Introduction

The unvarnished truth is:  there are at least 4 generations of adults, who are facing an early grave – and taking their children with them – because they are overweight or obese!

 And, for most of them, death will be preceded by an extended period of suffering brought on by Diabetes, Coronary Disease, Heart Attack, Stroke, Failing Joints and/or Cancer.

 Discussion

“The U.S. could be facing its first sustained drop in life expectancy in the modern era,  . . . but this decline is not inevitable if Americans — particularly younger ones — trim their waistlines or if other improvements outweigh the impact of obesity.” (The New England Journal of Medicine, March 17, 2005.)

 The authors report that, unless steps are taken to curb excessive weight gain, younger Americans will likely face a greater risk of mortality throughout life than previous generations.

 “Over the next few decades, life expectancy for the average American could decline  . . . unless aggressive efforts are made to slow rising rates of obesity.” according to a team of scientists supported in part by the National Institute on Aging (NIA), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).

 “This work paints a disturbing portrait of the potential effect that life styles of baby boomers and the next generation could have on life expectancy,” reports Richard M. Suzman, Ph.D., Associate Director of the NIA for Behavioral and Social Research.

 Indeed, Suzman notes, obesity may already have had an effect. The sharp increase of obesity among people now in their 60s, he suggests, may be one explanation why the gains in U.S. life expectancy at older ages have been less than those of other developed countries in recent years.

 According to the NEJM report, studies suggest that two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese.  One study cited by the authors indicates that the prevalence of obesity in U.S. adults has increased about 50 percent per decade since 1980.

 Additional research has shown that people who are severely obese live up to 20 years less than people who are not overweight. Some researchers have estimated that obesity causes about 300,000 deaths in the U.S. annually.

 In addition, obesity is fueling an epidemic of type 2 Diabetes (which also reduces people’s lifespan.)

 “These trends suggest that the relative influence of obesity on the life expectancy of future generations could be markedly worse than it is for current generations,” Olshansky and the authors conclude in their report.

 “In other words, the life-shortening effect of obesity could continue to rise … in the coming decades, as the people who are now at younger ages carry their elevated risk of death associated with being overweight or obese, into middle and older ages.”¹

People, who are overweight, or obese, should not need another lecture.

What they need is a reliable, affordable way to lose weight.

 Here it is … “To change the way things are, you change the things you do.”

 Treat Your Body With Respect:

 Eat three meals each day

• Eat breakfast - and make sure it is nutritious not something you pick up on the way to work!
• Eat copious quantities of vegetables (5 –7 baseball-sized servings, differently colored)
• Reduce meat consumption to about the size of a deck of cards – once a day – red meat once a week.
• Reduce snacks – between meals and at work-breaks.  Eliminate them completely, once you have overcome your addiction.  The University of Michigan, Integrative Medicine Department explains why.

Rule to Live By:  If you don’t buy it, you can’t eat it.

 Exercise moderately for about 10 minutes each, morning and night.  Walking is hard to beat!

 Get Organized

• Multitasking means you are doing several things, at the same time, poorly.
• Leave your problems at home.
• Leave your work at work.
• Go to sleep at a reasonable hour.

 Grow Up

• Find the discipline to change your ways.

Rule to Live by:  You’re the culprit – not a victim

• Stop teaching your kids the same mistakes.

Rule to Live By:  If you don’t buy it, they can’t eat it.

Fix What You Have Broken

People who are overweight, or obese, manifest some or all of the following situations:

• Malnutrition
• Mineral Deficiency
• Irregular Bathroom Habits
• Suppressed Metabolism manifesting as lack of energy and/or irregular sleep with diminished cellular regeneration and detoxification.

This is precisely where dietary supplements fit the equations for losing weight.  And don’t scrimp!  That fancy coffee you used to drink every morning costs $6.00 – simply reinvest that money for something that will benefit you instead of the coffee house.

The objectives are:

• Fill your body with as much basic nutrition as possible to make up for the years of neglect so your body can begin healing itself.
• Eliminate the accumulated debris inside your intestinal tract and the toxins inside your body.  These are the barriers for healing and the source of frustration when it seems your weight loss program isn’t working.
• Support the two metabolisms, catabolic (daytime) and anabolic (nighttime) that power your body.

Conclusion

The issues of being overweight or obese have been studied and talked about ad nauseam.  All the warnings, contained in thousands of reports, Government programs and even prohibitions, whether national, local or in your child’s school are doomed to fail.   Why – because no one personalizes the issue.

You look at a kid who is overweight eating a snack, and see a fat kid whose parents should be doing something.  You look at your own child, in the same circumstance, and see “big bones” and deserving of a treat.  Or, you see a “muffin top”, in unsightly cloths and shake your head.  You see yourself as full figured or barrel-chested.

You make excuses for your decisions:  something quick, something easy, something nice, a nice treat, something, something, something.

Then, if you do decide to take responsibility for the mess you’ve made, you choose a short-term “fix” that once you stop:  starving yourself, exercising to extreme, weighing in, taking shots, popping pills, etc. puts you right back where you started – except your wallet is lighter.

It is your life – it is your choice.  If you want to change the way things are you must change the things you do – forever.

Implement the “Do as I do” rule.  Concern yourself with you, then move on to your spouse, then to your kids.

Stop making excuses – start taking action.  

 NUPRO has developed a weight loss center for on-line guidance and comprehensive weight management programs that many people find helpful for the quest to feel good and look great.

 ¹(Olshansky SJ, Passaro DJ, Hershow RC, Layden J, Carnes BA, Brody J, Hayflick L, Butler RN, Allison DB, and Ludwig DS, “A Potential Decline in Life Expectancy in the United States in the 21st Century,” New England Journal of Medicine, 352:11, pp. 1138-1145)

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 Books, magazines, infomercials, talk shows, television ads, radio ads, newspaper ad feature experts dissecting real and imaginary health concerns that “every American should know about.”  Media advertisers are bombarding you with sound bites or glossy pages for: prescriptive medicine, natural advances and smiling faces extolling near miraculous additions to everyday food.

 Is it any wonder that this torrent of minutia has you confused?

 Your challenge is to remove yourself from this quagmire of irrelevance and come face-to-face with this warning about your health that is similar to a sign you often see in antique stores, “You break it – you bought it.”  Your motto, concerning your health, should be:  “It is easier to stay healthy than to become healthy.”

 Certainly, you need to consider the possibility of the “bad luck” of an unforeseen accident or a particularly virulent infective agent, but, if you manage the factors that you can control, it is more likely that you will enjoy the benefits of being healthy.

 Personally, I cover the known deficiencies that exist in my, and everyone’s, diet – the essentials for wellbeing.  Next, I filter my choices through a question that I ask myself before I choose to do something:  “Will my body thank me for this later?”  When the answer is yes, more often than not, I know I am contributing to my wellbeing.  If the answer is no, I use a nutraceutical supplement that is formulated with combinations of complementary, natural ingredients, intended for a particular purpose, to fill the gap left by my choices.

 Declining Health Is Not Inevitable, But It Is Predictable.   The predictors are:

 You are what you eat.

Joel Wallach, DVM, ND, a noted author, sought out speaker and producer of a controversial tape: Dead Doctors Don’t Lie frequently points out:  “If a visit to the Super Market results in bags of cans, boxes and bags of food, you should throw away the contents and eat the packaging.”  The message is that processing, preserving, enhancing the appearance and taste of these products significantly diminishes their nutritional value.  Whole food, fresh, ripe and properly prepared, is the superior choice.

 Keep your body clean.

In 2006, The American Holistic Medical Association, Guide To Holistic Health reports:  “There are an estimated 80,000 chemicals regularly in use today, with an additional 1,000 to 2,000 chemicals added to this list each year.  Only 3 percent of them have been tested to determine whether they are toxic or carcinogenic.  In 1998, the United states released approximately 500 billion tons of toxic chemicals into the environment.”

 People shower or bathe everyday to keep the outside of their bodies clean.  It is the healthy thing to do.  What about the inside?  The “stuff” in the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat builds up over time.  Keeping the inside of your body as clean as the outside pays dividends.

 Take responsibility.

Invest in your health.  You have the most to lose if your health is compromised.  Stop expecting that someone or some magical machine; thing or plant will fix what you have broken.  It is your body that maintains your health using the nutrients derived from the things you put in your mouth.  Ask the question:  “Will my body thank me for this later?” 

 Do the best you can.

Stress, fast food, skipping meals and inactivity are one set of predictors; rest, a healthy diet and moderate exercise are another.  Choose wisely.  Make changes where you can, then use supplements to fill the gap.  Just remember:  “You break it, you bought it.”

 Health is a journey that features you, the person who has the most to gain, or lose, when you choose a path.

 NOTE:  Are you doing the best you can?  Take the test.

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Mother patiently showed me how to identify my expenses, label an envelope for each expense, divide my money between each expense and put it in the appropriate envelope.  She explained that when the expense came due, the money would be “tucked” away.  All I needed to do is take the money out of the envelope to pay the bill.

And, my mother explained, once my expenses were provided for, I needed to prioritize any remaining money between needs, wants and building a nest egg; then make choices. 

Choices like: wanting to go to the movies to have fun or needing to maintain my car.  Mother pointed out that the car would need tires, the oil changed and repairs; all of which, if not tended, would affect my ability to earn money.  The choice, and the consequence, would be mine.

It was like hearing Aesop’s fable about the grasshopper and the ants.  The grasshopper whiled away the summer – the ants worked to store away food for winter.  When, inevitably, winter came, the grasshopper starved and died – the ants did not.  The grasshoppler failed to budget.  The moral of Aesop’s fable is:  It is best to prepare for the days of necessity. 

The body is a marvel of engineering: joints, ligaments and muscles, working in synchrony to produce force and motion; cells, coordinating with one another, to produce energy, sensation and thought; systems for protection from external and internal agents that could disrupt the harmony that we describe as health; systems to repair damaged and injured cells and tissue.  The coup de gras is the miracle of regeneration that provides the ability for the body to completely rebuild itself, perfectly, every 7 years.

 With one exception, this miracle of life happens automatically.  The body converts food, using water as medium and catalyst, into building blocks that are reassembled to become part of a healthy body, the systems that support it and then, dispose of the waste.

What is the Exception?

The one, and only, thing your body cannot do for itself is select the quality and quantity of food that enters the system.  That is your job.  Making sure that you are “putting enough in the envelopes” to pay the bills when they come due – with something left over for emergencies. 

You can make 3 choices:

When you choose whole food: vegetables, fruit, whole grain, fish, poultry, lean red meat and water, your are meeting your health budget, with a little left over for emergencies.  These whole foods contain the building blocks on which your body relies: protein, essential fatty acids, complex carbohydrates, minerals and vitamins on which the body depends to flourish.  You will enjoy the bounty of health.

When you choose cans, boxes and bags of processed, packaged and preserved food, convenience and fast food, soda, artificial sweeteners, coffee and energy drinks, you are bankrupting your health budget.  The labels on these foods clearly proclaim that they contain flour, sugar and chemicals, the hyphenated words that you can’t pronounce, to enhance taste, color and shelf life.  None of which benefit your body.  If you aren’t sick, you soon will be.

When you choose a combination of the two, you are creating a deficit or, as my mother would say, “You are going broke slowly – ask for a raise or get a second job.”  Your body will do the best it can with what it has to work.  Lacking energy and endurance, obesity, frequent illnesses, declining quality of life and vulnerability to degenerative disease are all predictable outcomes.  You won’t be sick, but you aren’t healthy either.

Are you the grasshopper or are you the ant?

The grasshopper fiddled the summer away, while the ants spent time preparing for winter.  Enjoying a life- time of radiant health is truly a simple issue:  Are you investing in health or are you paying for sickness? 

Do you want to know?  Take the test.

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Here are two questions for you to consider:

• If eating is so simple, why are there so many people who are overweight?
• Why are so many people experiencing declining health over time?

We know, for example, the biology of science, Senescence, is showing that your body is fully capable of rebuilding a perfect replica of itself, cell by cell, every 7 years.  By producing 300 billion cells every night that are programmed to die, it replaces all of the 750 trillion cells that make
up your body.

Every minute of everyday your body assembles and disassembling all sorts of:

Enzymes to:

• digest your food
• operate your body
• fire nerves
• fire metabolism
• repair and replace damaged tissue

Amino acids to produce:

• hormones to start and stop different functions
• neurotransmitters to operate your brain
• immune cells to protect your body
• blood and lymph cells to carry substances around the body
• repair and replace damaged cells and tissue
• and, there’s even more – suffice it to say – the scope is enormous!

Here’s the rub:
the only way your body can do any of this is if the food you are eating contains the “stuff” the body needs to accomplish the tasks.

This business of eating the food you “like” virtually guarantees that your body won’t get what it needs to rebuild a perfect replica of itself – let alone carry on all of its minute by minute activities that keep you focused, active and healthy.

There are two thresholds, energy and nutrition, that must be met or your body ceases to operate efficiently – the perfect replica starts to become less perfect.

Carbohydrates

Your body burns carbohydrates, fat and water to create energy. The main dietary source to energize your body is carbohydrates.

• If you eat too few, or the wrong kind, you will run out of energy before you run out of day.
• If you eat too many or you are eating the wrong kind – you will get fat.
• If you hit the threshold, you will breeze through the day.

The “wrong” ones are easy:  white flour products, vegetables that grow underground, sweet fruits, sugar and sugars that added to packaged food.

• If you cannotburn these simple carbohydrates within two hours your body will turnthem into fat.
• And, you willget hungry because you need energy again.

The best carbohydrates come from whole grains, vegetables that grow above ground and fleshy fruit.  The Harvard School of Public Health provides guidance to help you select the “right” carbohydrates.

Fat

Fat has been painted with too broad of a brush so, people avoid it at all costs – this is a big mistake!  Granted, there is a “wrong” kind that can turn into plaque and body fat if you eat too much of it.

But, the “right” kind is essential to your body – that’s why they are called essential fatty acids.  Essential fatty acids keep your heart and arteries flexible, fight inflammation and support metabolism.   Harvard, once
again, explains the details if you want more information.

Water

Research has shown that within 10 minutes of drinking a pint of water, the metabolism increases by as much as 30 percent.  Other drinks did not show the same effect.

If you drink too little water and you may be at risk for headaches, muscle cramps, dizziness, constipation and other nasty symptoms.

If you drink an adequate amount of water you gain some great benefits such as a clearer mind, more energy and even help your body metabolize body fat.  

The second threshold is nutrition.  The tissue of all plants and animals are made up from building blocks, called Amino Acids.  Your body disassembles the plant and animal tissue then reassembles their Amino Acids, along with minerals to produce your tissue.

Protein
Protein provides the building blocks your body uses to create all of its cells, tissue and fluids are amino acids – they come from protein.  The source for protein is plant and animal tissue.  If you eat too many of the wrong kinds you will plug up digestion, the heart, arteries and your brain.  If you eat too few, your body will start to gradually deteriorate.  If you hit the threshold, you will be blessed with perfect replacement cells that maintain an efficient, perfect body.

The “right ones are easy:  vegetables, fleshy fruit, fish, poultry and limited
meat from vertebrates (beef and pork).  The Harvard School of Public Health provides guidance concerning meat and plant protein.

Minerals

Particular minerals like calcium have received lots of attention, so, there isn’t much to say about it and the other minerals for which a recommended daily intake has been established.

BUT (and there is always a but), most authorities fall silent when it comes to an entire category of minerals called trace minerals.  Also known as electrolytes, this obscure collection of water-soluble minerals are, in fact, essential for your well being.  They are co-factors in virtually every activity of your body.

The assumption is: you will receive sufficient amounts of these important nutrients when you consume fruits and vegetables.

This assumption is wrong in two ways:

• most people do not consume enough vegetables and even if you do consume the recommended 9 servings of vegetables and fruit
• the soils, on which the plants are grown, have long-since been depleted of these elements due to commercial farming practices.

In fact, this is one area were you must rely on a dietary supplement to support your body’s requirements.  They are marketed as Colloidal Minerals and/or trace minerals, typically liquid and a must if you plan on staying healthy.

Water

Did you notice that water is in both thresholds?  Water is your body’s principal chemical component, making up, on average, 60 percent of your body weight.

Every system in your body depends on water.  Water flushes toxins out of vital organs, carries nutrients to your cells, plumbs your body to protect vital tissue and provides a moist environment for ear, nose and throat tissues.

Possibly the most important thing you can do for your body is to keep it hydrated.  The biggest mistake most people make is to believe beverages count toward hydrating the body.

Water is . . . water!  Beverages:  coffee, tea, soda and juice are liquid food.  So, don’t get caught in that trap.

Drink at least 8 – 8oz. glasses of water everyday – more if it is hot, cold or your are sick.   There is no substitute for water and it is free from your tap and, if you let the water sit overnight in an open container, all of the chlorine will dissipate.  Fresh, clean, free water.  What could be better? 

You make the choice then you will experience the consequences.

• Too many simple carbohydrates – you will get fat.
• Too much exercise – you will tear up your joints.
• Too few minerals – your body can’t work right.
• Too little protein – your body will deteriorate.
• Too little water – metabolism slows down, you will become a husk, plus your body can’t clean itself.

Let me make it simple:  today’s choices are tomorrow’s consequences.  Too many people, me included, have been sugar coating the facts for too long.

• If you are not healthy, you have bought your own trouble.
• If you are neglecting your body but not experiencing the signs of neglect now, you have agreed to a layaway plan to experience
  those same sign of neglect – later.

You are paying, every day, with the choices you are making about convenient, fast food and adhering to a false paradigm that there is some special person or some magic bullet that can fix what you are breaking.

• The special person who can change the consequences is YOU.
• The magic bullet is the “stuff” you are consuming – everyday.   

You can change the way things are by changing the things you are doing.  The arguments that it is too expensive or you don’t have the time won’t hold water.

You either make time for health or spend time being sick.  The latter is very expensive in both money and the quality of your life.

• Start with an action plan to meet the thresholds your body needs to stay healthy or get healthy.
• Assess what you are eating for breakfast, lunch and dinner – everyday -  to care for the needs of your body.
• Fill the gap in your diet with the best nutraceutical supplements you can buy.  Know this: the better you do with the foods you are eating – the fewer supplements it takes to fill the gap in your diet.
• Do your best.  It is not practical to expect to “eat right” everyday.  There is a principal in health that you can take to the bank:  It is not
  what you do occasionally that hurts, it is what you do everyday.
• Splurge once in a while.   After all, life is worth living.  But, get back on the wagon as quickly as possible. 
• Health is a journey.  You can choose to accept the fact that you are in charge of your own health or cling to the false hope that someone orsomething can fix what you have broken.

It’s Your Life – It’s Your Choice.

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