By Dax Moy
Picture the perfect you. You are full of energy and feeling vibrant and healthy. Your weight is comfortable, your muscles are firm and toned and you can choose any glamorous outfit for your Christmas party that you would wish for. Whenever you're out on the razzle dazzle this season, people compliment you on your appearance and tell you that you look fantastic.
More importantly, you actually feel fantastic! You have no aches and pains, no disease or illness and you feel confident, alert and in control of your life. No physical endeavour feels like it's beyond you. Basically, you are the very picture of health and well-being. Does this describe you?
I'll hazard a guess here and say that it probably doesn't even come close. Like most people you're probably unhappy with your body and your looks and you feel like you've been imprisoned in the body of a much older person. An unhealthy one at that! It's a sad fact that, when asked, most people would confess to feeling less-than-healthy for the greater part of their lives. In fact, most of us wouldn't even know how to recognise good health if we saw it anyway! We've become so detached from our wellness that we believe that good health is something that we actually have to work hard for. Nothing could be further from the truth!
Good health and wellness are the natural state of every living cell in your body. It is what your cells are programmed for and what they do best. In fact, you have to work very hard to be unhealthy in the first place! First you have to condition yourself to fight your body's innate survival mechanisms by ignoring your thirst for water and opting for other non-hydrating fluids instead. Then you have to learn to ignore good, clean, wholesome foods in favour of sugar-laden, processed varieties and on top of that you have to learn to ignore your true hunger signals and force yourself to eat even after you're full. This is all hard work. Seriously!
If you can cast your mind back to your first alcoholic drink, chances are it made your ill. We've all had experiences of illness and toxicity when we've introduced new things, yet what do we do about it? We work really hard and consistently at adjusting to them so that we can 'enjoy' them in the future.
No wonder we don't always look, feel or function too well. We're fuelling our bodies on the wrong energy! Could you imagine doing the same to your car, putting petrol into your diesel engine or vice versa? The result would be a broken or 'sick' car wouldn't it? So, we don't do it because we value our cars too much to see them damaged in this way. What a different world we'd have if people valued themselves nearly half as much as their cars!
The 'trick' for creating and maintaining optimal health is simply to put the right fuel 'in the tank' and minimise the amount of 'toxic' fuel that goes in. But where do we begin? Well, from my experience I've found that the best method is to eliminate the foods that have the greatest likelihood of causing toxicity within the body and only then begin eating a diet of foods that best match your unique metabolic profile. Let's look at the elimination diet.
The elimination diet
Unless you are already following an organic eating plan that has been matched to your metabolic type then you are being affected by toxins - even if the foods you eat are generally regarded as 'healthy'. With this in mind, I advise my clients to eliminate certain foods from their diet for a period of three to four weeks:
- All processed foods These foods are pretty much devoid of nutrients and are rendered almost useless to our bodies. A basic rule of thumb is that if it can last more than four days without going bad then it should not be consumed.
- Wheat and gluten Now, I know that many people will tell you that the whole 'wheat thing' is a red-herring and that unless you have coeliac disease you're fine to eat it but I'd have to disagree. From my own experience and from the research I've examined over the last seven years, I'd have to say that, for most of us, wheat is a problem. Well, modern processed wheat anyway. It's almost a non-food by the time we get our hands on it and I've seen it cause problems for the healthiest of people.
- Margarine These highly processed foods are laden with trans fatty acids that weaken your immune system and are closely linked to many diseases.
- Sugar Sugar is poorly tolerated by our internal environments. It causes massive variations in blood glucose and insulin, encourages fat storage and upsets the very balance of our biochemistry.
- Caffeine Coffee, tea and sodas contain large quantities of caffeine that will falsely stimulate your adrenal glands and have a detrimental effect upon your energy production.
- Alcohol I know, life's no fun without it right? I would simply say if you want the health and the body then there's a price to pay.
Slowly start to add back a little of what you fancy, just one thing at a time, and pay close attention to what happens. If nothing, then the food can be considered 'safe' and you can add it back into your diet. If not then give it a miss. (Once the elimination diet is complete you should begin your metabolic diet.)
The benefits from an increase in energy, mood and wellness and a decrease in body fat and overall weight will help you to feel good and look great - go for it!
The Little Black Dress plan:
1. Little Black Dress diet: starting out
2. Week one: your mental gym
3. Week two: optimal alignment
4. Week three: water and hydration
5. Week four: energy balance - energy in
6. Week five: energy balance - energy out
7. Week six: recovery and regeneration
