Those of you who have been following our blog understand our deep appreciation for how remarkably the human body is created.

Our position regarding health is straight forward – if you take care of your body, it will take care of you.

Caring for the body is more than keeping the outside clean – it is treating the body kindly, with respect and attending to the nutritional needs that support the efficient functioning of the body that manifests in health.

 Health is path one follows; it is not a quest for a procedure, potion, lotion or pill that you initiated once your health begins to decline or falter.

Living has an inevitable end – death.  One hopes life ends in a peaceful repose; however, that is, often, not the case.

To that end, we have prepared a commentary, Keep Life Simple, for your examination, and, if you desire, links to further readings to help put you on a path that allows you to prosper in the bounty of health.

Enjoy

 

 So what can you do?

 Enjoy!  Relish all of the wonderful offerings.  After all, it is a celebration!  Just be smart about it.  You can avoid or minimize losing weight when the Holiday Season is over.

• If you are at a buffet or family get together, use a salad plate instead of a dinner plate.  Take small portions of the many delicacies.  Take small bites and chew the food thoroughly.
• If you choose to drink an alcoholic beverage, ask for your drink “tall” then, after the first, skip the alcohol and switch to the mix.
• Savor the treat or desert but, cut the serving in half.  Again, take small bites and chew it thoroughly.
• Pace yourself.  Put a limit of one serving per sitting of anything you choose to eat or drink.
• Drink plenty of water.  It will help flush away all the residuals from a diet that is so different than normal.

 Hopefully, when you get to the New Year celebration, you won’t be worrying about resolving to lose the extra weight you have gained over the holidays.

 If you have gained weight, or if there is still some weight hanging around from years past, don’t despair (or worse – over react) about your weight gain.  Some time, choosing a more moderate, balanced diet and a brisk, daily, 20-minute walk may help you lose weight.

 If patience is not one of your best virtues, or you have more than a few pounds lingering around your middle, you may want to consider using dietary supplements, along with your more moderate diet and walk, to help speed up your weight loss.

 One final thought, if you are inclined to make resolutions, resolve to treat you body like it your best friend.  It is and, you’ll never find another like it.

 We wish you Happy Holidays and a bountiful, prosperous New Year.

 

 The answer is:  While the issue of being overweight and obese receives plenty of lip service, the facts show the problem is worsening.

 Perhaps these commentaries are adding to the cacophony.  But, if the few of you, who are willing to take this information to heart, take action the project has value.

 Frankly, why anyone could possibly confuse fast, convenient and packaged products, masquerading as food, with the “real stuff” is mystifying. 

 Also, these commentaries were intended to dispel the amorphous picture of health that has been concocted by advertisers to sell products.  Health is not an emaciated person cavorting on the beach; nor the slogan “Big is beautiful.”  Health is arising to greet the day – not dreading the hours you’re awake.

The situation is bad enough when people choose, knowingly or unknowingly, to commit dietary suicide – but, when they condemn their children to shorter lives, with more suffering, it must change.

 And, don’t confuse these writings with some projection of gloom and doom – or worse yet, a call for action from a governmental agency – they are a plea to your better senses.

 Please, stop teaching your children your bad dietary habits and, if you can, change your ways, too.  It is easier to lead by example than to brow beat your kids into eating something you don’t eat.

 Time is the great equalizer.  When you begin dreading the hours, you can’t say you weren’t advised.

 Here is a good place to start changing the way thing are in your life.

 

People are pouring over labels to search out the amount of sugar that is in the products they are purchasing, and ultimately consuming, because it is common knowledge that “Sugar is bad for you.”

When you read sugar on a label, it generally refers to a sweet flavored food additive that is a simple carbohydrate such as sucrose (which primarily comes from sugar cane and sugar beet).  Other simple carbohydrates are used in industrial food preparation, but are usually known by more specific names—glucose, fructose or fruit sugar, high fructose corn syrup, etc.

What most people don’t know is that the term “sugar” is more than table sugar and various syrups.

Sugar is actually a biochemical term, derived from a more complex term, saccharide, that is a synonym for carbohydrates.

Where the the confusion starts is:  when experts utter the term “sugar” they, for the most part, are talking about all carbohydrates (saccharides) – foods that are particularly rich in starch (such as cereals, bread and pasta) and/or sugar (such as soft drinks, candy, jams and desserts).

For dietary purposes, carbohydrates can be classified as simple or complex.  The term complex carbohydrate denoted fruit, vegetables (that grow above ground) and whole-grains.  This excludes such sources of simple carbohydrates such as candy and sugary drinks; starches such as processed grains, flour and convenience, packaged grain products and vegetables that grow underground.

Simple carbohydrates are not essential nutrients in humans: the body can obtain all its energy from protein and healthy fats.  Simple carbohydrate provide 4  kilocalories per gram, but because they are absorbed quickly, contribute to spikes in blood sugar and, when needed, a spike in energy.

On the other hand, proteins also contain 4 kilocalorie per gram, while fat 9 kilocalories per gram and, because they require digestion to release their energy, provide a more regulated source of glucose (blood sugar) for energy.*

Complex carbohydrates, which are absorbed more slowly, perform numerous roles in living things including: storage of energy, structural components , coenzymes and as a component of DNA. Saccharides and their derivatives include many other key roles in the immune system, fertilization, cellular protection, repair and regeneration, blood clotting, and development.

Based on the effects on risk of heart disease, diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular issues and others, attributable to simple carbohydrates, the Institute of Medicine recommends that American and Canadian adults get between 45–65% of dietary energy from complex carbohydrates.

The Food and Agriculture Organization and World Health Organization jointly recommend that national dietary guidelines set a goal of 55–75% of total energy from carbohydrates, but only 10% directly from sugars (their term for simple carbohydrates).

The long and short of the issue of sugar (carbohydrates) is:  glucose is glucose.  Too much, delivered too fast is not good.  Choosing diverse dietary sources of protein, healthy fats and complex carbohydrates, all of which require digestive action, will support the energy requirements of your body in more healthy way.   

Attention to detail, good judgement and balance are the pillars that support your health.

How Healthy are You?  Take the FREE health test.

*  The glycemic index and glycemic load concepts have been developed to characterize food behavior during human digestion. They rank carbohydrate-rich foods based on the rapidity of their effect on blood glucose levels.   Glycemic index is a measure of how quickly food glucose is absorbed, while glycemic load is a measure of the total absorbable glucose in foods.  The insulin index is a similar, more recent classification method that ranks foods based on their effects on blood insulin levels, which are caused by glucose (or starch) and some amino acids in food.

Are you considering starting a weight management program?  Learn More:

 

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.