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Health & Fitness

Preserving the Qualities of Life: Take Your Body Back

Here are a few tips on how to get you motivated to take back your body.

Who are you and do you believe in yourself? 

Maintaining optimal health is of considerable importance in the achievement of personal fulfillment, and perhaps even happiness. Our country is currently drifting into an epidemic of obesity and overweight. Many sections of the country accept unattractive and illness producing obesity as an accepted norm. 

For whatever reason, indulging in caloric excess is commonplace, often encouraged by well meaning family, or not so well meaning, profit oriented, food distributors. Reversing the habit of eating more calories than needed is not easy. Reverting back to the healthy vanity of our high school years, where appearance was so important, takes an epiphany similar to the alcoholic who hits bottom, and pulls himself or herself up from the sadness and despair of self destruction. 

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Obesity is a form of self-destruction, promoting disability and illness for an individual, as well as fiscal disaster to the health care system we all share. A short essay cannot approach the complexity of the problem, but for those who are motivated to take back their body, here are a few practical tips. 

  • First, stop all intake of high glycemic foods, except for the few days a month designated as splurge days. This means no processed bread and cake, no potatoes, no rice, no pasta, no artificially sweetened desserts, and no fructose or glucose sweetened soft drinks. Substitute low glycemic vegetables and fruits listed in multiple places on the internet. Substitute romaine lettuce for bread to hold sandwich fillings.
  • Second, save dinner plates for entertaining and special occasions. Serve all meals on salad plate size dishes. 
  • Third, limit meat portions to the size of your palm. Substitute chicken breast and fish for red meat whenever possible.  
  • Fourth, have a salad at the end of each main meal, not at the beginning, and eat slower.  
  • Fifth, eat five times a day, using one handful of nuts for the between meal snacks.  
  • Sixth, do not eat before retiring, unless it is a small salad with a dietetic dressing.  
  • Seventh, exercise every day, even if it is only a 15-minute walk with a friend.  If you choose to exercise alone there is a much greater chance of finding an excuse to skip it. But remember, it is almost impossible to exercise away excessive caloric intake. The exercise is as much for your brain as for your body. And it is your brain that tells your body to take the first step toward a healthier life, and to just keep truckin'.  

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