what if you exposed your body to synthetic chemicals in such vast quantities that it had to struggled to keep you disease-free?

Now consider that the air you breathe determines whether every cell in your body will be adequately oxygenated or whether those cells will have to overwork to eliminate foreign airborne particles or chemicals that your body may not have been designed to handle.

Every thought you think affects your health and well-being. If you think positive, life-affirming thoughts your body will create “feelgood” hormones that will give you greater energy, balanced moods, and overall healing ability. On the flip side, if you think negative, stressful thoughts much of the time, your body will create stress hormones that send messages throughout your body to divert its energy into protecting you from danger—even if that danger is really self-imposed. Th ese stress hormones are benefi cial in truly stressful life-and-death situations, but when they are released over long periods of time, they damage your body, as you will soon learn.

The things you do every day affect your sense of well-being. If you work at an office job all day and return home to slouch on the sofa in front of the television, your lack of physical activity will prevent your cells from getting adequate oxygen. Your body’s lymphatic system (comparable to a street-sweeping system inside your tissues) will be sluggish and ineffective at removing waste buildup from your body.

Slouching in front of the TV will also affect your posture, in turn affecting the alignment of vertebrae, muscles, tendons, nerves, and blood vessels. Over time, this pattern may create back or neck pain as well.These are just a few of the ways that what you eat, drink, breathe, think, and do affect you. You will learn more about the effects throughout this chapter. You will also learn about the many toxins you are exposed to and the impact they have on your body, mind, and emotions. You will begin to understand how to make healthier choices for your life, the result of which will be improved physical, mental, and emotional health.