Well … take it easy on me big fellas!

 If gym exercising is your deal, more power to you.  If you find solace in your time in the gym, or however you choose to “sweat”, knock yourself out!  If others choose to join you, more power to them, too.

But, you need to know that many of us don’t share your enthusiasm.

Gym exercise is not my thing.  My exercise of choice is riding horses.  For me, the experience is physical, mental and, because I compete in events with other like-minded people, social.  I particularly enjoy the therapeutic qualities of the partnership with my highly athletic partners – my quarter horses.

While there is a multitude of ways to manage weight – all of them must involve 3 things:

1. Better diet
2. Exercise that fits your schedule, ability and proclivity
3. Lifestyle choices including: sleep, rest and stress management

 When people have lost, or are losing, their ability to control their weight, one, two or all three of these components conspire to layer on the unwanted pounds and put their health at risk.

 The issue can be viewed as a balanced mathematical equation:  Diet + Moderate Exercise + Lifestyle = Healthy.

When any one, two or all of the pieces of the left side of the equation is out of balance, the result is “not healthy”.

 Of course you’ve heard or seen this before, because it is an unshakable truth with a predictable outcome.

That truth is:  the body will begin to decay when the health equation is out of balance.   The symptoms of decay, and the path they take, are predictable, too.

1. At first, it is weight gain
2. Followed by self-medicating with stimulants like caffeine and/or mood enhancers like comfort food and/or alcohol;
3. Followed by over the counter medications;
4. Followed by prescriptions for a condition that can’t be resolved – only managed;
5. Followed by a search for the “magic bullet”
6. Followed by the ultimate symptom of an imbalanced health equation – premature death.

 Of course, there’s always the issue of bad luck to consider.

People experience accidents and/or infections.  Depending on your overall health, the severity of the injury or infection and the competency of your medical doctor, accidents or infections may be bumps in the road, or not.  If you want more details regarding the conflict between Germ Theory and Pleomorphism, we have prepared a paper on the subject for your review.

 Personally, I believe that weight gain is a sign of decaying health; that this particular sign, weight gain, is brought on by disregarding the health-equation. 

And, while simply putting the equation back to balance will change things going forward, it will do little to change the systemic dysfunction caused by the prolonged imbalance.

 Weight gain may have as many 5 factors:

1. Imbalance in calories (consuming more empty calories than you burn)
2. Imbalance in nutrition (satiety and/or cravings)
3. Dysfunction in daytime metabolism (sluggishness and or alertness) and/or nighttime metabolism (sleep and/or moodiness and anxiety)
4. Irregular bowel habits
5. Producing fat cells to wall off internal acids and other toxic substances

 The penchant for identifying one culprit for weight issues is the source for frustration, and often failure, for most people choosing to lose weight. 

Typically, being overweight or obese is a combination of several or all of the factors:  diet, moderate exercise and lifestyle.

 When you change the health equation you will change the situation, going forward.  And, when you support the dysfunctional bodily systems with high quality, well-crafted dietary supplements that support healing the dysfunction(s) of weight management, or health for that matter, the dysfunctions will begin to right themselves.

 The false paradigm – there is a quick fix to address the manifestations of a dysfunctional body – is an unfulfilling, and often risky, track to follow.

On the other hand, electing to balance your health equation will pay dividends.

 In the end, it’s your life – it’s your choice.  Choose wisely

 

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.