Health & Wellness
Seasonal Eating Keeping energetic and slim
as the weather changes By Judy Torel, MS
As an eating coach and weight loss consultant specializ-
ing in men and women 50 and older, I'm often told in the
midst of an intake session in the middle of January,
“I eat healthy. I don’t understand why I feel so exhausted
and why I am battling my weight. I eat a yogurt and fruit
for breakfast, every day I have a healthy salad for lunch.
I snack on fruit and for dinner I have lots of veggies with
a little protein. I try not to have a starch at dinner because
I want to lose weight”. When I hear this, I know it will be
an easy fix to help this person start to lose weight and feel
better. I respond, “All those are healthy foods but right
now it is January in the Northeast. Have you ever heard
of an Eskimo eating salad and fruit?”
Many traditional holistic wellness approaches such as
Traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurvedic, teach the
practice of seasonal eating. Cliff note version; seasonal
eating, means eating in harmony with the larger energy
cycles in nature in order to maintain your optimal health,
and eating changes as the annual food cycle progresses
from winter through summer. Foods that are appropriate
for summer will not produce healthy, nor optimal body
weight if eaten in the winter and vice versa. To help explain very comprehensive principles in brief,
here are a few summary points. In summer the weather is
hot, and there are more hours of daylight, so humans tend
to have higher energy expenditure. We sweat more and
expel more water in our out breath to cool our bodies.
For these reasons, it is good practice to eat foods that are
“cooling”. Cooling foods have higher water content, which
helps hydrate for increased water lost to cooling. These
foods are quicker to digest, which gives us energy for the
abundant daylight and increased activity. These, generally
lighter foods, are good for summer. Winter, on the other
hand, has less daylight hours for activity, so with lower
energy expenditure we sweat less, plus the cold air outside
and forced heat inside is drying to our skin, sinuses and
lungs. Warming foods take longer to digest and therefore
generate internal heat. They are higher in oils and fat,
so they help to keep the skin, mucus membranes of the
nose/throat/lungs from becoming too dry (which can
lead to an increased risk of colds and flus!). They are also
nurturing and soothing, so that you are less likely to over
consume like you are when eating something more appro-
priate to summer – like ice cream or a fruit smoothie.
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USAT Certified Coach
ACSM Certified Health Fitness Specialist
judytorel.com | 518-469-0815
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