Loose Lips Sink Ships

It’s easy to forget that what you put in your mouth has a direct correlation to your health. So, here is your reminder:

What you put in your mouth directly affects your health.

If you could combat diabetes, obesity, heart disease, osteoporosis, and rheumatoid arthritis in one fell swoop…would you? OF COURSE you would. (If you said no, stop here. You have bigger fish to fry. Your goal is to find an available soul).

I’m not sure if you have noticed, but we live in, lets say a “There’s A Pill For That” society. People all over our country treat their bodies like crap, run their health into the ground, and then claim their ‘only option’ is to combat their ills with pills. Add to this the fact we are in a generation where at least half (I dare say: it is much higher) of the population expects everything to be instantaneous, and we have ourselves a volatile situation. Unhealthy, misinformed individuals making poor lifestyle decisions and then looking for a quick way out. Not at all awesome sauce.

Instant gratification: Email. (HAH! That’s the pony express nowaday.) Text messages. Status updates. Twitter. Next day shipping…heck, SAME day shipping. Google at your fingertips. TV on demand. Christmas decor in August (HATE). Credit cards you WAVE (who has time to swipe?!? Clearly only losers.). Infomercial products (Shake weight, anyone?). Pain killers. Weight loss surgery.

Now don’t get me wrong. I am all for innovation and doing things a smarter way: minimum input for maximum results is fabulous. But minimum input for subpar results? When it comes to the quality of your life? There are just some corners not worth cutting.

Like what you put in your mouth.

While we are on the subject of pills, lets head down that road for a minute. (There are so many directions to go in, but this is just a synopsis, remember.) There is evidence being collected at an alarming rate that the pills we are taking to combat poor lifestyle decisions and diseases of the Standard American Diet can cause as much harm as good.  Patients taking pills without changing their habits must then often be prescribed higher doses. These stress their bodies more and more, leave them susceptible to more chance for side effects, and often result in greater health issues.

Let’s use Type 2 diabetes as an example, with the help of our lovely Angie. “You start a patient on the drugs and initially they are very effective at lowering blood glucose. But the patient continues to destroy their pancreas with inflammatory foods and the drugs eventually quit working or require dual or triple drug therapy from different approaches to try and lower the blood glucose. Often it takes only a few years of oral drug therapy until the patient become insulin dependent and thus needle dependent. Once a patient makes it to this stage, they will never again have a blood glucose level that is in the normal range, regardless of what they do.” Fix it with a pill, huh? Do those results sound anything like instant fixes? (And I even left out the part out about high blood glucose levels over time leading to blindness, impotence, vascular disease, and amputation! Oh wait, now it’s not left out…I’m so sneaky) How about we just nip a majority of these health problems in the bud by

eliminating grains, legumes, sugar, and dairy?

According to Beau, the instant gratification factor comes into play in the gym most often from us lovely ladies. It sounds a little something like, “I want to loose THIS.” (Insert specific body part/area of body you are currently least happy with.) In other words, targeted weight loss, or…shall we say, spot reduction? Sorry cave ladies (and gentleman). That’s just not the way the cookie crumbles. Not to fear! You know what makes trouble-spots less troubling? And good parts even better? Back squats, dead lifts, sprinting, and 

eating.the.right.food

Need an example? Look at the results from CFR’s paleo challenge, #1(May 2011) or #2(Jan-Feb 2012). Members (including some who were feeling frustrated by the mirror) buckled down on their eating, and all of the sudden (SARCASM), began to see major results. We are talking about a bunch of good looking people who, thanks to CFR’s programming and coaching, were already strong and fast. Many were even eating in a way that somewhat resembled paleo at least part of the time. What happened? They ALL got stronger, faster, more energized, saw positive changes in their reflections…they became healthier.  

And they didn’t even have to take a pill.

What you put in your mouth directly affects your health…and your reflection.

Fancy That. They should get someone to blog about this stuff or something.

Until Next Time…

Mallory

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