Via: Medical Billing And Coding
Some essential books to read for your health and wellbeing:
Judging a book by it’s cover: what your body says about you
It dawned on me the other day that your body, your physical self, is the most obvious portrayal of whether or not you make good decisions on a daily basis.
A body that is out of shape and unhealthy tells other that you aren’t able to look after yourself. That you aren’t educated or disciplined enough to be able to maintain health and wellness.
Subconsciously, your brain is constantly making decisions based on visual cues. Obesity is a sign of pathology and your brain instantly recognises this as poor genetic material. It’s like nature has spray painted a fluorescent ’X’ across your chest and said, “Don’t mate with me!!”
You might laugh, but this does matter. Irrespective of your ideals about discrimination and everyone ‘getting a fair go’, people make decisions about you based on your appearance. And not just about your genetic fitness, but whether you might be lazy, dumb, lacking in self-control or all of the above. Would you conduct business or be friends with people that had these character traits?
Health is a self-responsibility. Unfortunately, since our default lifestyles don’t support health automatically any more, it’s something you’ll have to work for. And you know what that means! If it’s something you have to work for, you can bet your ass most people won’t do it.
Being in shape has never been more important. Not just so you can survive, but so you can LIVE. Don’t mistake them for the same thing.
Make the cover of your book as healthy, sexy and inviting as possible. I promise that the personal characteristics necessary to maintain a healthy body will carry over and make everything else in your life better. 
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RIP Jack LaLanne
Francois Henri "Jack" LaLanne
Jack LaLanne died the other week, 23 January 2011. A true health visionary that inspired a lot of people.
His food philosophy: “If man made it, don’t eat it.”
Rest in peace Jack.
Posted in General, Health
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Organic – The word that now means nothing
This is carbon and, yes, it's in all your food. If it has carbon, it's organic. Duh.
The likelihood of an item of food not being organic, i.e. not composed of carbon atoms, is ZERO. Of course food is organic! How could it not be?
I’ve seen organic used to describe everything from cereal to dog food to t-shirts to the predicted growth of a computer company. Marketing and the almighty quest for a quick buck has well and truly fucked this word for good.
The problem arises because of the ambiguity in how people define this word. Words only work when two or more people agree on a specific meaning or definition for a word. In this case, organic can mean many things. However, because no businesses declare exactly what they mean when they use the word ‘organic’, it only serves to cloud everyone’s understanding of what they’re trying to say.
For example, when what does the word ‘organic’ mean in relation to breakfast cereal? Does it contain carbon molecules? Sure. Does it come from the earth? Yes. Were the ingredients used in the production of the cereal grown without pesticides, chemical growth compounds or genetic modification? Who knows?
The word organic is now a fad. And organic does not equate to healthy. Continuing with the cereal example, all cereal, organic or not, is junk food.
As always, use your brain, stay informed and don’t get sucked in by layman hype.
Treadmill running – a sad story
I noticed the other day how sad the story is for those stuck in the conventional wisdom of fitness training. And its most obvious and sad to watch someone on a treadmill.
First there’s the obvious – running to go nowhere. Probably while you stare at yourself in the mirror and tell yourself how much further you need to run so that you can look better.
Second, we’re using energy (that could be put to better use elsewhere) to keep you in one spot. Coal gets burned down in the Latrobe Valley so we can spin a belt to let the runner run in the most contrived fashion possible – not running from anything, not running to anywhere and no forward motion.
Third, all that treadmill running, contrary to what you’re thinking, is making you fatter, weaker and sick.
Here’s an excerpt from the book ‘Lights Out: Sleep Sugar and Survival’:
All the medicine ever suggests you do is live on sugar and run like hell to burn it off. Of course, burning off all of the carbohydrates you’ve taken as a result of sleep loss by hysterical exercising does seem to reverse the process physiologically. As your weight goes down, so does insulin production, because you produce insulin in a relationship of grams to body weight.
When insulin goes down, your insulin receptors go back up; then blood sugar also falls because your muscles soak it up as you exercise through the now functioning insulin receptors. This is the way exercise lowers blood sugar. When your insulin is lower, you can’t make as much cholesterol and that number goes down, too. Then the doctor declares you cured. But you’re not cured.
Now you just have a new disease – because it never occurred to them that you don’t have to work off what you don’t take in the first place. In reality, running, jumping, or StairMastering is, to your body – a “fear response” that throws your cortisol into the stratosphere while you see God (read: runner’s high). High cortisol is a blood sugar mobiliser, so it throws your blood sugar up again; when your blood sugar goes up, insulin follows. That means the continuous rebounding of excessive exercise alone can make you insulin resistant over time.
- Running, jumping, climbing, etc. = being chased
- Chase = stress response
- Stress = Cortisol release = blood-sugar mobilisation
- Blood sugar up = insulin up = insulin resistance = fat storage and hypertension
The sadness in running on the treadmill (and other such vain fitness pursuits) is that you’re pretty much achieving the very OPPOSITE of all the goals you’re striving for.
Running and not going anywhere.
Running from the food and drink that can’t be outrun.
Running yourself into an early grave.
Get educated and for the sake of your health… stop running long. Even CrossFit may be too much for your adrenal system to cope with on a regular basis.
Posted in CrossFit, Education, General, Health
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