Are you dealing with nagging pains and discomfort? Perhaps a little indigestion, gas and bloating? Are you nearing 40 or 50 and not feeling as energized, put on a little weight, get ill more often or have become a little absent-minded? How about being on prescription medicines? Think it’s normal for so many to be medicated for hypertension or high cholesterol? It’s all part of life and aging, right?

NO – it’s all part of a poor diet! Aging is an accumulation of bad diet choices, low physical activity, and toxins in our food and environment. We could most likely handle most of these toxins if we would just quit eating sugar and processed foods. Diabetes, obesity, heart disease and joint inflammation are all part of metabolic dysregulation and it all begins with diet.

That cereal or multi-grain bagel you consume for breakfast, the sandwich and Doritos you have for lunch and the pizza and pasta for supper, plus any snacking of yogurt, chocolate, soft drinks, high sugar “healthy protein” bars and so on, creates an insulin spike in your body.

The hormone insulin flowing through your body after eating the above does a couple of things. What surprises most people is during the insulin spike, you don’t burn stored fat. In fact, it actually stores the food and helps make fat. The various other things it does is it creates a physical craving for sweets and carbs so you end up eating more of the bad foods.

Now, back to all the pain and dis-ease. There’s a vicious circle when you take in a low fat, high in sugar and grains or other starchy carbohydrates (potatoes) diet:.

1. High refined carb meals bring about insulin spikes (all carbohydrates convert to sugar in your body).
2. Muscle cells end up being insulin resistant because of bad diet choices and lack of physical activity.
3. Sugar deposits as fat in fat cells.
4. The moment fat cells become insulin resistant (tired of sugar and insulin), you’re on the road to Diabetic issues.
5. High insulin induces sodium retention, which could cause high blood pressure.
6. Fat cells can secrete inflammatory substances which create capillary damage, oral plaque buildup, all those aches and pains, sadness, illness and increased oxidative stress bringing about a cognitive decline.

So when you have these little (or not so little) aches and pains that we credit to “aging”, you truly have signs of metabolic dysregulation or too many carbs on your plate. And it’s not age. If all these problems were merely age, why do I have so many clients between 10 and 30 years old with pains, depression, reoccurring illnesses, hypertension, high cholesterol, over weight and pre-diabetes? Every one of these issues are symptoms of insulin resistance.

You wouldn’t imagine how fantastic you will feel consuming a diet without processed foods and sugar but rather healthy and balanced fats with lots of fresh veggies! Aches and pains vanish, and you have good side effects like weight loss, and cholesterol and blood pressure levels go back to normal. But most of all you know you aren’t eating yourself to an early grave but rather living longer with a high quality of life.

Dr. Tina Paul, BCND, Traditional Naturopath, Vibrant Living Wellness Center, 144 W. Sierra Madre Blvd., Sierra Madre, (626) 470-7711 or visit www.vibrantlivingwc.com.