By Bob Livingston
Would you have considered Arnold Schwarzenegger obese during his movie heyday?
He's 6 foot 1 and was a chiseled 230 pounds.
How about the basketball player LeBron James? He is 6'8" and weighs around 260.
Obesity is medically defined by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as having a body mass index (BMI, a measure of height to weight) that's 30 or higher. People are considered overweight when their BMI hits 25, and they are obese when it gets to 30.
Schwarzenegger's BMI would have been 30.1. James' is 29. Anyone would be insane to think they were or are "obese."
The problem is, mainstream medicine doesn't look at the body as a whole (holistic), so the BMI doesn't take into account high muscle mass, or too little muscle mass.
People who are obese have higher rates of heart disease, diabetes, some cancers, arthritis and Alzheimer's disease. Obesity also increases the risks of high blood pressure, stroke, gallstones and gall bladder disease, gout, sleep apnea, Pickwickian syndrome and osteoarthritis of the knees, hips and lower back.
But please remember that when the medical profession recommends a high complex carbohydrate plus low saturated fat diet they are recommending a high glucose or high sugar diet. The result is high insulin and high weight gain. Then comes what the medical establishment tells you is "diabetes" but is really a diet issue that results in all the other symptoms above.
A plan for your "health" is a plan for their profits
"Obesity is common, serious and costly," says the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). A study published in Health Affairs found that obesity rates increased by 37 percent between 1998 and 2006 in the U.S. A Harvard study showed that in 1990, only 15 percent of the population in most states was obese. But 20 years later, by 2010 36 states had obesity rates of 25 percent or higher, and in 12 of those, the obesity rate was 30 percent or more.
Nearly four in 10 Americans are obese; data from the CDC tells us. Another one-third of Americans are considered overweight. The estimated annual cost of obesity in the U.S. was $147 billion in 2008 dollars ($164 billion in today's dollars). Medical costs for obese people averaged $1,429 higher than for people with normal weight.
What are these costs? Costs for whom?
My contention is that they are telling you you're fat day and night so that you will spend more money on clinics, drugs, surgery and medical "care" in order to "treat" your "obesity."
The plain fact is that you can be "skinny fat" and have unhealthy and dangerous visceral fat around your abdomen just the same as if you have much more visible excess fat on your body. You don't want to be visibly obese, but being a healthy weight doesn't mean abiding by the BMI or those mainstream advisors who tell you to stop eating fat and eat "healthy" grains instead.
Losing weight is no easy task, as evidenced by the hundreds, maybe even thousands of weight-loss gimmicks, gadgets, diets, programs, and advice materials for sale in stores, on TV, in magazines, on the internet. They wouldn't sell a thing if people weren't desperate. But they are desperate because of the choices for food they are given by the food industry in this country, and they often choose the easiest, cheapest alternative, as intended.
How do I do it?
At its core, losing weight is a very simple matter. You take in the types of foods that enhance health and stay away from the foods that build body fat and excess blood sugar and deposit fat in the blood (triglycerides).
That means it's not just "taking in more calories than you burn to gain weight and doing the opposite to lose it." What you should not do is stop eating altogether. Crash diets may knock off the pounds quickly, but most people regain the weight almost as fast as it came off. When denied food, the body goes into survival mode and any food eventually taken in is mostly stored as fat the body is saving for the next dry spell.
Intermittent fasting, on the other hand, gives the body a break from producing insulin and has many proven health benefits including longevity.
Based on findings I uncovered from researchers from dozens of articles, anecdotes and published studies, positive bodily events can occur during intermittent fasting:
Aside from not eating occasionally, what you're eating is really more important than how much you're eating. Eat a solid protein-rich breakfast each day... it helps you feel full and less hungry later in the day.
Be aware that most of the foods we buy in packages at the store these days are chock full of obesegens in addition to calories, substances that degrade your health at best and can be life-threatening at worst. The key is to replace all those tasty but potentially deadly temptations with raw foods. Raw food comes in the form nature created it to be, pure and clean, delivering necessary nutrients without the harmful baggage of man-made processing. Start gradually adding more raw fruits and vegetables to your food intake until you are consuming one-half to two-thirds of your diet raw. Be sure the raw foods are thoroughly washed. Not only are raw foods healthier for you, but they help you feel full quicker, are more digestible than processed foods and provide a potent source of protein, vitamins and minerals. Raw apples, vegetables, fruits, raw meats, eggs and unpasteurized milk, cream and butter deliver most of the nutrients you will need for the day. For a complete and healthy way of eating, I've found that the Nutritarian diet created by Dr. Joel Furhman, a board-certified family physician with over 25 years' experience practicing nutritional medicine, works effectively.
The Nutritarian diet involves no calorie counting, no feeling hungry between meals and uses the principle of "nutrient density" that allows eating tasty foods that ward off bad health effects like cancer, diabetes and dementia by keeping hormone levels balanced and normal.
Furhman recommends our diet be 80 percent vegetables (organic) with only 20 percent meats (preferably free-range and not exposed to GMOs or antibiotics). Besides packing on the pounds, most of the foods we buy in packages at the store these days are chock full of obesegens in addition to calories. Obesogens are substances that degrade your health at best and can be life-threatening at worst. Trans fat and high fructose corn syrup are just two.
Mind over 'fatter'
Losing fat can be as much a matter of the mind as it is of the body. There are other things you can do to lose weight besides just watching what you eat. Here are just a few other tips that can help make getting to a healthy weight more productive:
• Drink lots of water... replaces sugary drinks, helps you feel full, flushes your system of pollutants, and keeps you hydrated.
• Eat slowly, chew food thoroughly... take a bite and put your fork down... satisfies your cravings without loading up your belly. It takes about 20 minutes for a hunger signal to be sent to your brain that your belly is full, so if you shovel the food down fast, you can overeat without realizing it. • Keep busy... boredom invites snacking to fill the time and give you a diversion. • Don't avoid snacks entirely... but manage what you snack on. If you feel hungry, eat a raw food snack. I like dried apples, and sunflower seeds. • Keep moving... walk, ride, lift, do yard work, swim, take the stairs, and all of those things will add up. |
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