kawa bonga!!!.....Naaa...it doesn't work that way

 

I was at this event sometime ago and got carried away watching this nicely clad woman, though Tammy(my 18 month old) was seriously clamoring for my already taken attention. The lady had on the most gorgeous jewelry and her makeup was bespoke. Her purse matched her shoes in a stylish way ( fashionistas you know when it's not an obvious match but there's this undertone blend that makes it classy). But these were not why she "carried" me away.....I was simply amazed at her food combo!

                                                            

 

                                         HABA!!!! AT A TIME!

 

She had 2 wraps of pounded yam and efo elegusi with 2 pieces of ox tail and 1 sharky,then in another bowl she had catfish in stew...then on a side plate she had salad,packed full with cream and a diet coke! Like seriously? In one sitting? I know in her mind she's combatting the effect of all that food with her salad and diet soda!!! And i found my self saying a silent prayer for her against indigestion, bloatedness, heartburn and also that all that food will have mercy and at least evenly spread round her body and not just sit on her already protuding belly!

People lets wake up and smell the coffee! If you are not eating right, errrrrm your low calorie sodas, crackers, skimmed milk and fruit/veggie one off binges ain't gonna show jack! Instead you are just adding to your already mounting belle lines or unnecessarily frustrate yourselves. These "healthier" options do not act like super heroes and blast away the unwanted areas with their wands, they are only there to further aid you on your journey so you don't feel like you've been cut off totally from "civilization".

We need to learn how to categorize our foods and eat those excellent for us regularly whilst treating the "treats" as what it is. We also need to understand and learn that the food ain't running away, so we don't have to eat a whole days grub in one sitting. I know some of us might start judging my elaborately dressed woman, STOP IT BIKO. Most of us eat in secret.Yep!!i lie?  We would order moinmoin and dry salad in public then get home and bring out all the food in the pantry, tuck in and sit in front of the TV watching The Doctors! Before you realise it you have downed 2000 calories all within a 45mins show at 10pm!!! Where would all that go?hmmmmmmm? I wonder!

Lets take a cue from our forefathers. Our ancestors survived by gaining and storing weight to survive periodic famines. That has left our bodies prone to storing fat and gaining weight, tendencies that willpower ALONE can rarely overcome. To see how our bodies have morphed from rock-hard to sponge-soft, lets look inside the bodies of early man and woman. They looked like stereotypical super man: strong, lean, muscular, able to jump snorting mammals in a single bound.

 

:D Errrrrm lets imagine us without that scary face and unmade hair!!
As we evolved we created systems and behaviors to survive when droughts and poor eyesight made picking and hunting less than successful. In earlier times the diet consisted of fruits, nuts, veggies, tubers and wild meat - foods that were, for the most part, low in calories. That's not to say our ancestors didn't enjoy their foods. They consumed their sugars only through fruits, and they even splurged when they came across the Paleolithic Cinnabon - a honeycomb! The difference between their splurges and ours? They came across their sweet treats only rarely; it's not as if they popped in for a 900 calorie sugar bomb every time they went shopping for a new buffalo hide! Add that to the fact that their definition of "searching for food" included walking, stalking and chasing, and not just "reaching" for the canned food on the aisles at Shoprite!

Before una go begin talk say ebun own too much :p...lemme quickly add that the advent of agriculture essentially started the sociological shift that altered the way we lived- and the way we eat- up until this day. We can now produce soooo much food, hence producing what we want and not necessarily what is needed. I'm not saying we should live like cave men mbok.....what I'm saying in essence is we need to learn how and what to eat that will satisfy and fuel our bodies rather than to console or excite. And to be consistent with this you need to create a LIFESTYLE.
Lets consciously start to develop these routines whilst learning to work smart and not neccessarily hard so that as we help our selves now for the rest of our lives, we are already helping our children so they won't have to struggle as adults and they can enjoy total wellness.

 

S.P.A........Support Plan Accountability