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What are you building your temple with?

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been purchased at a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body. 1 Cor. 6:19-20

You are what you eat. Did your mom ever tell you that? Well, mom’s right! The building blocks from your food work together to help energize your body, heal and repair your body and keep the myriad of body processes running smoothly. Do you really think a Twinkie is gonna cut it for all of that? I don’t think so.

Protein is an important component of every cell in the body. Hair and nails are mostly made of protein. Your body uses protein to build and repair tissues. You also use protein to make enzymes, hormones, and other body chemicals. Protein is an important building block of bones, muscles, cartilage, skin, and blood.

Fats serve many purposes: they not only provide thermal insulation and a source of energy, with stores in reserve, but also are involved in important functions, providing for example the materials for components of cell membranes, of the myelin sheaths that electrically insulate nerve fibers (carpal tunnel anyone?). They also help us absorb vitamins A, E, D and K. While it is nearly impossible to remove fat completely from the diet, it would be unhealthy to do so. Some fatty acids are essential nutrients, meaning that they can’t be produced in the body from other compounds and need to be consumed in small amounts.

Carbohydrates are used for energy. That’s mainly it. Energy. Yes, fruits and vegetables provide nutrients that are essential but those are not the carbs we typically reach for. It’s the bread, pasta, cookies, cakes, ice cream, pizza…can you say anti-nutrient?

Hmm, so proteins are building blocks, fat provides insulation (as well as building part of the outer layer of cells and transporting vitamins) and carbs supply energy. But here’s the twist! Your body can manufacture it’s own glucose to use for energy. What’s more, you can even utilize fat you eat for energy as well!

The USDA, corn and grain farmers, as well as a lot of nutritionist are trying to stuff you with carbs. At every turn they are telling you to get an ample supply in your diet. After many, many years of eating a high carbohydrate diet, I still struggle and have thoughts like, “So what am I going to eat at this meal that is a carb?”As I rifle through the choices, I tend to want some bread or pasta. It’s easy. It’s filling. It’s cheap. It’s also unnecessary in my diet.

Carbs are not an essential nutrient.

I’ll post more on the other effects of carbs later.

Mark Sisson who posts Mark’s Daily Apple has a lot to say about nutrition. His Definitive Guide to the Primal Eating Plan outlines carbohydrate intake for individuals who want to- maintain body composition, lose weight, or are highly active. Here it is in a nutshell:

• If you are at ideal body composition now, 100-150 grams of carbohydrate per day is enough to keep you out of ketosis (and ketosis is NOT a bad thing, it’s just a by product of your body using fats for energy) but away from storing excess as fat if you are the least bit active.
• If you are looking to lose body fat, keeping carbs under 80 grams per day will help immensely in lowering insulin and taking fat out of storage.
• If you are training hard for long periods of time, you should add more carbs (about 100 grams extra per day for every hour of training).

See where your carb intake stacks up by tracking it with The Daily Plate. I bet you’ll be surprised. Junk carbs abound in our diets- coffee, juices, etc. A 12 ounce Coke will give you 39 grams of carbohydrates. Where are you getting your extra carbs? Find the unnecessary carbs, eliminate them, and you likely effortlessly lose those excess pounds.

Build your temple with the right foods. Foods that actually do the job of building a healthy body instead of building excess rooms.