What is Health…Really?

Happi Healthi Yogi here! I am so excited to finally have this platform to be able to share things that have helped my health so much, as well as things I find fascinating!

Our topic for the day is something that can seem very obvious, but when considered can actually open doors to your health you may have not considered before, it’s called bio-individuality. Let me start by acknowledging that there is no one-size-fits-all formula for health. We are all different, with unique interests, upbringings, and emotions. Bio-individuality is made up of two parts, primary and secondary food, and we are going to dive into what these mean for you and your health.

Primary food is the first and most important aspect of wellness to consider when evaluating your personal health. To understand what this means, think of it as everything that nourishes your body off your plate. It encompasses things like environment, relationships, spirituality, physical activity, career, and social life.

Secondary food refers to what we eat, the actual food on our plates. Secondary food is important because the saying remains true, you are what you eat, so we need to be conscious of what we choose to put into our bodies. However, more often than not, our Primary food has more impact on our secondary food decisions than we might realize, despite our efforts to plan ahead.

A common thought process for health often entails working out and eating healthy, and that’s the end all be all.  However, if you dismiss discomforts you may be feeling in other primary pillars of your life, you are not living as healthy of a life as you think you are. Our bodies are smart, they know what we feel, and that feeling translates into areas of our life despite our efforts to suppress and ignore it. Common signs of this are high cortisol and adrenal activity, rashes, allergies, fatigue, brain fog, anxiety & depression just to name a few. Our body exerts what it needs by sending red flags in the form of physical symptoms. You would be surprised how much acknowledging Primary food pillars will remedy these types of symptoms.

So now that we know Primary food can translate into physical and emotional aspects of our lives, let’s experience a scenario where primary food triggers secondary food responses.

Picture this: It’s Tuesday, you’re at the office, and you’re mentally planning to work out after work and make a Trader Joe’s run for a nice nutritious home-cooked meal. You receive some bad news at work and instantly text up your friends ‘bad day, happy hour after work, gotta blow off steam”. What you had planned, a nice healthy Tuesday, quickly turned into turned into 3 glasses of Pinot Noir and an Uber Eats order full of comfort food. Not saying there is anything wrong with this, trust me I’ve been there many times, but this is a prime example of how a primary food pillar had a direct effect on our secondary food choices.

Think of these Primary food pillars like dominos, if one falls, it has a ripple effect throughout all other areas of our lives. When we are in a state of stress, or attempting to fill a hole we are experiencing in another pillar of our lives, we are much more likely to pick an unhealthy meal.

So how do we combat this? It all starts with perspective and awareness. Bringing attention to these Primary food areas in our lives is step one to creating lasting change.

An easy way to bring awareness to these pillars is by putting pen to paper and getting real with ourselves. It’s not always easy, but I promise this is the easiest way to get a clear view of your life.

First, write down the different realms of Primary food (listed above) and write down under each how you feel on a scale of 1-10 satisfaction level in that particular pillar. After you establish that number, elaborate. Describe the things that are causing that satisfaction or dissatisfaction. If you are feeling dissatisfied, try and identify how long you have felt this way. If you are feeling satisfied, try and see what is bringing you that joy and see if there is any overlap between the pillars.

Inevitably, there will be one pillar or so that you have subconsciously neglected and therefore could be contributing to some unwanted secondary food decision-making.

Just by acknowledging potential areas for improvement, we are healing. We are making tangible steps to better our health and that my friend is worth celebrating and acknowledging.

Health is not a linear process, it is messy and often a one-step forward two-steps back type of project. However, this is the baseline where I found guidance for improving my own health. It provides a type of personalized road map to show you which pillar in your life needs a little more TLC.

Once we bring attention to our Primary Food healing, our secondary food follows suit. Your intuition will strengthen because you are living a more fulfilled life on multiple levels. Soon you will begin to crave nourishing whole foods that fuel your body and the physical and emotional symptoms you might be experiencing will begin to subside. Mind-body harmony is possible for all, and I believe this is the first step to achieving that.

I hope something you read here resonated with you that can be used for your own health journey, and you begin to find more alignment between the different pillars of your life.