I was off artificial sweeteners for the past two weeks. Completely unintentionally, but consistently.
Last couple of days I did a fast, which included ample amounts of coffee. And I was traveling and walking outside for much of the time. Not hungry, at all.
Then I had a diet soda.
Guess what happened?
I was ravenously hungry within minutes.
Talk about seeing red. I was raging.
The lesson for me was obvious: artificial sweeteners make you hungry. So using them as a replacement for sugar in your diet probably won’t make it much easier to keep a healthy weight and low body fat.
Now, please don’t take this as license to keep drinking sugar.
Artificial sweeteners may be messing with your hunger/satiety signaling. But that doesn’t make sugar good. It’s still a carcinogen. It still makes you fat. It still slows your brain down to crawl, makes you sleepy and leads to depression not long after that.
But sweetened drinks made me think about a rule that I have applied every time I have improved my body composition and mental dynamics.
It worked when I was an adolescent, before I was aware of it.
It works now, whenever I apply it intentionally.
It requires no deep knowledge of nutrition or the unique needs of your mind-body.
It comes down to one simple point of Awareness when buying and consuming food and beverages:
Don’t eat anything that’s been invented in the past 100 years.
It’s that simple. And it covers just about everything most of the sane nutritionists would advise you not to consume:
- All artificial dyes, flavors, extracts and preservatives.
- Processed foods unless they were only processed with salt using traditional methods.
- Seed oils.
Except sugar. Sugar is so poisonous, it merits a category in its own right.
This is not the stairway to nutritional heaven, but it sure puts you past the first step. If you follow this simple rule, you will probably be ahead of most people in general health within weeks.
The best part?
You’ll feel the effects of avoiding industrial foods almost immediately – within a day or two – much like you would when fasting.
You’ll feel yourself having more energy and clarity of Mind.
Your mind-body will be cleansing itself from the contaminants, so the liftoff can be bumpy, but it’s worth it.
Sometimes when I go off refined carbs and processed food, I use tea sweetened with stevia to get over the hump the first couple of days. Stevia doesn’t make me crave food, but YMMV. Green and black teas help along with antioxidants and a little nudge of caffeine, too.
If you can’t handle this simple approach, how do you think you’ll fare on some complicated fad diet that asks you to count calories and measure everything?
Nutrition is the best medicine, and fasting is the best of all.
The medicine of the Integral future will be personalized, and so will be nutrition.
To get to the Sublime heights of your Being, and push the limits of what you thought possible, you still have to experiment with what you eat and drink.
Your own experience is the best guide for your own ascendance.
If you want to dig deeper and develop the optimal diet for yourself, Deep Nutrition is the place to start. Not perfect – but a start worth making.
Rise a god,
Your Daemon
Keys to power:
- When in doubt about the nutritional quality of your food and drink, don’t eat anything invented in the last 100 years.
- Never add sugar to your food and drink. Never drink juices unless you’ve made them yourself.
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