One of the first questions you should ask is how often do you get sick?
A good immunity system counters inflammation and fights sickness. Following pretty simple guidelines, I have not been sick in at least ten years.
How is your weight compared to your high school weight?
Most people were their leanest in high school because they were active and their energy was off the charts with very high metabolism. As we get older and eat the same food our lower metabolism causes us to pack on those extra pounds. It would seem right that we have to eat differently, not less.
Are you exercising daily?
When you are a child you are in constant motion. This continuous exercise allows the tearing down of muscle tissue and rebuilding into stronger muscles. The human body is formed from hundreds of species that preceded us over 3.5 billion years. We started as algae and progressed to sea born animals, then amphibians, then dinosaurs, and finally ape like creatures.
The body still thinks it is living in nature and surviving by foraging and hunting. It expects us to slow in the winter and get more active in the spring. It has signals that similate dying in the winter and revitalizing in the spring. When you do not eat natural food and exercise regularly, you are signaling you are dying. The body complies.
The geologic time that we have spent shopping in markets and driving through fast food restaurants is miniscule. When you stop being active and start eating process foods, you are on your downhill cycle regardless of your age.
How much sugar do you eat?
Most refined foods that come in cans, packages, and restaurant menus have lots of sugar. A 1,000 calorie fast food meal of a hamburger, fries, and soda have more sugar than a large hunk of elk. Your body uses sugar to estimate how much food you ate. A 1,000 calorie fast food meal translate to a 10,000 calorie intake which signals a call for enormous amounts of insulin, gastric acid, and several other dangerous chemicals.
When man foraged and hunted, food didn’t have refined sugar. He would eat fruit, vegetables, nuts, and meat. When man exercised daily and ate natural food, the body did not have to store much fat. It used the fats as fuel to do more hunting and foraging. We no longer train the body to use fat as fuel unless we do anaerobic exercise.
If you are gaining a gut, it means that you are eating too much sugar and the insulin produced is using the calories to pad your stomach. You are increasing your vulnerability to diabetes. Statistics show that 1 out of 3 children born after 2000 will have diabetes 2.
Exercising everyday and eating natural food makes the body healthier. Everything else creates decay, sickness, disease, disability, chronic ailments, and early death.
If you want to start experiencing a weight drop, stop eating sugar and flour. Instead of a soda, have an apple. Or use anything else to break addictions, even if the substitute is also bad. After that, switch to something a little healthier and so on. I went from ice cream to Snickers to granola bars. Then I didn’t need any of them.
For dessert, I will sometimes break my craving by eating oat meal with fruit or even brown sugar. It is more filling and satisfying. You have to play tricks on your mind to break your bad habits.
In my process, I have lost 45 pounds over 5 years to reside at my high school weight. Now it is no problem because I have formed good eating habits for 85% of the time.