If you’re like me, you’ve heard someone say, “I eat healthy” a thousand times.
Maybe you even said it yourself, maybe it was even true!
Therefore, through this article, I am going to inform you that a “nutritious or healthy diet” is just a part of a larger whole, a whole that contributes massively to health, fitness, and vitality.
You’ll find that just because you eat “well” doesn’t mean you get “well” nourished. Why?
It’s because diet is what you eat, but diet is what you actually get from that diet, then use and get rid of. Hopefully by the end of the article you’ll realize that there’s a lot going on between putting good food in your mouth and assimilation!
So what? Well, if you want the best health, you need to pay attention to each of these 6 areas. You want to make sure you’re supporting each phase of the diet to work efficiently. To cover that, here’s a basic overview of the “Six Stages of Nutrition.” I’ll briefly go over each phase, how we define it, why it’s important to your health, and what you can do to make it work better. One of the best ways to use this information is to realize that you take care of your body, it can take care of you. Let’s take a quick look at each one.
Phase #1 Diet: Nutrition is everything you eat and drink, not just the foods you eat but also all liquids and supplements. It pays to remember the things you can’t see in your food (food additives, pesticides, antibiotics, hormones and other toxins) and the things you do want to see (if they hadn’t already been taken out, like in garbage and processed foods), as well as alcohol and medication. Nutrition is the phase where you should spend most of your time focusing on improving as it is the phase you have the most control over (the other phases are indirectly controlled while nutrition is under direct control, although this is the way most people eat – mindlessly – would lead you to guess that there isn’t much control at all!). You can see the effects of changing the nutritional aspect of the six stages as a trickle down effect where each subsequent stage is affected by the choices you make in your diet.
Stage #2 Digestion: The process of breaking down food into nutrients that can be used by the body. When you eat food, your body immediately starts breaking it down, which takes place in the mouth, stomach, and intestines. It’s a very effective system until something goes wrong, and when it does it causes a whole cascade of effects that you really don’t want to experience. Fortunately, the best way to support your digestion is with a good diet; one that has the right mix of cooked and raw food and liquids for YOUR body. In times of stress, supplementation with enzymes, amino acids, vitamins, minerals and herbal supplements is necessary.
Level 3 absorption: The process of passing nutrients through the intestinal walls to get to the next stage. This phase is largely controlled by digestion, so focusing on digestion will almost always improve your absorption. In general, the better your digestion, the better your absorption. Most often, dietary supplements are designed to aid in both digestion and absorption.
Stage #4 Circulation: The process by which your nutrients are transported throughout your body, and like any transportation system, it is subject to blockages, depletion, breakdown and ineffectiveness. Luckily, you can do your part to avoid getting congested by eating right, exercising right, and paying attention to the indicators of good circulation.
Stage #5 Assimilation: The process by which your cells absorb nutrients from the bloodstream for energy, repair, and growth. Due to the modern diet, its imbalanced ratio and distribution of fats, and the unfortunate processing and decomposition of food, this stage is often a bottleneck to good health. Why? Because even if you have a fantastic supply of nutrients flushing through your body when the cells are closed to commerce or traded ineffectively, you are not getting the most out of those nutrients. One of the secrets to good health is keeping your cells functioning properly, and if you tire easily or have low energy, this can be a contributing factor.
Elimination stage 6: This is the process of removing waste, toxins, and dead cells, which are then expelled from the body. It’s the end of the flagpole. Literally. And if you think that doesn’t matter, try sticking a potato in your car’s exhaust and see what happens! You can think of three stages of elimination; 1, from the cells to the bloodstream (or lymphatic system), 2, from the bloodstream to the organs of waste collection and disposal, 3, from the organs of waste collection and disposal to the outside. Most of the time this system works well when all other parts are working, but sometimes one of the levels of elimination (usually the cells or the gut) needs a little support.
As you read the above, did you realize that the six stages of nutrition are interdependent?
So if just one stage loses its function, it can cause the entire system to collapse or stop functioning optimally (you experience this as fatigue, stress, sickness, illness, injury, or pretty much anything else you could describe as a problem ). The health of your body as a whole depends on your cells receiving the right amounts and types of nutrients, so your cells depend on the six phases of nutrition. You can use this as a map to find out where to improve and what to focus on. Luckily, your body is also incredibly resilient and can be treated like garbage for quite some time. That doesn’t mean you can’t do without taking good care of it, quite the opposite, if you want the best out of your body you have to put the best into it. A bit like the old saying “garbage in = garbage out”. Let’s learn how to put quality in so you get quality out!
Thanks to George Matthew Harris
