Start Your New Life Today Part 20

CHAPTER 82.

Eat Fat-The Right Kind Many nutritionists in the "Low-Fat Wars" of the eighties and nineties told us fat was the enemy. If we could just cut the fat in our diet, they told us, we would lose weight. Soon a horde of low-fat products appeared on store shelves to help us: low-fat cookies, low-fat ice cream, low-fat cheese and chips and frozen dinners. And we snapped them up. We cut the b.u.t.ter, the oil, the meat, and the mayo. We ate every low-fat product known to man. And you know what happened? We got fatter.

The percentage of obese Americans doubled in those two decades from 15 percent to 30 percent. The percentage of overweight children tripled. Women now eat 335 more calories per day than they did thirty years ago. How can this be? How can we cut fat and gain weight and even damage our overall health?

Women now eat 335 more calories per day than they did thirty years ago.

The answer is, the nutritionists who told us to cut fat simply did not know what they were talking about. The whole notion that fat made us fat came from the knowledge that, ounce for ounce, fat has more than twice as many calories as protein or carbohydrates. So replace the fat with an equal weight of something else, and we eat fewer calories, right?

Well, technically, yes. When low-fat diet proponents studied people in the lab, prepared their meals, and measured every calorie they consumed, replacing grams of fat with grams of carbs, it worked just fine. The people lost weight. No matter that they were starving, distracted, and grumpy. That wasn't part of the study. The message went out far and wide: Low-fat, high-carb is your ticket to health and weight loss! Fat is a dirty word!

Unfortunately, things got a little more complicated when real people started trying this diet. Sure, a gram of carbohydrates has fewer calories than a gram of fat, but it turns out that doesn't help much, because the gram of fat is much better at making you feel full. The carbohydrate just makes you want more, so you eat more. The percentage of calories we get from fat dropped from 37 percent to 32, while the percentage of calories from carbohydrates rose from 45 percent to 52.

Other problems came with swapping fat for carbs. Carbohydrates are types of sugar molecules. They don't taste sweet on our tongue because they are too big to fit onto our sugar taste buds, but the body breaks them down into sugar molecules almost instantly. Machines can do it too: corn is a starch that doesn't taste very sweet, but corn syrup is the exact same stuff broken down into little bits, and you know how sweet that is.

No matter what type of carbohydrate you put in your body-french fries or bread or cotton candy-it gets dumped into the blood as glucose for energy. If your muscles happen to be in use at that moment, they'll have plenty of energy. (This is why athletes like to eat some carbohydrates before competing.) If not, well, your body can always convert all that glucose to fat and store it.

Low blood sugar is also known as hypoglycemia. And you know the feeling of low blood sugar: hunger. You feel hungry, your concentration drops, you get grumpy and weak and low in energy. All you can think about is food. So you eat. And if what you eat is mostly carbohydrates, then your blood sugar soars again, you make lots more insulin, and the whole process repeats itself. (Until, of course, your pancreas gets so exhausted from making all the insulin it breaks down and you develop diabetes.) So the net result of the low-fat craze was the consumption of more calories and added health concerns!

So, the issue becomes what kind of fat to eat. Cut back on most red meat and whole-fat dairy, eat more fish and olive oil, and your health risks go down and you will actually consume fewer calories. This is the basis of the now famous Mediterranean Diet, and it's a proven life extender. Switching to a Mediterranean Diet and exercising regularly reduces your risk of heart disease by 80 percent! It's no coincidence this diet is also the basic diet consumed by the people of biblical times: lots of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and fish, with occasional red meat and poultry and very little dairy (mostly yogurt). It's got quite a track record. So, eat fat-the right kind.

The larger lesson here is the resident truth of the Bible about balance and moderation. Beware of any fad pus.h.i.+ng an extreme in any area.

CHAPTER 83.

Let Water Do Its Job Without water you wouldn't have any energy at all, because water is responsible for getting nutrients from your food to your muscles and brain-via blood, which is mostly water. So is the rest of you for that matter! We are all about two-thirds water, and we use water to do everything: to get nutrients to our cells, to cool ourselves, to get rid of waste, and to circulate immune cells through the body. Without enough water, all these systems start to suffer, including metabolism. As you begin to get dehydrated, you get sluggish, because the water isn't there to transfer fuel to your muscles and brain. If you want to keep your metabolism at a high level, it's essential to get enough water each day. In one study in Germany, people's metabolisms immediately rose by 30 percent after drinking two gla.s.ses of water and stayed that way for an hour. That's a lot of extra calories burned. And follow this easy rule about water: "If you think of it, drink of it."

You, and all living creatures, must maintain the water content precisely. If it drops below normal, sickness appears. Water is so fundamental to our existence the Bible even compares it to the Word of G.o.d. We water our bodies with natural water and our souls with the water of G.o.d's Word (see Ephesians 5:2627). Just as the water of G.o.d's Word washes our souls of spiritual filth, so water bathes every one of your cells in life supporting fluid. It's also the fluid within your cells. The water routes of your body are the way materials are transported to the cells and the way waste is removed from the cells, just as the waters of the United States were the main transportation routes before the automobile. Without water, energy can't get from your food to your muscles and brain, waste can't get cleansed, kidneys can't function, and the immune system can't circulate. You can't cool yourself either; those little water droplets that get pushed out through the skin as sweat are your main means for dumping excess heat. You can lose a quart of water through sweat if you exercise hard for an hour. If you want your cells to function at their peak-and everything we do or think depends on the functioning of our cells-you need to provide your body with enough water to do its job.

Water is so fundamental to our existence the Bible even compares it to the Word of G.o.d.

You can go on a hunger strike for a month and suffer no problems worse than a loose wardrobe, but go on a water strike for more than a day and the consequences are severe. Serious dehydration begins with nausea, dizziness, and confusion and leads to muscle cramps, kidney failure, and death.

Even low-grade dehydration has important consequences. When the water level in your body drops, your blood has more trouble getting fuel and other nutrients to your cells, so your energy level drops. Your brain can't run at full power either. You may not even realize you're thirsty, but the evidence is there: fatigue, grumpiness, and weak concentration. If this sounds like you every afternoon, then you are probably not getting enough water. And if you try to fix the fatigue with coffee or cola, even worse: You burn up your remaining energy even faster and are left even more dehydrated by the coffee, which is a diuretic. You'd be surprised how many afternoon slumps can be solved by water.

Let your low-level dehydration go on for too long and you suffer even more. Dry, itchy eyes, dry skin that doesn't "snap back" when pulled, constipation, and kidney stones. Other long-term effects can be even more insidious. A friend's father was showing signs of Alzheimer's disease: confusion, forgetfulness, and so on. My friend is a man of prayer, and he asked G.o.d to show him how he might help his father. It came to him that his father never drank water. He claimed he didn't like the taste. So my friend convinced his dad to start drinking water, and sure enough the signs of Alzheimer's disappeared. This does not mean water can cure Alzheimer's disease. It means chronic dehydration can be one cause of Alzheimer's-like symptoms.

Don't rely on thirst to tell you when you need more water. Thirst isn't always reliable, especially in the elderly. You get used to feeling all sorts of ways, some of them bad. Don't get so used to being thirsty you stop noticing. An employee of mine switched from other drinks to water throughout the day and was amazed by how much better she felt. "If a person drinks more water, can it make her thirsty?" she asked. After she started drinking the water, she felt thirst more often. Her body was crying out for more, more, and more water! Give someone a taste of freedom, and he wants more. Give your thirsty body a taste of good, clean water, and suddenly it realizes what it's been missing, and the thirst alarm goes off.

CHAPTER 84.

Casual Eating See if any of this sounds familiar. Every time you pull a snack out of the refrigerator for your children, you pop a little in your mouth. Half a piece of cheese, one slice of ham, or a spoonful of peanut b.u.t.ter. You have no intention of eating the cake you bake, but you lick the batter bowl and the icing knife clean. You get a m.u.f.fin every day at Starbucks, but throw out half of it to "save calories." You don't order dessert because you're on a diet, but you ask your husband for several bites of his.

The calories in casual, mindless eating add up. I know a woman who drank a gla.s.s of milk every night before bed for years. She didn't need that milk; she had just become used to it. She decided to make herself break the habit and lost twelve pounds.

I changed my mindless eating habits to mindful ones by making the commitment to myself that every piece of food I put in my mouth would be a conscious decision. This is harder than it sounds. The way to begin is by paying attention to how many items you are tempted to put in your mouth only because the food is there.

Few of us can do it by willpower alone. We need to call on G.o.d to help us be mindful at all times. But here are a few tips helpful for breaking the casual, mindless eating habit: * Pay attention to how you feel after you eat junk food.

* Pay attention to how you feel after you eat too much.

* Break the habit of snacking while you work or watch TV.

* Eat slowly.

* Turn off the "Bargain Detector": you don't need to buy and eat something because it's a good deal.

* Don't eat something just because someone fixed it for you and they want you to eat it.

* Only eat when you are truly hungry and not just because you happen to see some food.

We must keep our guard up against this constant whisper to eat, eat, eat. Mindful eating is as important to looking and feeling great as eating the right foods.

Mindful eating is as important to looking and feeling great as eating the right foods.

CHAPTER 85.

Steer Clear of Cortisol Stress is simply anything that occurs that requires us to react. Our body responds by sending hormones like adrenaline and cortisol through the blood to improve our performance level. Our breathing and heart rate increase, which means more fuel for the muscles and brain. We think faster, react quicker, and have extra strength. This is great, if the stressor is infrequent and if we have some outlet for reacting: running, delivering a sensational performance on stage, or some other way of being active. However, all too often in the modern world we have no physical outlet for the stress. Our boss yells at us in a meeting, we have a fight with our spouse, and we can do nothing but sit there, hormones surging, arteries taking a beating, blood supercharged with oxygen, all bottled up. Constant stress can hand you a quick ticket to the grave. Stick your car in neutral in your driveway, press the gas pedal to the floor, and see how long it takes for your engine to overheat.

When we experience stress the best thing we can do is what our bodies are screaming at us to do anyway: move!

When we experience stress (and let's face it, most of us deal with it every day) the best thing we can do is what our bodies are screaming at us to do anyway: move! Exercise is the best stress-reducer known to man. It burns up that extra adrenaline and gets our bodies back to a relaxed state, which means you can spend your night sleeping instead of seething. Prayer is the other great stress reliever. Taking your problems to G.o.d and trusting Him for answers, protection, and provision replaces pressure with peace.

CHAPTER 86.

Make It Easy Most human beings want everything fast, but G.o.d is not in a hurry. He is in this with you for the long haul. He will deliver you from all your bondages little by little. It takes a long time to get our lives into a mess, and it will take some time to see things turned around. Don't be too hard on yourself, especially in the beginning. You have a lot to learn and absorb.

The biggest favor you can do yourself is to not have unrealistic expectations or you will probably end up discouraged. People who try to fix everything that is wrong in one week often give up. Remember, these changes are supposed to last a lifetime.

I have found the secret to success in any long-term project is to make it as easy as possible. You don't need to push yourself to the limit every day of your life unless you're training for the Olympics. You will improve simply by doing something regularly. For most of us, the rewards have to clearly outweigh the inconvenience. All you care about is the outcome, and you don't get extra points for toughness or extreme willpower, so don't make things extra hard on yourself.

I am not saying a new program will always be easy, because it won't. Breaking old bad habits and making new good ones usually present challenges. You will definitely have to resist the temptation to give up at times and be willing to press on during those times when your progress isn't going as fast as you would like. Keeping your commitment to yourself to spend time shopping for and preparing right food items to eat and beginning to exercise regularly will take effort. I am saying you can make it as easy on yourself as possible.

You can do a number of things to make your new lifestyle a relatively painless adjustment. In fact, it pays to start thinking early about the context in which you'll be introducing your new habits. If you are going to start walking a mile a day, try to pick a time when you won't feel pressure not to do it. Arranging your life so your new healthy habits fit right in is a key to long-term commitment. Don't tackle so many things at once that you feel overwhelmed and give up after a short period of time.