Dietary lessons learned from gardening
As we reap the benefits of a beautiful garden - be it flowers or vegetables, we are also reaping the bad stuff too - WEEDS! Interspersed with harvesting beautiful broccoli, spinach, pink-sprinkled cabbage, red kale, early tomatoes and beans, I get to pull weeds too.
We just started a garden in a new area of ground. I came across some weeds - (strong, stubborn grass, really) that I hadn't previously encountered. I grabbed a handful to pull out the roots, and it wouldn't budge. I tugged with everything I had in me, and still, not a hint of giving way. So I tried a smaller handful. Nothing. Finally, it came to pulling out (still with surprising effort), 1 blade (more like a stalk) at a time! Tedious as it was, I was successful.
I feel that every challenge brings with it a lesson. Since this became a longer than normal process, it left me pondering the lesson. I thought about how similar it was to changing things in our life, and more specifically in our diet.
Many of us know that eating junk food is just plain bad for you, and that eating fresh, wholesome foods is preferable. We also know that it takes a different level of commitment to eat that way. Most dread it because they don't know where to start. That's where the garden lesson comes in.
This year we were inundated with weeds. If your garden is big enough, you couldn't possibly keep up with pulling all the weeds, especially in a short time frame. If you worked on it all day, and you aren't used to it, you'd end up stiff, and achy, and probably sunburned too! You'd hurt. It's similar to cutting the garbage out of your diet. If you cut all the bad stuff out in one day, you'd probably hurt. Cutting out coffee could result in withdrawal headaches, fatigue and lack of motivation. Eliminating sugar could result in a hypoglycemic condition where you feel you can't concentrate well, or maybe even get a headache. If you dispensed with the alcohol (if you drink a lot), the withdrawal can be miserable as well. The answer: pull the weeds out one blade at a time. It may take you longer, but you'll ultimately be more successful.
Consider junk foods, and unhealthy habits in general, like a weed. You have to always be on top of it or it will overrun the health of your body's garden. It will steal the nutrients from the good things around it. It will consume the moisture. Instead of beauty, we will have disease, and eventually the good will wither and die. That's why we must always be on top of the bad stuff. We have to continue to weed out the bad in our diets and in our lives.
Patience, time, progressing blade by blade, a little each day or each week will result in a blossoming of our "garden," our health. And once again, we can enjoy the wonderful, beautiful results!
Holly Carling is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, Licensed Acupuncturist, Doctor of Naturopathy, Clinical Nutritionist and Master Herbologist with more than 32 years of experience. Carling is currently accepting new patients and offers natural health-care services and whole food nutritional supplements in her Coeur d'Alene clinic. Visit Carling's website at www.vitalhealthandfitness.com to learn more about Carling, view a list of upcoming health classes and read other informative articles. Carling can be reached at (208) 765-1994 and would be happy to answer any questions regarding this topic.