Archive for October, 2011
Raw Food Diets for Eating Disorders
Posted by: | CommentsIt is a sad commentary on our culture that so many women have eating disorders.
When my daughters were in high school, many of their friends had eating disorders already. When my older daughter, now 25, was in college, all her female friends had eating disorders. My daughters have luckily escaped because they eat like line backers.
One of my older daughter’s best friend lives in New York and is an elite social butterfly. She is beautiful and has always had eating disorders and always been sick frequently. The girls my older daughter socializes with now are all models and of course anorexic and bulimic. They all have affluent boy friends and eat in great restaurants, so they meet in the bathroom afterward to lose their dinners.
One of the beauties of a raw diet is that real food has very few calories. When the body receives real food over a period of time, it recognizes the food, knows it won’t starve and convert the calories into fuel. The body finds no need to store the calories as fat. The enzymes in raw real food are calorie burners. They digest the food and convert it to fuel. Eating fruit and vegetables provides fuel and no fat. You can eat them both all day by the bucket load. Add some protein with brown rice, beans, peanuts, humus, chia or hemp seed, or lean meat and you have a sustainable diet.
If anyone eats all real food, their body will start releasing the food encapsulated in fat. When I was eating raw for four months, the weight started dropping off so fast it almost scared me. I was hoping it was the food and that I hadn’t developed a disease. I lost 20 pounds if four months and decided that was enough for the time being.
The great thing about a raw diet is there is very little digestion required. I no longer needed my afternoon naps. Your energy increases geometrically because digestion requires more energy than any other bodily process. It takes over the blood and oxygen supply and robs the brain of oxygen it needs to think actively.
Eating real food or raw creates a situation where you never feel full. You are always a little hungry. That is why you have so much energy to think or work. Avoiding sugar, flour, and bad fats give the system tremendous relief.
If children could learn to eat raw or real food early, they might never have the need to get rid of food in order to stay lean. They would be lean as possible already. I was as guilty as any parents in introducing my children to the world of fast food. This is the world of sugar, fat, salty, and greasy. It’s addictive.
But, eating real food becomes addictive. Once you eat clean you don’t like the taste of salty, sugary, fatty, or greasy. I don’t even like my favorite pizza that I always thought was the standard by which all pizzas should be measured.
When I eat in a restaurant to break the monotony, I can taste such a difference in foods prepared in vegetable oil and from refined products. When I make brownies as one of my desserts (I only believe you have to eat 85% clean) the vegetable oil I have to add makes me sick.
So once your body starts to eat clean, bad foods become distasteful and your body is telling you it doesn’t like them. How about that for a switch?
Get a Bang Out of Life with Less
Posted by: | CommentsAn article from National Center for Political Analysis states that 64% of Americans worry at times whether they will be able to pay for family expenses. Since 2007, Americans lost $5.5 trillion in net worth, mostly from real estate.
If we have jobs, we can be thankful, but surveys show a high percentage of workers would change jobs if the economy were better. Those without jobs or are under employed make up at least 18% of the population by statistics, but my bet is that it is much higher
This creates a new reality for Americans that we are not only coming to recognize, but dealing with on a daily basis. Other than the top few percent, most people have started cutting back.
But there is a light shining through this window. Most people will stop seeking happiness from acquisition and upsizing their possessions. More people will start spending more time with themselves, their families and friends. More people will stay closer to home when they have free time.
This is a great time to build a better relationship with nature. Most activities in the outdoors is free. This is a better time to start creating some discipline in our eating and fitness habits. This is a great time to find satisfaction in expressing ourselves in more ways with training, writing, cooking, hobbies, charity, and learning.
The further we get from buying our happiness and the closer we get to personally building our happiness, the more long term satisfaction we will get from each day. I started my downsizing trend in 2005 by selling my house at a time I felt the real estate market had peaked. I was in the real estate business and could feel the upward push coming to an end.
Since, I have steadily pruned my spending to stay within my income. I save a little each month. I engage in more activities that build fitness and cost very little. I spend more time expressing myself in writing, surfing, cooking, and eating healthy.
My goal is not as great to buy things and more inclined toward furthering my human potential. I want my body, mind, and spirit to be stronger to deal with today’s situations and those that may still await us.
I find I am much happier bringing my interests back to my own growth. I have lost 45 pounds over the last five years, now surf an hour and a half a day, write most mornings, and eat very healthy. Life can be simpler. If you are working, you can squeeze important activities in before and after work.
Rather than worrying all the time about one aspect of our lives, we can fill in our free time with positive behavior that will give us more strength to face our trials. At the end of our days, we don’t want to recall all the time we spent struggling. We want to think about the progress we made in developing our passions.
Passions are what make life worthwhile. Passions can be people, hobbies, sports, or even sunsets. Passions can be developed so that we have competence in our activities. Engaging in activities in which we have competence creates flow or being in the zone. These states generate dopamine which neurologists say is our happiness chemical.
So put the crowbar between survival and happiness. Balance out your thoughts between getting into the savings mode and creating fun activities. Find a reason to smile at the end of every day and at the beginning of every morning.
Should We Buy from Pakistan?
Posted by: | CommentsThey have all but said they are our enemy.
They knowingly hid Bin Laden.
We have asked for assistance in policing the terrorists hiding inside their borders that are attacking Afghanistan and our troops. We have given them billions to assist. When it has become clear they would not cooperate we said we might go in and find the terrorists.
They warned us that they were a nuclear power? What does that mean?
Hilary Clinton and her entourage are in Pakistan now to arrive at some type of cooperation at ending the war and our involvement in Afghanistan. It is clear they are worried about India infiltrating Afghanistan in our absence and want to maintain resistance.
Is the enemy of our friends our enemy?
The U.S. at this delicate crossroads can’t embargo Pakistani goods. But we the citizens can. Their position may be diametrically opposed to ours and they are defending their interests.
Why should we help them economically by buying anything they export? Threatening to cut off our aid doesn’t affect them. We the citizens should let our voice be heard. We are a party to this conflict.
The Reliable Path to Happiness
Posted by: | CommentsOur modern culture has become a fan of quick solutions.
At first, faxing got us into the realization that mail was slow. The immediate increase in pace set the world on its ear. Before, when mail took three days and you were allowed a few days to respond, there was a lot of latitude.
Then email reached people easier than phones. Text messaging makes little electronic devices beep in your pocket. If you don’t respond to an email solicitation for services in a few minutes you might lose out to a competitor.
The internet made solutions quicker and opened everyone to global competition. Being faster and better creates a lot of pressure.
Instead of making life easier and our days shorter, the quick response formula has made days longer and more intense. Quicker reaction times create more stress. Everyone expects instant action. Who has time to eat? Then you have to unload the stress at the end of the day so you can be ready the next day.
If you are really good, you can make a lot of money. So we have turned to fast food, Red Bull, 5 hour energy, cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, shopping, and other quick fixes to keep us in motion and get our nervous systems back on track.
It is clear this life style is killing us and requiring more anti depression and anxiety medicine. The percentage of children with ADD is staggering. Medicaid is breaking the federal budget. Health insurance is too expensive for 40% of the nation.
We have confused the road to survival, security, and prosperity with happiness. They are not the same. They are quite different paths. We are killing ourselves to get more security thinking we can buy happiness.
What we have to realize is that we are born happy. We are happy in our adolescence with simple things such as play, love, and friends. If left to our own accord, we would keep playing if we didn’t have to go to school. The structure starts shaping us into productive adults with goals foreign to our true nature.
The brain produces our happiness chemicals when it is engaged in activities we enjoy and in which we have competence. Many people are blessed by doing something they love and getting paid for it. Dopamine and serotonin are by products of flow and being in the zone. These two practices are even labeled by psychologists as the top of the emotional intelligence scale.
In these states, we close out distractions. We have little regard for judgment or reward. We often find the activities addicting. Mountaineers say that the fear of death is secondary to the need to find what they are made of and test themselves against the elements.
As a surfer when I see big waves, I want to see someone catch it and tame it. That’s my goal when I am in the water. Passion is the real emotion of living. Boredom is death. Engaging in activities that have real meaning to us creates the brain chemicals of happiness.
A life in flow is a pursuit of this passion wherein the time between engagements is often filled with preparation or rest. I love to surf and I love to write, read, and cook. Surfing is my main passion and the other activities give me pleasure while I am resting.
Engaging in destructive habits are inimical to my life purpose. Stress reduces my flow. I therefore try to eliminate distractions and live responsibly so that stress is minimized. I do not watch TV, do not have a smart phone, do not thrive on social media, do not read the news before my creative work is done, rarely get inebriated, nor eat bad food more than 15% of the time.
Quick fixes to happiness are illusions. Separating our need to survive from our need to express ourselves and discover our limits leads to a path of self discovery and happiness.
How to Get Lean and Healthy
Posted by: | CommentsOne of the first questions you should ask is how often do you get sick?
A good immunity system counters inflammation and fights sickness. Following pretty simple guidelines, I have not been sick in at least ten years.
How is your weight compared to your high school weight?
Most people were their leanest in high school because they were active and their energy was off the charts with very high metabolism. As we get older and eat the same food our lower metabolism causes us to pack on those extra pounds. It would seem right that we have to eat differently, not less.
Are you exercising daily?
When you are a child you are in constant motion. This continuous exercise allows the tearing down of muscle tissue and rebuilding into stronger muscles. The human body is formed from hundreds of species that preceded us over 3.5 billion years. We started as algae and progressed to sea born animals, then amphibians, then dinosaurs, and finally ape like creatures.
The body still thinks it is living in nature and surviving by foraging and hunting. It expects us to slow in the winter and get more active in the spring. It has signals that similate dying in the winter and revitalizing in the spring. When you do not eat natural food and exercise regularly, you are signaling you are dying. The body complies.
The geologic time that we have spent shopping in markets and driving through fast food restaurants is miniscule. When you stop being active and start eating process foods, you are on your downhill cycle regardless of your age.
How much sugar do you eat?
Most refined foods that come in cans, packages, and restaurant menus have lots of sugar. A 1,000 calorie fast food meal of a hamburger, fries, and soda have more sugar than a large hunk of elk. Your body uses sugar to estimate how much food you ate. A 1,000 calorie fast food meal translate to a 10,000 calorie intake which signals a call for enormous amounts of insulin, gastric acid, and several other dangerous chemicals.
When man foraged and hunted, food didn’t have refined sugar. He would eat fruit, vegetables, nuts, and meat. When man exercised daily and ate natural food, the body did not have to store much fat. It used the fats as fuel to do more hunting and foraging. We no longer train the body to use fat as fuel unless we do anaerobic exercise.
If you are gaining a gut, it means that you are eating too much sugar and the insulin produced is using the calories to pad your stomach. You are increasing your vulnerability to diabetes. Statistics show that 1 out of 3 children born after 2000 will have diabetes 2.
Exercising everyday and eating natural food makes the body healthier. Everything else creates decay, sickness, disease, disability, chronic ailments, and early death.
If you want to start experiencing a weight drop, stop eating sugar and flour. Instead of a soda, have an apple. Or use anything else to break addictions, even if the substitute is also bad. After that, switch to something a little healthier and so on. I went from ice cream to Snickers to granola bars. Then I didn’t need any of them.
For dessert, I will sometimes break my craving by eating oat meal with fruit or even brown sugar. It is more filling and satisfying. You have to play tricks on your mind to break your bad habits.
In my process, I have lost 45 pounds over 5 years to reside at my high school weight. Now it is no problem because I have formed good eating habits for 85% of the time.
Getting Perspective From Jobs Early Departure
Posted by: | CommentsIt is a wonder when someone who occupies the news everyday all of a sudden is gone.
As I explore the soul of Nature in my own way I am in awe of the beauty and complexity of Nature and have respect for the ability to crush life without seemingly a second thought. I do hold that we have eternal souls that enter and leave our bodies with a purpose and so if someone dies early, the soul had achieved its purpose for this round.
But not wishing to tempt fate, I would rather eat and live healthy. Western Civilization has taken a wrong turn in its quest for cheap and plentiful food. Yes its important that everyone have enough calories to exist, but we should examine the consequences of a narrow focus.
At least one third of babies born since 2000 are likely to suffer diabetes 2. It will be the first generation whose life span is not longer than their parents. We spend less on food per capita as a nation and more on medicine than any other population.
What’s wrong with this picture? Netflix has a great documentary called “Ingredients” about buying food local. There are a lot of reasons to encourage farmers who are now less than 1% of the population. It is no longer listed as an occupation.
Half the seed production for the globe is controlled by three companies. That creates concerns for biodiversity. Food production is only profitable in large scale but 20% of our oil consumption is engaged in the production, packaging and transporting of this food.
We do place more emphasis on the “hot” electronics than we do on spending more money on more nutritious food. Saving money on food often becomes the priority after we struggle through the rest our obligations.
It does not cost a lot to eat right. Exercise can be free. Sickness is very expensive.
We are eliminating farm land with suburban growth. Population is increasing and farmland is decreasing. The emphasis to make food production more efficient rather than more nutritious is having dire consequences. Local food saves energy and is more healthy. At a point, food production doesn’t feed the population, but maybe sickness kills off the excess population and people don’t live as long; Efficiency vs Value.
We can influence the choices government, food consortiums, and we as a population are making.
Denmark Adds Fat Tax
Posted by: | CommentsIn an article by the National Center for Policy Analysis
“Denmark has imposed what it calls a “fat tax” on foods such as butter and oil as a way to curb unhealthy eating habits. While the country has already implemented initiatives to tax unhealthy products such as sugar and soft drinks, the breadth of the fat tax is largely unprecedented, says the Washington Post.
- Based not only on the presence of saturated fats in the finished product but also on the fats used to make it, the fat tax is set at approximately $2.90 per kilogram of saturated fat.
- It is expected to raise the price of a standard burger about 15 cents.
The purpose of this new tax, says the Danish parliament, is to increase the life expectancy of the Danish population. While above the world average, the life expectancy of Danes lags behind that of their European neighbors. Placing this issue at the forefront, government officials cite the correlation between fat-heavy diets and cardiovascular disease and cancer when justifying the new tax.”
The U.S. is contemplating the same measures but is not likely to tax sugars in sodas. It does show the U.S. is behind other western countries in legislating health for its populations. Unfortunately nations find themselves needing to make citizens more healthy because they have previously chosen to give them a health care safety net.
Shouldn’t the population care as much as the government?
The government has to pay, but the population has to suffer. It is no fun having diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. There is a lot of suffering. People around you have to suffer as well. You can lose body parts, become indigent, immobilized, weak, and pitiful. You don’t live to participate with your kids and grand kids for as long those in healthy cultures.
It costs a lot of money to cure your ailments and may strap future generations with your costs and the burden of taking care of you not to mention the costs born by the public. Living to the end with health and fitness is a wonderful experience. You can lead your family on great adventures and still enjoy hiking, skiing, surfing, and running into your 70’s and maybe 80’s.
The movement has begun world wide to make people healthier. If people learn to eat natural, they will enjoy the benefits without too much prodding or too many taxes.
I have thought that eventually the message has to get through. While the government is cracking over higher medical expenses, insurance is too expensive and so are doctors, when will we start treating the root cause?
In a report by Natural News, companies are trying to cut their costs by making employees healthier:
“So, employers have started to provide on-site medical visits, access to gyms, chronic-care plans, smoking-cessation programs and even discounts for those who buy a banana rather than a cookie.
Companies nationwide are looking to trim their health insurance costs by combating chronic diseases — such as diabetes, obesity and depression — in their employees, reports USA Today.”
When are workers going to follow the proverb “Heal thy selves”?
You can see the message slowly seeping down about cigarettes, restaurant food, sugar, and bad fat. The conversations about restaurants listing calories and everyone reading labels is the call to wake up.
When does this ocean liner start to make a big turn. There is the proverbial story of monkeys on an island that start to walk to the water to wash their yams and after a hundred are in process the monkeys on all the islands start to do the same. It is a story about universal consciousness.
Each of us can be a center of influence. I have neighbors now that are starting to eat smaller portions of meat and add soups and salads to their daily routine. I tell them that it doesn’t have to be done in a day. It took me years to evolve, but I did it without ever starving and I don’t have to worry about ever putting the weight back on.
My eating preferences have changed and I did it slowly. Natural food has no calories so you can eat a lot. You can eat often. There is not reason to starve. On the other hand, don’t move so fast that you are tortured by what you are eliminating.
Most people have to prepare for the after dinner attack and that is where you can set up your first battle. There is no reason that after dinner you can’t have soup, oat meal, carrots, or a fruit bowl. They will all break the normal flights to cake, ice cream, and cookies.
The two biggest enemies I see to obesity are sugar and flour. If most people eliminated these two items slowly, they would see the greatest gains in weight loss and energy recovery.