Your Grandmother’s body!!!

It is important to understand why things work as they do – it is difficult to make changes if you don’t really understand why they will make a difference.

The way we live now has changed in almost every aspect since our grandparents were young – and in recent years technology has changed everything – the way we eat and move is no exception.

In that time our bodies have not had time to change – evolution takes many generations – and over the 120 years since our grandparents were born – there have only been two generations between them and us.  Even the 2 generations after us are not showing great changes.

In this post I want to help you understand a little about why our bodies are struggling so much with the modern diets and lifestyle we subject them to.

If you were born in the 1950’s or 1960’s your grandparents would have been born and living at the end of the 1800’s early 1900’s – that is an awful long time ago.  The way most of us live now would be almost unrecognisable to the lifestyle of our grandparents when they were young – so much has changed in that time – yet our bodies have had very little time to adapt through evolution – your grandmother had your parent and your mother had you – that’s only two chances for change – and any changes would be very small – imagine how long it will take us to catch up!!!

The Machine Analogy

It may be easier to understand this by comparing your body to something you are very familiar with.  Think of any machine that you use – could be a car, a plane, a sewing machine or a weed eater – anything that needs maintenance and fuel.  The version of that machine 100 years ago would be very different to the one you use today – the way you use it, the fuel you put in it and the results you expect from it have probably all changed.  Yet if you put modern fuels in the vintage version and tried to get it to perform in ways that it wasn’t made for it would probably struggle, splutter and seize up – and you wouldn’t really be surprised……but that is what we do to our vintage bodies…..

Vintage Living

So let’s think a little about the way our grandparent’s lived……..

As far as food was concerned – they would be eating food that was available – probably seasonal and local – many went through war years of rationing when food was scarce – without modern fridges and freezers they had to find ways of preserving and using everything- they wouldn’t want to waste any.  They would have used all parts of any fruits and vegetables – skins, stalks and pith – all packed with good healthy fibre which we tend to avoid today.  They couldn’t afford to worry too much about freshness, bacteria and bug free food – and guess what – our bodies can cope with all of this – in fact it will enjoy sorting out the good from the bad – it is designed to do this in small quantities.

Preserving through fermentation created good bacteria that our bodies welcome – these good bacteria help to maintain a balance in the body and can fight bad bacteria that could make us ill.  Today we eat these good bacteria in yoghurts, pickles, sauerkraut and blue vein cheese.  This balance means that if we inadvertently eat something with bad bacteria in we are less likely to be ill – or the illness is more likely to be minor.  Avoiding all bacteria will mean our bodies are not as ready to fight infection as they could be.

As far as exercise is concerned – our grandparents had to be very active doing day to day things – compared to today where you can choose whether to be active or not.  Walking to the shops and lugging the shopping home would have been almost daily rituals. Today we can shop online, drive to the shop and practically drive into the kitchen all with minimal activity.  We now have the ability to sit and watch TV, DVD’s or the computer 24/7 if we want – this wasn’t available for our grandparents and so they would not have spent hours sitting and moving very little.

Here we go again…..

You guessed it – diet and exercise are what matters. Hopefully you are thinking about the food you are eating and choosing more whole foods than processed.  Today we have a huge choice in what we eat.

Choose foods that are more like the ones our grandparents ate – the ones our bodies are designed to work with.  Eat more vegetables than anything else – skins on whenever  possible.  Also make sure you are getting a good daily dose of probiotics – or good bacteria.  Again choose food that you enjoy eating – but also experiment a little.  Make sure your yoghurt has probiotics in – look for fermented foods as well – these will contain a different type of good bacteria – and you want a good balance.  Blue vein cheese contains mould – good healthy probiotics your body will love.  Pickles and chutneys are fermented – but watch the sugar content.

Moving instead of not moving – try not to sit for hours on end without moving – any movement is activity – uses your muscles and burns energy.  You can move in front of the TV if you want – just try and avoid the long sessions of no activity.  Try making one of your daily jobs more active – if you can walk to the shops, school or work – it will soon become a habit and you won’t even notice you have increased your activity.

Look after your body like you would a special piece of vintage furniture – it is the only one you have….