Keep Your Health Tips

Hey there,

Have you been seeing your doctor a little too much lately? Headaches here, chest pains there..shortness of breath, feeling weak, dizzy, and lethargic.

A nasty virus going around?

Not likely.

Something you caught from your kids?

Probably not.

Well, what is it?

Would you believe (and you should) that it could be that you’re overweight and/or out of shape?

“No way, it can’t be!” you say..I mean you’re supposed to drag yourself throughout the day eating chips, drinking caffeine laced beverages, and exercising your fingers on the keyboard.

“That’s how life supposed to be”..you say, work like crazymake as much money as possible regardless of the health risksretire (while being overweight and out of shape) and spend a good amount of your retirement visiting your local doctor and hospital waiting for that new breakthrough surgery to suck up all that fat from your arteries. Unfortunately, this is often true of many people nowadays. How can you possibly stop this and decrease the possibility (exponentially, I might add) that you have to spend your retirement years pitching a tent at your doctor’s office.

Get moving.

Start a fitness program..try to do a pushup (you should be able to do more than 1, by the way)take a brisk walk around the neighborhood..take a jog with your dog up and down the street..try to do 10 crunchesjust start something! More importantly, stick with it.

That’s all you need..just 2 little things.

Start with something.and stick with it.

2 simple, yet powerful actions. In fact, they’re so powerful that if you did these two little things, you would be in better shape than most people in the world!

You want to know a little secret?

Open your ears and pay attention.

Your doctor doesn’t want to see you. In fact, they are sick of seeing you..they would rather be playing golf.lol. But do you want to know why they have to keep long hours and spend minimal time with patients?

Because we are getting fatter and unhealthier by the day. Which equals more health problems, which equals more doctor visits, more hospital visits, more tests (very costly I might add), more x-rays, more surgeries, etc. etc. etc.

How many hundreds and thousands of dollars are you and your family spending on unnecessary health bills? Instead of chewing on a Twinkie.chew on that thought for a while.

What would you rather have with all that extra money: a new car, a house that’s paid off, a vacation home, a boat?

Wow.

Living healthier, looking leaner, feeling younger and more energized while pocketing extra money from saved doctor bills and surgeries.

Where do you sign up?

Not at your local McDonald’s or Burger King.

Nor at your local greasy spoon restaurant.

You sign up by making a commitment to change your lifestyle. Hey, maybe that’s not what you are wanting to hear, but it’s true. You and only you, (with some help from me, of course) can make that change.

What’s the great thing about it?

So many people have tried and succeeded by doing it the right way, and you can too! It may take some time, it will take some discipline, heck, it may even take some sacrifices.but you will get so excited when you look at yourself in a mirror and see a leaner, fitter, healthier you.

Save money, save insurance company hasslesand for goodness sakes start a fitness program. I may not be able to help you have a body like Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie by next week.but listen to me and you can at least save enough money to take everyone you know to see all of their movieslol. Actually, with your savings on doctor’s visits..you’ll have way more money than that.

In closing, you can choose one of two things.

1. Making a change to commit to a healthier lifestyle, a more balanced diet, and a fitness program that will lead to greater physical fitness, mental health and wellness, endurance (use your imagination), less doctor visits (when they are practically pushing you out the door anyway), less chances for heart attacks, strokes, surgeriesAND more money in your pocket from saving yourself from these expenses.

VERSUS

2. A diet filled with fats, lard, cholesterol, unlimited carbonated beverages, “diet” drinks (that always gets a chuckle out of me), days of feeling weak, depressed, and lethargic. Let’s not forget a greater than average number of doctor visits, greater chance for health-related surgeries, greater chance for injuries (if and when you decide to get off your butt and do something), combined with looking less attractive to yourself and your significant other (or potential significant other), WHILE wasting money on all of these things.

Quite the laundry list, huh?

I don’t know about you, but I take #1 11 times out of 10. And, if I were you, I would think long and hard about making a change to #1 too.

You can do it, I am here to help. And if you can handle even more fitness strategies for you and your family, go to www.fitnesswithchris.com and check out what I’ve got in store for you. Have a great day!

Chris Callegari, founder of http://www.fitnesswithchris.com is unleashing his real-world exercise, health, fitness, and nutrition tips to the world, to help create lifestyle changes for any and everyone.

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I’ve spent the past five years in China, first as an English teacher and then doing business. Although I still do believe that America is best, I came to oftentimes feel that we Americans could learn a lot from the wisdom that’s accumulated and is reflected in China’s four thousand year old civilization. Chinese culture has ways about it that are difficult not to admire.

One thing that’s always a little embarrassing to Americans living in China is to view scenes from American life that are displayed on Chinese TV. It’s because Americans always appear so fat. Not just overweight, but ridiculously fat-obese. I sometimes suspected that the Chinese propaganda machine was purposely depicting Americans in a negative light, and of course before I left for China I never really noticed-if most of those one sees around him day after day are fat it doesn’t seem so unusual. However, when I recently returned from China and stepped into the airport terminal at Los Angeles, what a shock! It’s true-Americans are mostly all fat, and even those one wouldn’t really call fat still seem to have a weight problem. Another impression upon returning came from seeing all the diet books being advertised and talked about in the stream of American media-saturated consciousness. The Atkinson Diet, The South Beach Diet, The Low-Carb Diet, The This Diet, The That Diet. Diet pills, diet clinics, weight loss remedies, “I lost 40 lbs. in 40 days” commercials. Gosh.

Well, I’m not fat. I was a little pudgy before I left for China five years ago, but not now. The idea of dieting never crossed my mind while I was there, in fact I ate more, a lot more, because the food is so good. The food in China is really, really good. In China food is art and it’s delicious, and it’s much better, more varied and different than the Chinese food here. There were also many opportunities for me to hang out with whomever and drink beer, and so I did a lot of that too, more than I should have, but I didn’t gain weight, I lost weight. Something else I should mention here is that few Chinese people are fat. They generally seem very fit and healthy, and extremely energetic.

A few days after arriving at LAX I drove down to San Ysidro on the US/Mexico border to see my old friend Wade. I was saddened when he told me that his fourteen year old daughter had been diagnosed with lymphatic cancer nine months earlier, but was quickly relieved when he added that the doctor treating her told him her cancer had apparently gone into remission as a result of chemotherapy treatments, and the prognosis for her was extremely optimistic. Wade also mentioned that this doctor definitely felt there was a link between his daughter’s cancer and all the fast food she and her friends were always consuming. Coincidentally, the next day I read a report on an internet website that claimed Americans suffer from cancer at twice the rate of the English, and that we experience heart disease and stroke at several times the rate of the French! It couldn’t be just the food though, I mean as in too much meat and fat or too much sugar, though it seems likely that that’s part of the problem. Reading the labels on cans and packages reveals long lists of esoteric chemical cocktails that we’re putting into our systems along with aerated potatoes and hydrogenated oils, in addition to the cows, pigs and chickens that have undergone treatments with hormones and antibiotics.

So it doesn’t take much to put things together. You can’t blame everything on tobacco since the English smoke more than we do, the French smoke more than the English, and the Japanese, who have the highest life expectancy in the world and suffer from cancer, heart disease and stroke at a fraction of our rate, smoke most of all, and they smoke everywhere. Although the hordes of class-action attorneys that converged on the tobacco companies (and everyone close to them with deep pockets), may be right now mapping out their next project, we don’t have to wait to be among those that will be suing the fast food restaurants, grocery stores and food processing companies that are making us look and feel awful, and killing us with disease. All we have to do is eat like the Chinese. Speaking personally, I’d rather eat like the Chinese even if it did make me fat, but it won’t, and it won’t make anyone else fat either.

As was mentioned, in China food is more than just food, it’s one of the great joys of life and it’s production is regarded as aesthetic expression. One problem is that I don’t think good Chinese food is that simple to make, preparing it right seems to be a pretty involved process. I’m resolved to make available a nice list of favorite recipes gleaned from my contacts in China and put them on my friend’s website who is also in China. It will be free, and I’ll try to focus on dishes that are not only very delicious and healthy, but easy enough that even I could do them (if I could make them anyone could). The list will include not so well known Chinese fare for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Until then, I’m hungry, I need to find where I can go for one of my favorites: Yunnan stir-fry wild mushrooms with onions and Cod, and seasoned to-fu along with a plate of fresh mixed young Chinese vegetables in spicy coconut sauce

Rockland Zeiler, writing as Lai-En Xyler, earned his BA degree in anthropology from UW in 1981. Over the past five years he’s lived and worked in China where he’s started two small businesses and learned Chinese. He feels we Americans could learn from the accumulated wisdom reflected in China’s four thousand year old civilization. He asks that a link to his friend’s website, http://www.dreamsofchina.com, be included in reprints, and welcomes comments or questions at info@dreamsofchina.com.

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Is sugar healthy? Let’s explore the question.

A hundred years ago, the average sugar consumption was five pounds a year and heart disease, cancer and diabetes were practically unknown. Today, Americans eat 158 pounds of sugar a year and heart disease, cancer and diabetes are our number one killers. Is there any correlation?

Although the powerful sugar industry would have you think otherwise, sugar’s not just bad for your teeth, it’s a killer. High glycemic sugars cause an unhealthy insulin surge and replace nutritious foods in your diet. They’re bad for your looks, bad for the way you feel and just plain bad for you - Period! Unhealthy sweets have been shown to lead to obesity, kidney stones, osteoporosis, diabetes, heart disease and to be a major contributor to behavior and learning problems in children.

The food industry has dozens of word “disguises” for high glycemic sugars. Most common are honey, dextrose, lactose, corn syrup, maltodextrin, mannitol and sorbitol. But no matter what you call it, it’s still dangerous.

And don’t be fooled by so-called “health food” treats. In order to profit from the public sweet tooth, many manufacturers offer a large array of unhealthy sugar-laden foods. The current popular “health food” new age term for sugar is “crystals.” There’s Florida Crystals, cane juice crystals, organic dehydrated cane juice, unbleached crystallized evaporated cane juice and raw cane crystals. These can be found in whole grain cereals, baked goods, granola bars and many other foods and drinks found in “health food” aisles.

Another high-glycemic vesion is Rapadura (or Sucanat). Marketers call Rapadura “the perfect organic, unbleached, unrefined sweetener” and claim “processing methods retain the natural vitamins and minerals in sugar.” This may sound good, but it’s just honey-coated hype.

Sugar has never been grown or consumed for its nutritional value. Although there are some nutrients, they’re miniscule and definitely not worth the trade off. You’re better off eating fresh fruits and vegetables for their high vitamin, mineral and phytonutrient content. Fruits and vegetables have natural sugars in the form of low-glycemic fructose. Plus, there’s plenty of good fiber to support normal insulin response.

Whether you’re shopping at health food stores or supermarkets, read labels. Go for products either extremely low in sugar or sugar-free. And choose fresh fruits and veggies for dessert and snacks.

Moss Greene makes it easy for you to look and feel better. Visit her site at http://nutrition.bellaonline.com to learn the simple things you can do for yourself right now. Be sure to subscribe to her free newsletter - you don’t want to miss a thing!

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