we love food as you can tell by the number of YouTube channels and TV shows about food
whether it's about cooking it or eating it we love watching people interact with food
even more so although we like eating it ourselves and I see people creating vacations around the
food they're going to eat getting to eat authentic Asian or Mexican Cuisine is a thing food has
become the way that we entertain ourselves for better or For Worse hello on this Warrior if
you're meeting me for the first time I'm Violet my channel is about how physical health and mental
health are both needed for us to have that overall sense of well-being if that's something you're
working on to subscribe and ring the bell because I make new videos every week we all interact with
Foods those first interactions your parents are feeding you your caregivers are taking care of
you with food and we learn that food helps us to feel good and then we learn to cook
usually our parents are teaching us how to cook meals that are traditional to where we're from
and that's important I think because those meals that are traditional to where we're from
are giving us a bit of History because our degeneration before us probably similar and
the generation for that and before that we have a tendency today to believe that eating every kind
of food Under the Sun is normal when in fact that's relatively new we used to eat only what
was available locally but I would say in the last few hundred years when we started to ship Foods
around the world started with spices easier to ship they can be dried and they last longer but
then we got better at preserving things and now we're able to ship vegetables and meats around
the world and we are now in a position where we can eat whatever we want from wherever we want
whenever we want and I believe that that's had an impact on our health we don't simply eat
to stay alive anymore which I think is a good thing because probably it was stressful years ago
to not really know if I'm going to catch food tomorrow today's way of doing things we go grocery
shopping and when we go grocery shopping it isn't solely about buying the groceries that Will Keep
Us Alive there's a lot of fun and entertainment in what we're buying and I think that this fun
and entertainment in our food is what causes us to be concerned when the people that we care
about aren't able to have fun with their food so if my family members have allergies or if my
family members have weight issues and they can't eat all the fun things like we have concerns about
them missing out and they themselves feel like they're missing out one thing I will tell you
that happened to me is that my grandmother used to make the most delicious dessert it was called
tone and I would look forward to the holidays just because that was the only time she really made it
I don't know if that was a time thing or if that was uh she knows this isn't good for us thing
but it was delicious it was sweet and we only got it maybe twice a year and we don't get it
anymore because my grandmother passed away and I remember the first holiday that came
around after she passed away and it wasn't just about missing her because that was hurtful enough
but it was the realization that never again will I have pone because nobody else in the family really
made it the way she made it and that was a sad day what happens when you know people or what if
you're the person who has issues with weight or issues with allergies and you're not able
to eat all the fun delicious things that other people are eating especially if you used to eat
it like when the weight issue and now you can't eat it anymore I honestly feel like allergies are
a little bit easier to deal with because chances are you haven't tried a lot of the delicious fun
foods that are made with nuts for example or that are made with whatever you might be allergic to
because you have the allergy but for the rest of us who've tried these delicious treats and then
our weight or our health puts us in the position where we can no longer have them we feel deprived
right and that's expected it's expected that you're gonna feel deprived when I went on vacation
I'm from the Caribbean my aunt was making a delicious meal it was called roti and it was
so spicy that my little Canadian mouth couldn't eat it and my brother my parents were having
this delicious meal and I didn't eat now don't feel sorry for me they gave me something else
but a few days later when my aunt made the same dish again but she made it without the spice for
me well that's the hot spice for me I remember how excited I was to be part of it right and to
taste it was delicious it really was delicious I was happy to be able to eat it these kind of
scenarios are real and I feel like when we're trying to manage our health we're trying to
manage our weight loss it's important for us to understand that feeling left out is a real thing
we do need to figure out how to manage that as we get older and we're out in the world
societal expectations and Norms start to play a role in how we feel about the food we're eating
and our interactions with food one thing that impacted me was the fact that in my
culture so whether it's the Canadian one or the Caribbean one it's the woman who tends to be
cooking the meals and I remember first of all the fact that I don't like to cook put pressure on me
to learn to do this thing that I'm not really fond of but second of all and more related to my weight
if I'm constantly paying attention to something delicious some things tasty some things become
much more my focus right because I'm always thinking about food especially in the situation
where you hate cooking making Fast and fun things became my focus more so than making
the healthiest thing on certain occasions why because I I hate being in the kitchen
to begin with at least make it fun for me now here's where it gets tricky because
we're taught to believe that Pizza could be healthy right if you make it the right way we're
taught to believe that pasta so spaghetti and meatballs that's healthy we're taught to believe
that you know potatoes are healthy silver big pile of mashed potatoes on the plate that's okay a lot
of the fun things that we love to eat in fact aren't as healthy as we've been made to believe
and so as a woman cooking for my family and in front of food a lot not liking this
process but then wanting to enjoy myself I ended up cooking things that were fun
not necessarily the most healthy and that had an impact on my way food is obviously very important
but not for the reason that we tend to say it's important up until this point I've been
talking about food and I haven't mentioned the most important factor which is nutrition
and energy somehow we've shifted from seeing food as necessary for health as necessary because we
need the building blocks and the energy from food to seeing food as a tasty fun entertaining thing
that we do several times a day we're much more likely to focus on tradition like this is what
we've always eaten taste because we want it to be delicious and convenience easy in and out of the
kitchen in a few minutes then we are to focus on how the food we're eating is affecting our health
affecting our weight affecting our skin and like how our our pain levels and our energy levels and
our brain function we aren't interested in the energy we're getting from the food we're only
focusing on it being fun and tasty and eventually something goes wrong eventually we have a problem
and then we turn to extremes right we're going to become like really focused on our diet and
we're going to only eat these things and and the problem that I see there is that when we go to
these extremes we're doing it because we're trying to as quickly as we possibly can solve the problem
immediately and be healthy right now which first of all doesn't happen it takes a long time for us
to become healthy but second of all is ignoring the fact that we didn't get there overnight the
poor health that we're trying to solve had been accumulating from the time we started eating solid
food that means from the time I was a baby there's no way to solve that in a few months the science
says that we rebuild a body in seven to ten years so what that means is everything I'm eating today
is creating the new Violet that seven to ten years from now I will be completely
rebuilt if we consider that in the last 50 years we've allowed processed foods and
Ultra processed foods to be a Mainstay in our diet and along with the introduction of those
Foods came an increase in the weight of most North Americans those foods are not healthy
now I know that most people are focused on the weight part of that story I want you to focus on
the not healthy part of that story because Ultra processed food and processed food is actually what
most of us are building our body with I believe it was what was causing all the pain in my body
because taking those processed foods out of my life yes I lost a lot of weight people
but I didn't only lose weight I regained Health when I started the keto diet
I was able to get rid of the pain and inflammation that was in my body so what that means is that I
went from being a person at my worst Point unable to climb the stairs because my hip
was hurting me so badly to a person who was back to snowboarding skiing longboarding bike riding
badminton all my activities came back climbing in the trees with my my daughter all of my activities
came back I'm older and my body feels better than when I was 20 years younger and I'm saying
20 because my pain issues started when I was in my early 20s I was blaming Sports
for my pain when in fact it was the foods that I was eating processed foods are taste First
Nutrition second meaning that they're relying very heavily on salt sugar and fat to get us
to Crave them and want them and chase them and honestly to be able to eat them because if they
didn't put the salt sugar in fat combinations the way that they did they don't taste great
and the nutritional value that you're getting out of these Foods is mostly fortification
that's coming from them putting chemical versions of What would have been healthy in the unprocessed
natural vegetables and natural foods that you should have been eating in the first place
getting my carb count down under five grams showed me something it showed me that the bloated gassy
way that I was living life wasn't necessary and it showed me that real food can actually taste
good and that happened because when you're not chasing these sugary flavored delicious
foods that are created to keep us chasing you actually allow yourself to eat healthy foods and
those healthy foods taste good now I don't know if they taste good because when you start giving your
body something that it wants you to keep doing it sends you signals to say oh wow keep doing that
which we know our body does right it encourages good behavior by releasing neurotransmitters that
allow us to want to keep doing the good thing because it feels good eating healthy vegetables
felt good to me and therefore tasted good to me and therefore I still do it there are a lot
of people that talk about how hard it is to do keto at the same time those people still allow
these processed foods into their lives their keto versions but they're still processed foods which
means they still are using that same formulation of it needs to taste like this for us to want it
and it keeps us chasing because salt sugar and fat is the combination that gets it to taste
right whether that's real sugar or artificial sweetener doesn't change that it's causing chasing
in US humans humans are made to survive so if you give your body poor quality foods it's going to do
whatever it can to make sure that it keeps you alive and some of what it's going to do is not
going to feel good but if you give your body quality nutrient dense food then it doesn't
struggle and it's gonna actually Thrive rather than putting you in the position of feeling badly
you will feel amazing I actually think it was a mistake for me to let myself and be entertained
by food I think that was me doing the wrong thing because it stopped me from choosing meals based on
how it's going to help to grow and fuel me and had me Focus only on how delicious these things were
going to taste and how fun they were and how quick and convenient they were to make and guess what
I gained a bunch of weight to commemorate those decisions every day we have the
opportunity to make a decision are we going to eat high quality delicious foods that build up
our healthy body and give us clean energy or are we going to go for a processed tasty fun
that builds a lesser Quality Body and I think a lot of the times we say yes to the Lesser quality
fun food because we don't see that damage right away remember we started damaging ourselves back
when we were babies but we don't need the entire 50 years to clean it up we need seven to ten are
you willing to put in the energy in the next seven to ten years to clean up your body and get back
to Baseline I have another video coming about the idea that we are all obese and yet somehow
we're also malnourished I'm going to explain more about that in the video that's coming up so you
probably want to subscribe and ring the bell so that you're going to be notified by YouTube when
that video comes out but in the meantime I suggest that you watch this video right here that's about
healthy eating there are some really good tips to keep you on track thanks for watching the video
and I can't wait to talk to you again in the next video so ring the bell talk to you soon