Are you a healthy person? what do you do/not to keep it up ?

The King and Queen of Good Health ~ Written for an Overeaters Anonymous group


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In the old days obesity was not as glaring of a problem as it seems to be developing nowadays. Sure there have always been fat people and gluttons, but in recent years our sedentary, stressful and unnatural lives have added to the fat problem. We live unnatural lives with what we eat. a lot of our foods are manufactured in a factory as opposed to farm fresh. The meat is loaded with antibiotics, growth hormones, PCB's and mercury in the fish and tons more of c.rap in our foods. Ten years ago the USA made it legal to use sludge as fertilizer. Sludge is the solid waste that comes from the sewage plants. Now, human waste is one thing but what about all the Drano, phosphates and other **** people throw down the drain...it all ends up in our food supply. Now the mad scientists have started to recombine and mix the genetics and created another food health hazard of genetically modified foods.

Our ancestors also did more manual labor than just sitting at a computer for hours on end or watching TV with the mandatory bags of snacks to accompany us. Jack La Lane said that the king and queen of good health is exercise and eating natural and healthy foods. In addition, the king and queen must sit on a thrown of low stress living for their reign to last any length. The foods we eat are also too addictive and stimulate our sensation addiction unnaturally to a point of being addictive just like drugs. Also loads of salt. Salt is a great corrosive and starts eating away at our joints as well as cause us other health harms such as high blood pressure. One can of soup has almost the total daily allowance of sodium. My kid was on a normal hi sodium diet and has high blood pressure and he was only 14 at the time but was eating 5000 to 6000 mg of sodium a day when we were made clear about this. Many foods I cannot have especially the factory foods loaded with chemicals. They irritate my body and irritate my brain. I had to accept I could not have them in my life as well as a healthy and trim body.

For those that do not know how calories work, when you eat 3500 unburned or unneeded calories, whether in a day or over a week, it puts on a pound of fat. (3200 calories is the same as 4 sticks or one pound of butter.) It doesn't matter whether it is a few hundred unburned calories a day or a thousand it all patiently adds up to fat as a result of not accepting and living within pur caloric budget that nature has allowed us. For my lifestyle this caloric number is about 1800 to 1900 calories a day. It took some time to figure this number out, but thorough trial and error I now have it, although metabolisms change with age. This is why a lot of the fat people of today were thin people of yesteryear. The good diet of today becomes the bad diet of tomorrow once our metabolism changes and to maintain our weight loss we have to have clarity about this figure on a life long basis.

If you are in a big city you can get a RM test to find out your caloric resting metabolism rate, but where I live in the rural area it is only by trail and error. When I first started to study about calories and nutrition I figured I should be able to eat 2800 calories a day with my lifestyle - Wrong! This 2800 calorie diet still had me 60 pounds overweight, so in the end our bodies will tell us what our real caloric needs are we wont tell it. Knowing this caloric balance point is very important to you for it shows the exact point you start going from eating thin to eating fat. Now, really there is not exact point we can pin down each day, since we burn different calories each day depending on what we do and temperature extremes and the like, but it is a close enough point for us to measure with. Also, knowing what to eat and the calories does little good if you are living life wrong and are spiritually sick. We need 12 step work on the spiritual end of recovery as well as the mechanical tools of exercise, eating smart and eating right.

It is good to see a nutritionist if you have no concept about what is healthy to eat or not. My diet is based on the food pyramid and is well balanced and diverse as my food allergies allow it to be. (Have trouble digesting some proteins and fats) I also record my food and calories and weigh and measure some, although I am not as rigid with weights and measures as I am with calories. I picked up this recording technique from my Debtors Anonymous program and have been recording my money since 1987 and food and calories since 1998. I count the money in my wallet and I have to count the food calories that go into my mouth otherwise I have no natural ability to know how much to eat for maintaining a trim, healthy body. My brain and my mouth and my stomach are not good judges for this task.

I am a male, 5 ft 11 inches and can eat 1800 calories a day on average to stay at my goal weight. Although on Sundays I can have up to 2500 calories and still maintain my goal weight of 155 pounds. When I was in my 20's or so I could eat 2800 calories every day, but that was then. Metabolisms change as we age...it is a fact of life. I can spend this 1800 calories each day any way I like. Food is jus like money. I can spend my monthly income on drugs and hookers and be homeless or I can spend it in balanced, healthy way and live a good life. I can eat all junk or all healthy or a mixture each day, it is all up to me. If I eat 1800 calories of junk each day I also get the added bonus of depression, stomach aches, poor sleep and deteriorating health for my efforts. To get you started with an idea of what you need for success. A general rule for middle age people is to take 10% of your daily calories you eat and this 10% figure will give you the weight you will be living sedentary life with no exercise. In other word, if I wanted to weigh 150 pounds and hated to move or exercise I would probably need to eat about 1500 calories a day. I am right in line with this estimate as I exercise quite a bit and eat 1800-1900 per day on average. Some of us are above this estimate and some are below, but it is something to get you started.

Yes, many overeaters foundational problem with fat stems from this refusal to live within their caloric means. It is no different from the clutterer that refuses to live within their comfortable space means or the debtor that refuses to live within their comfortable income means. We all have limits and a refusal to live within these healthy limits is defiance on are part. Step 2 mentions that "defiance" is an outstanding characteristic of the addict and overeaters do not have a corner on the market when it comes to defiance as it shows up throughout the various addictions. Overeaters can eat all the food they like but they must also pay the price with fat if the food they eat is outside of their caloric budget.

After all, in life we must all answer to natural law. It is just a trade off, if you get thin you can't eat all the old favorite foods in mass quantity anymore but now you are rewarded with a new thin and healthy body, whereas the ones till fat get to enjoy all the food they want but must carry around the fat and sickness with them as the price they pay. Some of us go to extreme measures with laxatives or vomiting or whatever, but as I said, natures law must be paid eventually and these extreme measure all have prices to pay also. One thing is for sure, those fat ones that complain they are fat from "slow metabolisms" still have a caloric balance point as they cannot get fat from just breathing air and any of us fail toe at will die sooner or later from starvation. Sure they may have slightly slower metabolism, but they still have caloric budget and their fatness is not from the slow metabolism it is from a refusal to know and live within their caloric budget. And this can come from 2 areas - design or desire. Some fat people are fat from ignorance of how and what toe at and live. Others are fat from binge eating and knowing how to eat or what to eat has nothing to do with it. This is why OA has tools for both areas of recovery spiritual as well as mechanical.

While eating healthy and right is half the battle, exercise is also a must to maintain strong healthy bodies over our lifetime. The nice dividend from exercise is when we pout on a pound of muscle we burn an extra 50 calories of fat each day for free. The sad part about this scheme is muscle is very hard to put on for many people. I have been weight training for many years and only put on a few pounds of muscle if that. but, I digest proteins poorly so cannot eat much meat or other high proteins such as soy or milk products. If you are blessed with adding muscle easily with exercise I encourage you to do so for the muscle will help burn the fat off as long as you do not increase your eating to go beyond your caloric balance point.

Besides fat, anger and depression can be helped with exercise. Adrenal steroids (cortisol) secreted when a person is under stress reach the brain and over time can affect the structure of the brain. When stress hormones, intended for a life or death fight or flight situation, remain switched for an extended period, they can slow the growth of nerve fibers in the areas of the brain responsible for emotions and other brain functions. We also produce cortisol from any other stressors the body perceives, whether it is physical stress, such as a sickness, injury, surgery, or temperature extremes as well as psychological stress that we and the world put on us.

Each of us has produces a different amount of these chemicals and has a different sensitivity to them and this might be the missing link as to a part of the question as to why some of us are more addictive than others with how we each produce and react to these stress chemicals differently. Exercise helps remove these stress chemicals from our bodies as well as produce other chemicals that give us a sense of well being - endorphins. Yes, we have our own drug pusher within each of us. You see, 12 steps or not, we all have to answer to natural law. Within the boundaries of natural law is where stress chemicals come from within us and as addicts I believe we are super sensitized to these chemicals and we seek relief though our various addictions. So, as addicts we should be in tune with suing any tools available to us for recovery purposes whether it is the spiritual tools of the 12 steps or the mechanical tools of eating right and exercise.

Some of eat out of boredom and not having anything else to do. Developing a list of positive time fillers was a big help to my compulsive spending recovery as well as my overeating. As Thoreau wrote in Walden , "The devil finds work for idle hands." Before heading in this new direction, most of my time was occupied by what to compulsively buy next, overeating rich foods and getting fat and when I wanted a break from that I had a picnic basket of other addictive areas to get drugged up with. A lot of my new activities are sport or movement related as they also serve the purposes of helping with my overeating disease and have the added benefit of improved health and don't produce clutter like some hobbies do. In addition they help with depression, balance and brain functioning. Activities to occupy yourself that don't revolve around spending or your other addictive areas only go so far in recovery though. You also have to be careful to take time to relax and not escape life through activity. 12 Step work, reducing stress, repairing the wreckage of the past and living a balanced life all contribute to heading in the right recovery direction.

Partial List of Positive Time Filling Activities:

Hiking, Mountain Bike, Climbing Gym, Basketball, Rollerblading, Jet Ski, Racquetball, Swim, Sun Bath, Fishing, Canoeing, Weight Training, Target Shooting, Camping, Jogging, Motorcycle, Snowshoe, Ski, Yoga, Massage, Meditation, Free Lectures and Movies at a Local University, Snow Tubing, Napping or Relaxing in a Hammock, Healthy Picnics, Library, Spiritual studies, Trail Running, Free Musical Events and Concerts, Church Services, Scenic Seasonal Car Trips, etc.

Many possibilities to do exercise even if you are too busy to live right. What a statement we are too busy to actually live life the right way... I guess we are waiting for the next life to give it a try. If you life to watch TV at night start doing Yoga, weight training or free exercise in front of the TV instead of sitting and eating. You can also sit on the couch and extend you leg and hold it out then alternate and keep alternating. I keep some hand grips near the couch and use them. At church stand on your tip toes and hold it this strengthens the calf muscles or stand on one leg alternately. When drying you hair after shower do some stomach sucks and push your chest up to the ceiling after you blow out the air and suck in the gut and hold it. When waiting in the return line at a store you can balance on one foot it strengthen your legs and improves balance. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Strap on some ankle weight throughout the day for added resistance. When you walk take some small dumbbells with you, keep then under the cars eat for easy access. When you are driving you can do isometric exercises with he steering wheel. If you do not know what these are look up isometrics and study it for your self. Make exercise your foremost goal and find you won ways to strengthen your body, then you will have ti instead of just reading about it. When you wit ion the car for the kids shut off the radio and meditate to relax you brain and disperse the tress chemicals.

Most of these exercise I've mentioned are not what I base my own exercise program on, I look at them as bonus exercise that helps bring me that much closer to my health goal in life. For a real exercise program join a gym and get serious about it doing weight training - aerobics and yoga or stretching for flexibility. Keep it balanced. No one really like to exercise. I much rather develop muscles by eating cheesecake or shopping at the mall, but nature did not make this a reality, so I do what works. Jack La Lane said he developed a liking for things that are good for him and that is what I try to do. Remember you do not have to do things perfect, but you have to do them better than before if you want to change your life.

" Positive Time Fillers"

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Developing a list of positive time fillers was a big help with my addictions. As Thoreau wrote in Walden , "The devil finds work for idle hands." Before heading in this new direction, most of my time was occupied by what to buy next, overeating rich foods and getting fat and when I wanted a break from that I had a picnic basket of other addictive areas to get drugged up with. Most of my new activities are sport or movement related as they also serve the purposes of helping with my overeating disease and have the added benefit of improved health and don't produce clutter like some hobbies do. In addition they help with depression, balance and equilibrium and brain functioning. Now, keeping busy is not the cure all for addicts, but it is a necessary foundational pillar.

Other areas of importance are those activities that relax our minds or stimulate them for healthy growth potential. Bottom line: is the activity pleasing to us, healthy, nurturing and sustainable? You can also use the SCA guidelines for any questions about the activity: is the activity placing unreasonable demands on my time and energy, will it place me in legal jeopardy or endanger my mental, physical or spiritual health? Remember, as Jack LaLane said, exercise and eating healthy, natural foods are the King and Queen of good health. If you hate to move and hate to eat well, then do as he also said; "I developed a liking for things that are good for me."

Now I have much to look forward to in life for activities or rewards that are not destructive and are sustainable. Activities to occupy yourself that don't revolve around spending, eating, gambling, drugs or alcohol or other addictive areas only go so far in recovery though. You also have to be careful to take time to relax and not escape life through activity. Horace wrote, "Caelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt--You can run away as far as you like but you'll never get away from yourself." 12 Step work, reducing stress, repairing the wreckage of the past and living a balanced life all contribute to heading in the right recovery direction.

I've enclosed a few of some of my activities below for your perusal. Also be careful you don't find another excuse to compulsively spend with each new activity or sport you take up. That is something I have to watch. For instance. If you take up rollerblading, you buy one pair of skates and one set or protective gear, etc. You don't buy 5 pairs of skates 5 different skate bags and 8 sets of skate clothes, in all colors for each day of the week plus one extra for holidays. If you want different skates, you sell the old pair and then buy a different set. Everything is on a "one in ~ one out" basis to avoid compulsive spending, stockpiling and clutter.

Partial List of My Positive Time Filling Activities:

Hiking, Mountain Bike, Climbing Gym and Rock Climbing, Basketball, Rollerblading, Trail Running, Jet Skiing, Racquetball, Swim, Sun Bath, Fishing, Canoeing, Skateboarding, Weight Training, Target Shooting, Camping, Jogging, Kayaking, Motorcycle, Snowshoe, Downhill Skiing, XC Skiing, Yoga, Massage, Meditation, Dirt Bike, Free Lectures and Movies at a Local University, Snow Tubing, Snorkeling / Scuba, Napping or Relaxing in a Hammock, Bar B Q, Picnics, Library, Spiritual Studies, Free Musical Events and Concerts, Church Services, Scenic Seasonal Car Trips, Travel.

Exercise and healthy eating are the king and queen of good health. They must also sit on a thrown of low stress living. I hope you make the king and queen part of your life. Here is a small snip from Psychotherapy Toady regarding the benefits of exercise with addiction.

Why does exercise have such an impact on the emotional brain? Naturally, there is, first of all, its effect on endorphins. These tiny molecules secreted by the brain resemble opium and its derivatives, such as morphine and heroin. The emotional brain contains many receptors for endorphins, and that's why it is so sensitive to opium-it immediately radiates a sensation of well-being and satisfaction by hijacking one of the emotional brain's own intrinsic mechanisms.
Opium has a powerful effect on emotions-in fact, it's the strongest known antidote to the pangs of separation and mourning. However, when derivatives of opium are used too often, they can become habit forming. Brain receptors become inured to them, so the dose must be systematically increased in order
to produce the same effect. Moreover, because the receptors become less and less sensitive, regular pleasures lose all their power and potency-including sex, the pleasure of which is often reduced in drug addicts.

The secretion of endorphins brought on by physical exercise does exactly the opposite. The more the natural mechanism of pleasure is gently stimulated by exercise, the more sensitive the mechanism itself becomes. In addition to relishing sex and life's other big pleasures, people who exercise regularly actually get more pleasure out of the little things in life: their friendships, their cats, their meals, their hobbies, or even the smiles of passersby in the street. Essentially, it becomes easier for them to be satisfied, And in fact, the experience of pleasure is just the opposite of depression. Depression is defined,
above all, by the absence of pleasure, more so than by sadness, which is probably the reason why the release of endorphins has such a potent
antidepressant and anxiolytic effect. Stimulating the emotional brain by exercise also kindles the immune system. It promotes the proliferation
of "natural killer" cells, making them more aggressive against infections and cancer cells. The opposite effect occurs with heroin addicts, whose immune defenses collapse, often causing them to become gravely ill.

Exercise may also strengthen another physiological mechanism related to emotional health. This mechanism involves what we have already learned about heart rate variability. "'People who exercise regularly show a greater variability in heart rate and more coherence than people who do not. This means that their parasympathetic system, the physiological "brake" that brings on periods of calm, is healthier and stronger. A good balance between the two branches of the autonomic nervous system is one of the best potential antidotes to anxiety and panic attacks. All the symptoms of anxiety start with an overactive sympathetic system, a dry mouth, accelerated heartbeat, sweating, trembling, a rise in blood pressure. The sympathetic and parasympathetic systems are always in opposition. Thus, the more stimulation the parasympathetic branch receives, the stronger it becomes-like a developing muscle.

There's lots of good info in vfr's posts.

I walk 2-4 miles at least 5 days/week. I add strength training 2-3 days/week. My diet includes whole grains, lots of fruits and veggies, eggs, fish, and lean meats. I drink cranwater (1:8 dilution of pure cranberry juice) throughout the day. I also take supplemental flax oil, a high potency multi-vitamin, and GLA daily.

I started this regimen two-years ago. I haven't had the flu or even a head cold in that time. I do get back spasms occasionally and they can be debilitating. I need to do a better job of core body work to keep my abs and back strong.