I had a very inspiring presentation from Tamara de Weijer. Some background on Doctor de Weijer, doctor indeed she is a general practitioner. But what was it that triggered me in this 1,5 hour session was the way she presented it; very honest and vulnerable but with some shocking facts and results. She started with the words from Hippocrates; “Let food be your medicine and medicine be your food”. When she finished her medical studies, she realized that during her study food was not discussed and not brought up as a solution to prevent diseases. She was taught to subscribe medicines and not bell peppers!
How to Change your Lifestyle
On her own experience she lost weight, increased her condition and got rid of here stomach pain by changing her diet and give her body what it needed. She explained how the sugar gives you a rush and a dip after a couple of hours when the insulin is doing the job to lower the blood sugar level. Insulin ensures that the sugar can be absorbed by the cells in the body. To help the body by not giving it too much sugar you don’t have these high blood sugar fluctuations and the urge for sugar will be less. She showed a lot of food products and we had to guess which contains the most sugar?! White bread is full of sugars…… Plain sugar you can recognize on the label, but do you know all added sugar names like; syrups, dextrose, fructose, glucose, lactose and maltose. You can find over 50 kinds of sugar added names!
Tip: Check the labels on the food products you buy in the supermarket.
Did you know that in Sardinia the people are among the healthiest in the world?! Only because they eat less pre-fabricated meals and ingredients. All is fresh and not fabricated in a factory where they add unnecessary and unhealthy ingredients like sugar, fat or salt.
Did you know that high cholesterol, obesity and eating not enough fruit and vegetables are among the highest risks leading to death?!
Did you know that your taste will take 30 days to change?! Try to skip the sugar out of your coffee or tea. The first days you will find this disgusting, but after 30 days when you add the sugar again, you find it disgusting the other way!
Main takeaways of this inspiring session:
- Skip as much sugar in your daily life. If you want to eat it, eat a decent version (buy a good piece of chocolate instead of a cheap milky version) and enjoy it.
- Buy as less as you can pre-fabricated products, pure and natural are the best; biological is even better.
- No wonder we desire sugar and fat, the mother milk we got had the same ingredients.
- By changing your lifestyle you can reduce your risks of illness like diabetic type 2 in the future. Or when you already have it, get ride of it!
- Tamara showed examples of patients that reduced the amount of pills from 7 to only 1 per day by changing the diet and lifestyle!
- Give the body the fuel it needs!
Tamara explained that not only food but also exercise, sleep, meaning in life, social environment and relaxing are a tool to increase your well-being. She has written two books (Dutch) on this topic and is chairman of the Doctor and Lifestyle Association in the Netherlands.
I already knew a lot of what Tamara presented in this session and still she inspired me with new tips and facts; so I hope via this blog I help to inspire you too and have a happy healthy lifestyle! Check her website and follow her on Instagram and check my healthy recipes on my Food page.
Are you convinced to change your lifestyle?!
