Good Eating Habits

Good eating habits is a question that confronts us daily, as we go from home to work, work to home, and back again. We have designated times for breakfast and lunch.

Dinner would be the only place where we can really have freedom as to the time we consume our meal. But do we really want something to eat? Are we really hungry? Or do we eat simply because the time to eat has arrived?

The Physical Work

Before 20 th century, eating was an opportunity to stop and rest, and actually consume nutrition because your body told you it needed nourishment. Physical energy expenditures had used up whatever resources you had provided earlier.

The Physical work and real lack of supplements for nutrition kept the body in constant need of nourishment. That is a time past. Today, with the advent of the computer, physical activity is no longer a part of the work, it is only with our mind that we work.

We no longer lack for vitamins and minerals, thanks to the boom in the vitamin market. We can get information readily available for us to learn about our needs, and control what we consume.

Programmed Eating

But consumption and “programmed eating” is more out of control than ever. We watch television, and see something good to eat. Very next moment, we go to the refrigerator and hunt something to eat. Our body hasn’t informed us of any real hunger, but our visual senses make us to feel like we are really hungry.

With this feeling we would like to consume some food. There is a real difference in what we need to eat to stay alive, what we need to eat to stay healthy, and what we want to eat thanks to ads and designated lunch hours.

Eating Food for Straying Alive

It is really surprising to know what we need to eat to stay alive. It is such a small portion of food. To stay alive your body must consume only five to six hundred calories and lots of water.

When faced with life threatening conditions, your body will revert to a “starvation” mode. In other words, it cuts back on bodily functions to just bare minimums necessary for life. In this way, it cuts out any excess need for extra calories.

Calorie Intake Level

Each individual person has a unique calorie intake level necessary for healthy functioning that can range from around 1200 calories to over 2000. The amount of food we need to satisfy the ads and programmed eating habits is over 3000 calories per day.

In other words, ads and “It’s time to eat lunch” programming are making us to consume at least 1000 more calories than we need each day. This is the main reason why our country is facing an obesity epidemic and our children need medically prescribed diets to lose weight.

If we could take a week and pay attention to what our body really says to us about its needs, we would be a healthier society without a lot of effort. It is because we listen to the ads, the restaurant menus, and the call of “it’s lunchtime, where are we gonna eat?” that we have problems now.

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