Jillian Michaels is everywhere. On TV, in magazines, on the bookshelf. And with good reason. She is a healthy body bad ass, and she gets results. We see them every week on The Biggest Loser, but we can also see results every week with ourselves.
I recently flipped through Jillian’s “Mastering Your Metabolism” and found many of her healthy ideas smart as well as relatable to someone with food allergies. She speaks about how what we put into our bodies direct effects what our bodies do for us. I completely believe this. We really are what we eat and this affects how we feel.
The main thread throughout the book is that we pack on the weight when our hormones are out of whack. And guess what puts our hormones out of whack… food. So, she says we can lose weight and feel better by doing three things:
1. Remove toxins in our life. This includes foods that are bad for us (which she calls anti-nutrients), stress, and clutter.
2. Restore the good stuff in life. This includes feeding our bodies more natural foods, and appreciating our efforts.
3. Rebalance our lives. This includes finding a middle ground in life as well as eating a balanced diet.
I really enjoyed her spin on remove, restore, and rebalance and how it relates to food as well as life. It is so easy to get caught up in life and not take time to feed our body as well as our soul.
On a food level, I related to her ideas because she really promotes the idea of ridding our bodies of toxins that come from processed food. Having a wheat and dairy allergy, I have rid my diet of most processed food and feel great about what I put into my mouth. Her anti-nutrients include hydrogenated fats (think butter), refined grains (white bread), corn syrup (like soda), artificial colors, pesticides. We need to rid our bodies of processed foods because our bodies don’t see them as food and thus doesn’t know what to do with them… hence weight gain.
If we can all tweak our diets just a little and cut out processed foods, we will have less cases of hormone imbalances that lead to diabetes, thyroid issues, heart disease, infertility, and mood swings/depression. I know that I feel better about what I eat now because I eat mostly fruits, vegetables and meats… I rarely even go down the aisles in the supermarket because I only buy what is located in the perimeter. Her book just further motivated me to realize that my food allergies are my body’s way of telling me to feed it what it needs to stay healthy! I guess Jillian’s kick butt attitude is for a good reason… here’s to all of us balancing our forks a little better.
Balanced Fork, Healthy Life 