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By Leisa Wheeler N.D.
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An Abundance of Wholefood – Part 1

Monday, November 26, 2012 11:31

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(Before It's News)

Leisa Wheeler, naturopath, health and healing mentor, and fatigue specialist, is the founder and director of Embracing Health, a business dedicated to bringing you health information that can change your life.
Leisa’s passions include many areas of health – from food as medicine and nutrition, to physical fitness and detoxification; from emotional release work to spiritual healing; these varied interests shaping her belief in the value of integrated healing on all levels; physical, emotional and spiritual.

At my retreats I hold a lecture that I call “The Philosophy of Food as Medicine” – which sounds pretty intense – but what it actually is about, is a celebration of all that wholefood has to offer.

One of the key concepts that I love to teach, is about abundance, about embracing the abundance available in life and filling ourselves up so that we are overflowing and able to share our abundance with others. Whether that be an abundance of food, health, love, happiness, success, finances, fun or all of the above – we cannot give what we do not have, so creating an abundance in all of those areas and more, is a beautiful gift we can give ourselves and others.

An area that I love to talk about is the area of our relationship towards food. How in our society we have an abundance of good quality, healthful, organic foods at our fingertips, yet so often we choose dieting and restriction, or choose to eat junk food or fake food. I believe that our relationship with food can be a metaphor for our relationship with life, and that if we see food as an abundant life-sustaining source from nature, then we will create an attitude of abundance and of feeling supported by life, that flows into other areas.

At the retreats, the guests participate in a five day juice fast, and quite often their friends and family have said something to them about their choice to “starve themselves” or “deprive” themselves of food. So in my first lecture on detoxification, I make a comparison that shows how false some of our concepts around food can be. During the retreat we consume the most incredible vegetable juices, which are freshly prepared at the retreat, four times a day. They are dense in nutrition, organic and prepared with love. Thought goes into each and every ingredient , not just for the medicinal or healthful properties it brings, but also for the balance of flavours and tastes, which our chef Cat from WildRaw does so beautifully. Along with these juices, we have highly nutritious superfood supplements that give massive nutrition such as chlorella and a fermented probiotic powder. So although we are not “eating” we are saturating ourselves with incredible nutrition.

Compare that to someone who had for breakfast this morning – white bread, toasted, and spread with margarine, and a cup of tea with skim milk and two sugars. Many people may eat that sort of diet and call that “normal” – however I would argue that these people are ”starving themselves” and are “deprived”. There is no nutritional content in that breakfast, and there is no way that they can function optimally, feel energetic or heal their body on that breakfast.

There is no comparision! We may not be “eating”, but we are satisfying our nutritional needs, and then some. Of course a juice fast is not a permanent dietary lifestyle, but opening our minds to the abundance of nutrition we are saturating ourselves with in our juices, takes away the thought that we are being starved or deprived. The body recognises that it is getting massive nutrition, and switches off our hunger, using the abundance of nutrients to clean house and initiate a healing process. It is incredible to witness and to be a part of.

Have you participated in a juice fast or detox? How did you feel whilst juicing? Do you hold limiting beliefs about food? Or have a restricted or poor relationship with food? Can you see how an attitude of abundance can flow through your whole life, including the way you view whole food and nutrition?

Leisa