Healthy Weight

Aside from abundance, the most aggravating factor in modern obesity is the shift to a carbohydrate-based diet. In the wild, cheese puffs, Jolly Ranchers, and Big Gulps would not exist. We would be primarily metabolizing protein and fat because that is the makeup of natural foods in the wild.

When we fill the intestinal tract with carbohydrates (all of which convert to quick energy sugars) and keep it full, there is no need for the body to ever call upon reserve fat in tissue to supply energy. Additionally, the fat that is eaten is shuttled off to fat stores since it is the prized storage fuel. There is no need to waste this prized fuel for energy since all the moment-to-moment energy needs are being taken care of by an intestinal tract that is constantly laden with carbohydrates. Carbohydrates in excess of moment-to-moment energy needs are then also converted to fat for storage.

As the body gets used to this skewed form of metabolism, it becomes dependent on it and will feel discomfort if it is not continued. The craving for sugar and starches (another form of sugar) is a universal symptom of the obese. Their inability to imagine a day without soda, some candy, bread, cereal, pastries, potatoes, and rolls is not a matter of mere food preference, but of addiction and should raise the red flag that those are the foods they should abandon. This craving for processed carbohydrates, when the body obviously does not need more food, is an addiction every bit as powerful as nicotine, caffeine and street drugs. The carbohydrate junkie is enslaved and self-destructive like any other addict.

That brief explanation is the long and short of the cause of the modern epidemic of obesity, as well as the many other modern chronic degenerative diseases.

Since it is intelligence, not our biology, that has created the convenient modern abundance, it is intelligence, not biology, that must dictate how we eat. Reason tells us that we should be selecting foods as close to nature as possible and expending sufficient energy by work or exercise to balance what we take in. That is a matter of thinking and judgment, not feeling--feeling like we want to eat and feeling like we don't want to exercise.

Actually, little thought is required if whole natural raw foods are the focus. Such foods will automatically regulate weight. High levels of body fat do not exist in the wild other than to serve a functional role in insulation or as a reserve for hibernation. Natural food --any food that can be found in the wild and digested raw exactly like it is without any form of processing--also contains all the vitamins, minerals, enzymes, accessory nutrients and undiscovered essentials to process the food and permit the full expression of health. Unnatural food--that which can only be eaten if processed or synthesized--is cosmetically enhanced to fool us into thinking it is good. It is usually laden with toxins and easy calories stripped of vital nutrients. Modern processed foods are too much of too little. The obese are in fact starving, famished for the critical nutrients found only in raw natural foods.

Excess weight is such a pervasive problem and an inciting or aggravating factor in so many diseases that its prevention should be on everyone's mind, and it pretty much is these days since the majority of people are overweight and at least a third are obese. Excess weight is neither innocent nor harmless for the individual or society. Since excess weight boils down to eating more than one's activity justifies, it is a form of theft in that we are taking what we do not deserve. In a world of limited resources, including those necessary to farm, process, transport, and store food, why should we consume more than we need? Moreover, while children here and abroad starve, we are killing ourselves by overeating. Instead of the counsel echoed in households across the land: "Clean up your plate, don't you know there are starving children?" it should be: "Don't put so much on your plate; don't you know there are starving children?"

We owe it to our body to properly care for it. It is a moral and ethical responsibility as much as caring for children, parents, pets, and the environment. Some justify being overweight as a life choice. But no choice is made in a vacuum. Society ends up paying for handicap facilities, healthcare, and social aid for those who, under the burden of their own weight and the attendant health decline, cannot stand on their feet for any length of time or sustain a job. It is also not fair to family and friends to impose upon them the emotional anguish of watching a loved one self-destruct.

Excess weight predisposes those who carry it to myriad diseases and mobility problems. Decreased agility increases the risk of physical injury from falling and decreases a person's ability to escape quickly from threatening situations. The load stress on the joints erodes them and inflicts arthritic changes requiring pain medications (a sure downward drug dependent and side effect spiral) and joint replacement surgery.

If a person simply calculates how much they are overweight, say it is 50 or 100 pounds, and goes to a gym and picks up dumbbells of that weight and carries them around for a short time, it will be clear why the joints are failing. Such a person is not a 'victim' of arthritis, and it is not 'in the genes,' even though many physicians and surgeons will tell their patients such an outrageous story.

If an obese person requires surgery, risk is increased because of the difficulty of reaching target tissues, the danger of ligatures slipping, and the sheer frustration of attempting precise work in a corporeal vat of grease. Furthermore, if the goal is to reach the maximum lifespan of about 120, or at least live healthily for the years lived, few things can be done that will increase the chances more than eating less and being reasonably lean.

Excess weight is a problem that lies within any person's power to solve. Even when people feel up against the wall and resort to highly dangerous bariatric surgery (stomach stapling and the like), success does not come from the surgery; it results because less food is eaten. Eating less food can be a choice; choice does not require surgery.

Life is best lived as a challenge to be won. By following the simple principles outlined above we can meet and win the challenge of excess weight with a wind at our back. All that stands in the way is thinking and the will to become a better person.

So don't see excess weight as an impossible burden or a reason to concede defeat, nor to resign oneself to a lifestyle of masochistic self-loathing. Don't be discouraged by the feeling of emptiness and frustration from failed diet programs that center on some expert or product. They provide no true foothold because they center on an outside agency, not personal enlightenment. See the problem and your new understanding of it as a fount of action. It is a wonderful opportunity to take control, watch your body transform, and experience the health it is designed to have.

(Originally published at GoArticles and reprinted with permission from the author, R.L. Wysong).

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