2019-05-01_Better_Nutrition

(^14) • MAY 2019
trendWATC H
Celebrity trainer Alex Penix shares the story of his awakening—
and the physical, mental, and spiritual steps needed for our own
transformations—in his new 43-day devotional, Seven Sundays:
A Faith, Fitness, and Food Plan for Lasting Spiritual and Physical
Change. The biblically-inspired book aims to help readers fi nd
the same higher power that helped Penix heal childhood wounds
and achieve a deeper sense of wellbeing.
“I want people to understand that we are body, mind, and
spirit,” he says. “But our bodies—and that includes our brain—
In the Spotlight:
Alec Penix
For this celebrity trainer, the path to a firm core
means more than repeated trips to the gym—
it’s a heartfelt journey to emotional and spiritual
wholeness. And nourishing the mind and body
with natural foods helps fuel this quest /// By Chris Mann
Chris Mannis a wellness and fitness writer, natural health brand storyteller, entertainment author and journalist, and digital-content producer (ChrisMann.tv). Check out his blog, wellseeingtv.com. PH
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Why is awareness of what we eat—and,
especially for emotional eaters, why we
eat it—key to making a sustainable shift
to healthier eating?
I say that awareness is the key to making
any change in your life. Willpower can last for
however long, but if we’re not really dealing
with the wound—because with food it’s
really as much emotional as it is physical—
and really aren’t bringing that awareness to
the surface and understanding why we are
choosing this food rather than that food,
then we aren’t going to make a shift that
lasts long term. So I want people to start
understanding why they’re making some
of the decisions they’re making. Once that
happens, as long as they desire that change,
they have the education and awareness and
knowledge to make that step forward and
start creating that (lasting) shift in their lives.
How can moving to a diet of all-natural
foods—namely those you call the 10 Faith-
Full Foods—help in this transformation?
Whenever we’re introducing a food that isn’t
man-made, that is healthy, that is good for us,
I want the awareness to be, “this food is good
for me, this food is changing my life, this food
is making me feel alive and changing my body,
changing my mind.” You start reconditioning
the way you look at these healthy foods. And
when you bring in (man-made) Faith-Less
Foods, you start making those connections
that will turn you away from them.
Once we start going through that process
of reconditioning, we start making positive
linkages to the food we want and negative
connections to the foods we don’t want.
This is the awareness I want when people
bring these foods in—that they’re ultimately
saying that this is the food that God has
made. The other foods are ones that man
has made, has reformed, has refined, and
has taken out some of their nutritional value.
Whereas this (natural) food is plentiful the
way it comes. When we remind ourselves of
that, that’s when I believe we begin to really
see a major shift in our eating habits.
Which all-natural sweetening foods can
help us cut out Faith-Less sugar?
Some of the natural sweeteners I turn to
are stevia, the 100 percent extract, and monk
fruit. Also, molasses and maple syrup are
For celebrity trainer Alex Penix,
a healthy whole foods-based
diet is a matter of faith.
good options. If we introduce these natural
options, even the maple syrup a little bit—
which is okay (even though) there is sugar
in it—our bodies will respond favorably.
The body wants these natural foods, it
knows how to digest these natural foods.
So as long as we’re exercising and eating
properly and sleeping, once we get our bodies
on a rhythm, we can start incorporating
some of these healthier sweeteners.
What are your favorite energizing snacks?
For a long time I didn’t have energy bars.
But recently I found G2G or Good to Go bars
and absolutely fell in love with them. As
a trainer I’m always on my feet, so I need
an extra source of protein and carbs that
is all-natural. I can also turn to things like
almonds, cashews, and walnuts. And I can
also snack on any type of lean meat with
some cheese. And there’s nothing easier
than hard-boiled eggs with vegetables or
low-glycemic fruits. There’s an endless amount
of all-natural snacks we can turn to that
will help us nourish that feeling of hunger
and allow us to have that sustainability that
I think we all desire throughout the day.
have been
conditioned
for so many years. So by doing a process
like Seven Sundays, we’re making new
conditioning habits and new distinctions, shifting our nervous
system and connecting ourselves with a healthier lifestyle and
the way it makes us feel. It’s just changing the way you used
to do things and walking into a new path—and understanding
that we do have dominion over these choices.”