Nutrition

At a microscopic level, your body, mind and spirit are distinct yet interacting bundles of energy that need regeneration. The body gets its regeneration from food, water and exercise, while the mind gets its regeneration from clarity of thought.

Everyone likes to count calories these days, but we don't often think about the link between calories and energy. A calorie is actually a unit of energy, defined by physics as the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of one gram of water one degree Centigrade.

Your body essentially takes the foods and beverages you consume and then breaks them down into nutritional molecules that release energy. Walking and running, and even thinking and sleeping, requires your body to process energy.

Ideally, you want to consume a balanced diet that delivers a wide variety of nutrients as well as a diet that meets your caloric needs, which varies according to your activity level, age, height, current weight and desired weight. And just as a fatigued or overburdened mind is too distracted to clearly perceive the world, and a malnourished spirit looses its vitality and vibrancy, an intake of poor nutrients can wreak havoc on your body.

You really don't need to make radical changes in your diet to feel the effects of a change in nutrition. You can do small things like eating less red meat, replacing red meat with chicken of fish, drinking more water and less soda.

Chicken and fish are preferable to red meat, which is more difficult to digest and is a fattier source of nutritional energy. Because red meat comes from animals that live longer than chicken and fish, red meat contains more pesticides, toxins and artificial growth hormones if those animals were raised on typical, non-organic farms.

One reason to be careful about the non-natural chemicals you put into your body is that they can accumulate over time, particularly within fat cells, which are relatively dormant compared to other types of cells that make up our bodies. Fat cells are storehouses for beneficial nutrients, but they also hold on to other materials that make their way into our bodies.

For some people, vegetarianism or veganism is the way to go, but these approaches don't work for everybody. The most important, and easy, change you can make is just to begin thinking about the nutrients you consume. You don't have to eliminate fat and sugar from your diet, just work on reducing the amount you consume.

Some very simple things you can do to restore a natural balance within your body's energy-consuming and energy-producing processes include drinking more water and eating more organic fruits, vegetables, legumes, seeds and nuts. You and your body will feel different. You will feel more energetic, and that energy may begin interacting with your mind and your spirit in ways that will surprise you.