Feed Your Body, Feed Your Soul: Discover the Connection Between How You Are Feeling and What You Are Eating

Feed Your BODY,

Feed Your SOUL

Discover the Connection between How You Are Feeling and What You Are Eating

Ara Wiseman

One dollar from the sale of every book will be donated to:

Success for Kids Charity.

SFK—Success for Kids—is an international non-profit organization,

empowering at-risk children and teens throughout the world.

Copyright © 2010, 2014 Ara Wiseman.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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ISBN: 978-1-4525-7824-8 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date: 07/15/2014

TABLE OF CONTE NTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1.   Nutrition: The Building Blocks

How Do We Bring Balance?

What Is A Balanced Diet—Really?

Basic Nutrients We All Need

The Eleven Most Important Nutrients

Healthy Complex Carbohydrates

Protein

Greens

Healthy Essential Fats

Why You Should Include Essential Fatty Acids In Your Diet

Fiber

Water

Vitamins

Minerals

Enzymes

Good or Friendly Bacteria

Love

Nutrient Density

What Are Nutrient Dense Foods?

The Nuts And Seeds Of Protein

Some Common But Very Erroneous Myths About Vegetarian/Vegan Protein Sources

So How Much Protein Do We Need?

Setting A Realistic Goal

What About Exercise?

The Importance Of Hydration

Acid Or Alkaline

Hanging On to Illness

What Are the Shadows In Your Life, and What Do You Need to Work Through In Order to Get to the Light?

The Six Tastes

The Three Doshas

Healthy Exercise

2.   Health and Healing

What Is Health?

Our Belief System

How Do I Heal?

What is Projection?

Colon And Digestive Health

Elimination of Toxins

Healing With Whole Foods

Food and Its Effect on Our Body and Mind: Sattvic, Rajasic, and Tamasic

What Happens When You Overeat?

Protein and Meat

The Acid-Alkaline Factor

What About Fish?

The Best Foods to Eat for Optimum Health

Health Is Wealth

How Do I Begin?

Anti-Aging

What Are Antioxidants?

What are Free Radicals?

Where Do Free Radicals Come From?

What are Phytochemicals?

Nutrient-Rich Foods

Important Antioxidants Working Within Your Cells

The Role of Healthy Thinking

3.   What are the Psycho-Spiritual Reasons I Have Health Issues?

Emotional Belly

Developing Your Gut Instinct

Good and Bad Bacteria in Your Gut

What Can Throw the Balance Off?

Allergies and Allergens

Lets Talk About Digestion

Other Physical Causes of Indigestion Include

To Assist Your Digestion

How Do You Develop Your Gut Instinct?

Perceptions

Stopping the Energy Leaks

What’s the Goal?

Accepting Change

The Law of Attraction

Uncovering The Layers

Letting Go To Remake Ourselves

Instilling New Healthy Habits

4.   Understanding Food Addictions

How Much Is Enough?

Melissa’s Story

Meditation and Visualization

Addictions

What is the Emotional Root Cause of Addictions?

Drug and Alcohol Addiction

Do You Want To Be Free?

Waking Up to the Root Causes

Our Companions

Working with Mirrors

5.   Food and Mood

Understanding What Makes Us Tick

Human Love, Divine Love, and What Do You Love?

What Is Anger?

Accepting Our Shadows

Understanding Our Personal Demons, And Food And Mood

Carrie’s Story

Jim’s Story

Why Are We Fat?

How Do We Lose Excess Body Fat?

Healthy Helpful Suggestions for Losing Excess Body Fat

The Reality of Modern Food Choices

The Truth About Energy and Good Health

Words

6.   Awakening Your Spirit

How To Awaken The Healer Within

Starting Off Your Day

Detoxification And Cleansing

Who Should Detoxify?

Does Detoxification Affect pH Balance and How?

What Can You Expect When Undergoing a Detoxification?

What Foods Should I Eat and NOT Eat During a Detox?

7.   Cleanse: Gaining Clarity

Our Bodies

Green Super Foods

Living Foods For Healing

Your Body, Your Temple

Hearing The Messages

Transitioning

Make a Plan Then Work Your Plan

Acid Alkaline Food Chart

Acidic Criminals

Gratitude

8.   Planning Meals for Health

Healthy Guidelines For Food Choices

Other Healthy Ideas

Foods To Avoid

Juice Feasting Recipes

Footnotes

Appendix

APPENDIX A — Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)

APPENDIX B — Protein Chart

APPENDIX C — How to Do a Home Enema

APPENDIX D — Sun Salutations

APPENDIX E — Resources

About the Author

I

dedicate this book

to my beautiful daughter Avia,

who has taught me unconditional love, compassion,

gratitude, patience, faith and of course, fashion.

I am so proud of you, you are in my heart and I love you deeply.

May your life be an inspiration for others.

And to my mom Boycie, who is always there for me no matter what.

I love you with all my heart.

I Wanted to Change the World…

When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world.

I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation.

When I found I couldn’t change the nation, I began to focus on my town.

I couldn’t change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my family.

Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is myself…

Suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself,

I could have made an impact on my family.

My family and I could have made an impact on our town.

Their impact could have changed the nation and I could indeed

have changed the world.

—From the Tomb of an unknown Monk, 1100 AD.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Writing this book has been a three-year labor of love, and there are a few people I want to thank for their contributions or simply for their love and support.

With deep gratitude and love I want to thank my family, first, my daughter Avia, who has been such a gift to me. You have been there through it all, and have taught me so much along our journey together. I love you so much.

My mother Boycie for her unconditional love, support, encouragement and for being my ear and listening to every single word of this book while it was being written. Mom, you were my original source of inspiration, and continue to be so.

My father Frank, and DeAnn for all their love and support, and dad, thanks for always making me laugh. Thank you DeAnn for all your energy work, I have learned so much from you. To Kim, for all your guidance and love. My brother Jay, for your wonderful support and for having such a big heart. To Ian, thank you for coming into my life. Thank you to Don Cheff for all your wisdom, love, guidance, and for your gift of healing.

I offer my heartfelt gratitude to Janet Matthews my editor, for all her insight, wisdom and for sharing her knowledge and resources. Thank you for adding your words of insight and experience to the chapters to enrich this book and this whole experience.

Thanks to Karen Thomas for her wonderful cover, inside layout and the lovely finishing touches to the formatting and presentation.

All my clients, students, colleagues, and the people I have met and worked with along the way, I have learned so much from you. Thank you for trusting me to be part of your healing journey. And I am deeply grateful to Yitzhak Freidin and the Kabbalah Center in Toronto for all the wisdom I have learned within your doors.

INTRODUCTION

When I was in grade four someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. A nutritionist, I replied. Even when I was little I inherently knew that eating fruits and vegetables was healthy, and eating a lot of meat was not. I didn’t feel good when I ate meat and dairy, but growing up in Winnipeg back then there were no health food stores, and being a vegetarian was more on the fringe. Because I ate differently and felt differently about food, my brother would often jokingly say, I should go live on a commune. Nutrition and health just seemed to come naturally for me, and I soon realized it was my purpose and my gift.

I learned very early on that everything is energy. We’re all made up of energy and we each vibrate at a certain frequency. We are attracted or repelled by certain things or people, but that which repels us the most is likely mirroring something inside of us.

During the three years it took to write this book I never went anywhere without a notebook, and whenever an idea came to me I would record it. At times I felt as though it was actually being written through me, because I couldn’t write as fast as the thoughts were coming. The book you hold in your hands is mostly the result of my own experiences, realizations, revelations, intuition, lessons, growth, and personal healing journey.

As hard and painful as it is sometimes, in order to get healthier we need to do the internal work on ourselves. There is no escaping it. To be able to see things more clearly, we need to clear away the clutter, not only the physical clutter, but the mental as well. We all have that sixth sense we call intuition, but most of the time we can’t hear it because of all the noise. We need to still the mind and clear away the excess in order to hear our own quiet inner voice, and make room for the new.

Over the years of my career I’ve met so many wonderful people and have learned so much. Every person we meet comes into our life for a reason. The messages I receive for my clients and the resulting advice I impart is usually something I need to hear as well.

When you have a desire for something and you focus on it, it sets the wheels in motion for the universe to bring it to you. I had wanted to find the right editor for this book, someone who had been through their own experiences and had a deep understanding of the process. Then one day I bumped into a client I hadn’t seen for years, and lo-and-behold she had just finished her own book and gave me the name of her editor, Janet Matthews. I contacted Janet, and after we talked I knew she was perfect for me and for this project. While we worked together back and forth through the editorial process, a lot of the realizations, emotions, and lessons I had experienced while writing this book came flooding back. So I know this book will help you, if you just open your heart and allow.

This book is about what it takes to achieve good health. It’s about food, attitude, emotions, and going deep within and discovering your true authentic self. When you start to peel away the layers and remove the blockages, you begin to understand who you are and what your body needs. There is a light giving energy inside each of us—an inner guide and a well of nourishment that is always available to tap into when we need it, as long as we keep adding to the well with nourishing foods, thoughts, intentions, relationships, actions and self-love.

In order to heal we need to find the metaphor. When we do, we need to fully understand it, apply it and make the necessary life changes, then our physical symptoms will begin to subside. We get sick because we are not listening to the subtle messages from our bodies. We may intuitively know but not always listen because we might have to make a change to our current situation, and that produces fear. Our body’s natural inclination is for health—homeostasis—and as in all of nature, it has a natural wisdom to perpetually strive for balance.

When I talk about finding the metaphor in order to heal, it’s about understanding the hidden meaning of disease, what it is symbolizing and seeing it as a process of transformation. Then we can live more fully with understanding, insight and awareness, and ultimately develop a deeper relationship with ourselves. When the meaning of disease is understood our level of consciousness changes or there is a shift in our consciousness that enables us to see the disease/ailment as a manifestation of health, to restore balance, not just something random. Most often, from a medical perspective, disease is viewed as the enemy or pathogen that needs to be fought against, which leaves us feeling dis-empowered. If we see dis-ease as a message, having a meaning or purpose, it can help to further our emotional and spiritual understanding.

This is a food self-help book—it’s about understanding food and how it affects our emotional state, and learning to heal through diet. It’s important to know what a balanced diet is, and learn how to eat and not overeat by choosing high quality foods, including chlorophyll-rich plant foods, understanding nutrient density, paying attention to your symptoms, and most importantly developing a positive attitude and being grateful.

Most of us have lost the connection between what we are eating, why we are eating, who we are feeding and how we feel inside. Eating can be a distraction—junk food laden with fat, sugar and chemicals can suppress emotions providing false emotional comfort. We forget what it feels like to feel nourished. When we are nourished we are in touch with who we really are.

Food has healing properties, and when you purify your diet, a number of healing reactions may arise from the residue of past emotions and experiences that have been left unresolved. Issues get stored in our tissues and create energy blockages, which lead to pain. Eating the right amount of pure, nutritious food will help release and eliminate the issues we have digested and stored. Our bodies are very forgiving and when we stop our destructive habits and behaviors, nature will give us a whole new opportunity for a wondrous life.

We all have a purpose in our lives, and I realize that mine is to share my knowledge and reach as many people as I can. I hope this book speaks to you, as much as the writing of it has brought joy and satisfaction to me.

Love, Ara Wiseman

—1—

Nutrition:

The Building Blocks

HOW DO WE BRING BALANCE?

The food we eat is one of life’s greatest pleasures and represents many things—comfort, nourishment, love, sharing, health, energy and vitality, joy and celebration. Sadly, many of us have lost sight of this joy and celebration of life. Today, our relationship with food has often slipped out of balance to become one of compulsions, fears, anxieties and guilt. To heal this imbalance, we need to connect to our inner awareness and wisdom, and start listening to our body. The simple daily act of eating has the potential to become a profound guide for our spiritual growth. When the necessary proportion of nutrients needed for health is not being met, the body will crave the missing nutrients and often attempt to find them by overindulging in unhealthy foods. If we still don’t obtain them, the result will be an imbalance, which often leads to illness. So how do we bring balance, harmony and joy back into our relationship with food? Your human body has a natural inclination towards health along with an innate wisdom to perpetually strive for balance. When our body is in balance we are in harmony with nature. We are emotionally receptive and open, mentally focused with clarity, physically energetic and full of life—we are open and can stand in the truth that lies within us. When in a state of balance we lose our cravings for sweets, salty foods and junk food, and desire only foods that will keep us feeling in balance. But, when in a state of imbalance, we are agitated, stressed and reactive, and this is when disease can occur.

What Is A Balanced Diet—Really?

The first ingredient in a balanced diet is awareness and an understanding of the impact our food choices have on our health, and the health of our planet, which affects our society at large. Everything is connected. Food affects our attitudes and beliefs, our spirituality, our relationships and of course the quality of our lives. Somewhere deep inside we all yearn for balance and to find peace with the most fundamental necessity of life—nourishment. The food we eat becomes a part of us as we metabolize, assimilate, and absorb the energy it provides into our own energy, until we become one. Food enters into us, dissolves within us, penetrates our cells, contributes its energy to us and therefore becomes us—it is the most intimate of connections. Therefore, we must feed ourselves with love, and be discriminate as to what we consume. Just as there are many layers to an onion, there are multiple layers to our feelings and relationship with food. We carry complex, deeply rooted, intimate feelings and thoughts about food that come from our childhood experiences and memories, cultural beliefs and emotional connections.

A balanced diet is really a balanced approach where you consider the energy of the food you are consuming and ultimately assimilating to become an intimate part of you. Therefore, the thought of eating junk food or fast food would have no appeal—over time it destroys cells and tissue while robbing your body of nutrients in its wake. A balanced approach is choosing foods that are easy on your digestive system, such as foods in their raw, uncooked natural state that provide a broad range of nutrients. Eating a variety of fruits and vegetables, especially green leafy vegetables, every day will provide you with energy and the nutrients you require. When you begin to really understand the impact of the choices you make, only then will you move to a more balanced approach in all areas of your life.

Basic Nutrients We All Need

The Eleven Most Important Nutrients are:

Your body requires each of these nutrients every single day. It needs proper nutrition for energy production, to boost the immune system to fight off diseases, to rebuild tissue, to detoxify and to nourish us to sustain life. Everything we eat should be made up of these nutrients. Most foods contain these nutrients in different proportions—some foods contain only one or two. Let’s begin by taking a look at mother’s milk. The perfect food for infants, it has more fat than protein and it makes babies double their birth weight in six months. It is interesting to note that it is only 1.6% protein. Mother’s milk also contains carbohydrates and water.

White sugar on the other hand is 99.5% carbohydrates and very nutritionally deficient. Sugar is a fragmented plant food derived from sugar cane, and all the nutrients have been refined away. When you eat a lot of white sugar those missing nutrients must be found elsewhere or it will create an imbalance and your body will show deficiency symptoms. That is not even mentioning how addictive, unhealthy and destructive white sugar is. You need lots of water, protein, vitamins and minerals to counteract the imbalance.

When our internal environment is healthy it naturally provides neurotransmitters and hormones to help us feel good and overcome stressful situations. When those resources are not accessible and we don’t have the nutritional resources to draw from, our natural instinct is to find them externally to seek relief from pain. Unfortunately unhealthy junk food full of fat and chemical additives, too much sugar, salt and caffeine, drugs and alcohol are sometimes easier and more accessible. Approximately 90% of what is sold in our modern supermarkets is unhealthy, refined carbohydrates, processed food and sugar coated junk that sets the stage early for unhealthy addictions.

In the book Your Right to Be Beautiful, The Miracle of Raw Foods,¹ Tonya Zavasta says, The produce department is where the living food is, as we move into where the refrigerated products are, this is the morgue where the corpses are prevented from decaying and decomposing in cold temperatures. The aisles where the boxed, packaged, and cans are is the crypt, these containers house the ashes of the food that was once alive, then killed and later cremated.

Over seventy years ago Weston A. Price wrote a book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration,² where he summarized his studies of fourteen isolated primitive tribes. When civilization reached these races, abnormalities began to develop as a result of adopting the modern diet. Refined and devitalized foods brought progressive facial deformities in children born to parents who abandoned their original diet. Nutritional deficiencies caused crowded teeth, narrowed facial structure and birth defects.

THE ELEVEN MOST IMPORTANT NUTRIENTS

Healthy Complex Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates are our main source of energy and play an important role in the functioning of our nervous system, muscles, and internal organs. Carbohydrate foods include fruits, vegetables, root vegetables, squashes, whole grains such as quinoa, millet, brown rice, buckwheat, buckwheat soba noodles, beans, sprouted breads, sprouted mung beans, sunflower, alfalfa and broccoli sprouts and so on. Sprouts are not high in carbohydrates but are high in nutrients and are vitalized, living foods, which