Getting Out of Our Obesity Cycle
We have put ourselves on a generational spinning wheel that is going to continue being catastrophic in the creation of a physical and financial pain cycle (from chronic disease), if we don’t change. Without good health, we live too short and die too long! And for good health, maintaining healthy habits is a must.
When we look back and factor in some things that have caused changes in our sizes and the changeover from infectious disease as a leading killer of Americans to now being chronic diseases- we can actually trace some of the main contributing factors very easily. During the years of the baby boomer’s birth and growth years an abundance of fast-food restaurants, processed foods, ever expanding sugared drink, candy and wheat products were made available. Many of these foods convert to energy very rapidly due to the starch or the sugar content, and when combined with high fat foods, can cause our body to store it if we are not very active in the following several hours. It so happens however that (as these products have become more and more available and considered as a regular food source), our activity levels have also slowed down, creating a perfect storm of obesity.
We have a food supply chain that has placed importance on bringing to market foods that can be grown in massive quantities to supply the demand of people who no longer grow their own food. So whether its meat product that is loaded with hormones and dripping with fat, combined with meals and snacks that are mostly made up of wheat and other starchy products, combined with a huge decrease in activity levels and energy expenditure, it’s no wonder that our size as a nation has increased so much!
These same products usually don’t have much insoluble fiber in them, so our “I’m full” signal doesn’t give its signal in time, and we have that overstuffed feeling about 15 minutes later when it’s too late and way too much sugar and fats are entering our bloodstream. Our body simply compensates by flooding our system with insulin to start removing these excess calories from the blood and storing them for later use in our fat cells and, this is what makes us look fat!
Solutions:
1. We can do a kitchen cleanup of what we have so readily available to eat all around us and replace them with things like nuts, nut butters, berries, beans, vegetables some fruit, and other “one ingredient foods.” We can drink 1/2 our body weight in ounces of water. We can try to eat less bread and other wheat products such as crackers, and other pastries made with flour.
Example: if we’re going to eat a hamburger, or hotdog, eat it with beans, vegetables and water to drink instead of bread, buns, chips and sodas or sweet tea.
2. Increase activity levels with things like walking, active sports/hobbies, and exercise that activate the pushing, pulling and pressing muscles of the body. There are also many ways to wiggle in a little physical exertion in our regular daily routine and if we can identify these activities of daily living (ADL’s) and speed up our movement when doing them, we can very easily burn an extra 500 calories a day by doing so! 1 pound of fat = 3500 calories
We as a person, family, community, town and county can turn this around if we can figure out ways to keep ourselves inspired first. We can then inspire the ones we care about and the many others we come in contact with. ~We are not an island, our actions and habits have a ripple effect on the ones around us whether they’re bad or good habits!
