There has been a great response to the inspiring letter from a reader who recovered after 15 years of bulimia. So many people were touched, just as I was, by her words of hope, strength and healing. She asked me a question about genetics that I think is a very important one. I will share my response in this post.

The Question
One of the questions I am still struggling with is people’s genetic component. I believe that most ED people (although I do not know any so just by intuition) genetically tend to be over weight. They inherited that from their parents so they tend to worry about weight since very early age. So once they reach to their teenage and become a bit overweight, they feel hopeless and might think binge eating and purging is the only way they can achieve fitness. How could we fight against our GENE? I often wonder if healthy eating could change a person’s genetic component. I mean you could change some of things you inherit from your parents, such as bad eating habit, but what about some deep physical components (e.g., low blood pressure, under active thyroid, etc.) Would we change or improve or better manage our negative genetic components by eating healthily? I would like to know your insight about this. I am fighting again my family gene. It seems to me now that I was able to manage.

Some Thoughts
This is a great question because I feel like a whole research paper could be written on it! I will see how much sense I can make of the complexities of the human body – keeping in mind that while I am not a medical professional, I have learned from one of the foremost visionaries in the world of health, Donna Gates. I will share what I learned and some of my theories.

Mind, Body & Spirit – A Key Component
Regarding genes, yes, there is a genetic component in all of us, which predisposes us to certain conditions – although we may or may not ever end up with those conditions. I have often read that it is our lifestyle that ends up determining what we get. Based on my own experience and what I have been studying, it seems that the components of mind, body and spirit are critical to our lifestyle.

For example, I read in the Dr. Mercola website that 85% of stress is caused by our emotions, so it’s important to pay attention to our emotional health. At the same time, we have this human body – and in today’s society, we tend to burn the candle at both ends, never having time to prepare healthy foods, eat meals without multi-tasking and even get enough sleep. In fact, I will be doing an interview with a nurse and colon hydrotherapist soon about all of the additives the food industry puts in processed foods to make people want to eat more – and that harm our bodies.

Our minds and bodies are connected in ways scientists are still learning about, so it pays to balance both of them. My theory is that when mind and body are balanced, the spirit is set free because we feel good. When we feel good, it is easier to reach our goals, live our dreams and let go of fear. When we feel bad, it is much harder to do so. Chronic pain and chronic fear are challenging obstacles and can keep us stuck – at least that was true for me.

Born With An Inner Eco-System Imbalance
I highly recommend reading The Body Ecology Diet and some of the newer articles and books coming out by Donna Gates. She has long taught about what happens to babies born with a compromised inner ecosystem (the system through which our bodies come into balance, naturally).

Consider our stressed out society – and the fact that women are under tremendous stress working and being pregnant. This stress may cause poor eating habits and a buildup of toxins even before the baby is conceived. Once conceived, if the mother is still under stress, the baby is further compromised, taking the stress and toxins into it’s body. What happens is that the baby can be born with a compromised inner ecosystem – missing the healthy microflora that keep the baby safe from illness and infection. Or the baby could be born with constipation, candida or other issues, which can further cause problems.

Keep a lookout for Donna’s articles on healthy pregnancy and birth coming out about this – it is very enlightening and can teach us a lot about what can happen – the good news is that The Body Ecology Diet heals this inner ecosystem imbalance. The bad news is that mainstream food manufacturers, restaurants and medical providers make it so easy to eat processed foods and take drugs – keeping us imprisoned in consumerism and looking outside ourselves for the answers.

The Answers Lie Within
Just as the spiritual gurus tell us the answers lie within us, the same is true for our health. We have the power to create our good health, including our ideal weight. The key is lifestyle, which often means making tough choices. It often means going against the mainstream, which espouses an overscheduled life, lots of exciting, easy, fast foods and drugs to cure our ills. I’ll do another post on taking drugs – I was struck by this reader’s letter that seemed to show adverse reactions to drugs. I have some research to share on using drugs for eating disorders that might be interesting. And since I am hinting at an opinion here, I don’t want anyone to think I am against drugs in all situations.

Lifestyle – The Missing Link
Our bodies are meant to be slim – not heroin chic skinny (maybe for some naturally thin vata constitutions) – but our lifestyles compounded by lack of a healthy inner ecosystem can throw them out of whack. I would also like to add that our minds can play a big role in weight as well – I’ve read and heard many accounts of “emotional weight,” that once lifted, resulted in physical loss of weight as well.

The confusing thing is we look at our parents, siblings and other family members and see one thing, but we often forget to look at their habits. My family is an interesting case. My father is in good shape and eats a lot – we sometimes call him a human garbage disposal. My mother and sister have struggled with their weight for years. I am more like my father, although I am not a human garbage disposal! The big difference is that my father and I exercise regularly. Not obsessively, just regularly, for about an hour each day. We are type O bloods, who need good exercise regularly and we honor that. My mother and my sister don’t exercise – or if they do, it’s only every once in awhile. Yet, there were times when they did exercise regularly and they became slim easily.

While I don’t want to equate exercise as the only key here, I do want to mention that one of the lifestyle habits that my father and I had in common was exercise, while my mother and sister did not. The idea here is, we tend to “inherit” lifestyle habits just as easily as we may inherit a gene. I always admired my father’s athleticism, so I followed his lifestyle habit with respect to that.

Some lifestyle habits that have helped me in my recovery are (this list took time to develop in my life, by the way):

  • Reducing stress
  • Doing work I love
  • Getting at least 7 hours of sleep each night
  • Meditating
  • Working with my thoughts
  • Eating foods that heal my inner ecosystem – correcting my digestion so my body can get the nutrients it needs
  • Cleansing
  • Choosing friends who have values aligned with mine
  • Creating balance in my life – not taking on too much
  • Setting personal boundaries and sticking to them – speaking up to negotiate them
  • Regular exercise (no longer overexercising)

These are all habits that help rest my adrenals, correct my digestion, heal my thyroid, decongest my liver and kill the candida that has been in my body for years. None of these are lifestyle habits my parents or sister are employing, although I hope to work with my sister on some of them since she has been expressing some interest of late. I’ve found that people get into their mid-thirties and up and start to experience health issues that can be corrected naturally – this is when they really get interested.

Back To You, Reader — And To All
Just like you, reader, who had the courage to listen to yourself and find your own answers – it sometimes means following a path that is not clearly laid out. How beautiful that you took the steps you knew were right for you! How amazing that you healed yourself and found your strength! You have found your power and you have the ability to create lifestyle habits that continue to express the self-love that you deserve.

This is true for all of us. The thing is, we deserve it – to create the lives of our dreams. We deserve to come up with what our dreams are and work toward them, even if it seems impossible at first. Our minds are powerful and they can either keep us in prison or set us free! I think I wrote on Palmtreechick’s blog – the story about the baby elephant. When elephants are babies, the owners tie their leg to a tree with a rope so they can’t get away. The elephant then grows into an adult – at this point, the owner only needs to tie a rope to a stick – because the elephant thinks it can’t get away. In actuality, the elephant is so powerful that it could probably pull down the tree it was attached to as a baby.

We imprison ourselves with our own thoughts. How can you change one thought today, that will set you free?

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