There are many websites that provide details of the benefits lifestyle changes and a healthy eating regime can achieve. When yiu reach the stage when you realize you may need to revise your earing habits, you will be welcome at our retreat to embark upon your new lifestyle.
This comprehensive bookprovided a handy reference guide, it is available as a .pdf download:here: MACROBIOTICS FOR EVERYONE
Here at:
we promote the principles aand practices of Macrobiotics which include healthy choices
in nutrition, activity and lifestyle providing a platform for physical,
emotional, mental, social and environmental health.
To this end we only prepare and serve vegetarian and vegan meals from our kitchen using produce from our own gardens and locally sourced fruit and vegetables.
The only oil we use for cooking and salad dressings is provided by our own olive grove of six hundred tree. Each year we enter our olive oil into a agricultural fair competition held at the regional capital of Mugle and have received two gold medals for the quality of our oil.Our oil produced by the trees on the upper slopes is of medicinal quality and definitely not for cooking.
'Cadavarians' (flesh eaters),that spend some time with us eating only a vegetarian diet usually leave committed to continuing with a meat free or at least a meat reduced diet.
Many diets, especially those for the purpose of losing weight fail because they're either too drastic or upon completion most people lapse back to their previous eating habits. A change toa Macrobiotics eating regime requires a permanent lifestyle shift that need not be drastic. The best way is to take it slowly, cutting out meat and animal derived products gradually.
Everyone is different and there are many reasons why people choose to become full or partially vegetarian or vegan.
It's not necessary to go the whole way at the outset, just cutting down on the foods that are non-macrobiotic (unhealthy) will lead to discernable life and health changes that will help to reinforce your commitment towards eating more healthily and your macrobiotic lifestyle becoming closer to 100%.
Eating a healthy diet is beneficial, and advantages include living longer, feeling happier, radiance gain, loss of excess weight and a healthier appearance. Processed food is the enemy, it reduces the quality of life, eating healthily means your immune system is boosted enhancing your ability to fight off disease leading to a longer life.
When it comes to leading a happy and carefree life, maintaining a
healthy diet is a natural anti-depressant.
But of course, diet
alone is not the whole story, remember you need to combine a good eating
regime with proper exercise for both your mind and body through Yoga,
other exercises and Meditation.
Good health means a better life, giving you more energy and the confidence to face life, whatever obstacles present themselves.
A typical day at our Olive Garden Retreat starts with Yoga at 07:00 followed by a short period of Meditation. At 09:00 it's time for a group breakfast at which the program for that day is outlined.
You are what you eat..
The Ohsawa 10 Day Detox Diet
Processed food products, sugary drinks, most 'fast foods' and the like all contain additives that are act like toxins that circulate throughout the body. A considerable amount of energy is expended unnessisarily dealing with these unwanted toxins.
Many of the cells in the body are replaced within a 10 day cycle. This is one of the reasons the Ohsawa 10 day detox diet was developed, the table below lists the cells in the body that can be completely 'de-toxed' during a 10 day cycle:
The Ohsawa 10 day Detox Diet consists of eating YANG cereals (wheat, buckwheat, millet, wholegrain rice, oats and barley) (and nothing else) for 10 days. The allowed foods can be eaten in any quantity and can be cooked or boiled (not fried), and the only additional ingredients allowed are water and salt. You should never feel hungry, so you can eat as much as you need whenever you want!
It's advisable to vary the grains you consume each day and try to be creative, there are many ways to prepare the allowed grains, roasted buckwheat for example, porridge oats (with or without salt - no sugar) for breakfast etc., this also provides for a more balanced intake of vitamins, minerals and fiber.
For sure it's not an easy diet to stick to and there is usually a high failure rate, however we've discovered that by participating as part of a group, the success rate can be as high as 100%.
Microbes
It's not just the part of you that's you that benefits from a Macrobiotic eating regime.
Microorganisms inhabit every part of the human body numbering in the trillions, outnumbering human cells by a factor of 8 to 1. They live on the skin, in the gut, up the nose, in fact everywhere.
So most of your body is made up of bacteria, archaea and various types of fungi. Most of these microorganisms live in harmony with their human host and are necessary for the proper functioning of the body, in fact without them we would not have evolved as a species, nor would we survive.
Everyone routinely carries pathogens and microorganisms known to cause illnesses. In healthy individuals, however, pathogens cause no disease; they simply coexist with their host and the rest of the human microbiome.
That's why it's so important to keep your microbes happy by maintaining your body and immune system in peak condition.