Get Healthy
One should eat to live, not live to eat
Benjamin Franklin
Our state of health may best be described as our body’s ability to deal with disease-causing entities, something we are constantly faced with. The benefits of being healthy include rarely getting sick, recovering quickly when we do, and a general feeling of wellbeing that impacts on all aspects of our life. Healthy people tend to be happy, and happy people enjoy life. Unhealthy people tend to be miserable, and miserable people tend to find life is a pain, both figuratively and literally.
Considering all this you would think people would make an effort to maintain their health, but they don’t. Indeed, most people seem hell-bent on damaging their health rather than maintaining it. The idiocy of this may best be seen by comparing the way we treat our body with the way we treat our cars.
If you only put good quality fuel in your car do you do the same for your body? Eating junk food is like running a car on kerosene; it might run, but not well. And if you service your car regularly, do you service your body (i.e. do a detox) regularly too? And if you do take better care of your car than your body ask yourself why? Why do you care more about your car, a vehicle for transport that you might only keep for a few years, than you do your body, the vehicle of your soul that must last you a lifetime?
The main ‘kerosene’ of food is refined sugar. It is not the only crap fuel we eat though, and there are many others that are damaging our health, such as processed meats and trans fats. There are plenty of good fuels we could be eating instead, including standard fuels containing the vitamins and minerals we need, and premium fuels that are rich in antioxidants and bioflavonoids.
Getting healthy is best approached as a lifestyle choice. If you still live the lifestyle you grew up living, albeit with a few adult indulgences like drinking alcohol, then you might want to think about making your own choice. We have a far greater knowledge of what constitutes a healthy lifestyle now than our parents and grandparents did. We also have more options, and more money to pay for them, so we really should be healthier, but we’re not.
Ideally we want to develop a healthy lifestyle before we develop a chronic lifestyle disease. If you already have one of these then there is probably a way to manage it, and hopefully reverse it, but you have to make the effort. And it may take a lot of effort, since being sick can be exhausting.
If you are still young and healthy, or one of the lucky older ones that have not developed a chronic disease yet, then getting started shouldn’t be too difficult. If you have a lot of bad habits to give up start with the easiest and work through them one at a time. For most of us the main changes we need to make will be dietary, and it’s just a case of trying healthy foods until you find something you like. Working out the best diet for us can be tricky since we are all different, and what works for one person won’t necessarily work for someone else, even if they are closely related. There are some general guidelines we can follow though.
Our diet has changed drastically from that of our ancestors, but returning to our ancestral diet would be nigh on impossible. It would not a good idea anyway, since it would severely restrict the variety of foods we could eat. It is what we evolved to cope with however, and therefore should form the basis of what we eat, but which traditional diet should we follow?
According to Dr Peter D’Adamo, our blood type is an indicator of the diet we are best suited to. D’Adamo believes that those with blood type O are best suited to a hunter-gatherer diet, type A to a cultivator of grains diet, and type B to a nomadic herder diet. Type AB have the genetic advantages of both type A and type B and should do well on either of these diets.1
Studies supporting D’Adamo’s approach are somewhat lacking, but it does give us a starting point in finding the diet that best suits us. I suggest you base your diet on the foods associated with each diet—meat, nuts, fruit and root vegetables with the type O hunter-gatherer diet; whole grain cereals with the type A cultivator of grains diet; and meat and dairy with the type B nomadic herder diet. Then modify it by adding healthy foods such as fish, vegetables, salads, legumes, fruit, nuts and seeds.
If you’re not a fan of D’Adamo’s approach then there are plenty of healthy diets doing the rounds, so try a few to see what works for you. You might want to avoid fad diets being promoted by unqualified people though. If they haven’t studied nutrition take their advice with a degree of scepticism.
For many people, what to eat is not as important as what to avoid. Most of us eat too much of something, and we will need to reduce it drastically if we are to get it to acceptable levels. Sugar is a common problem here, with the average intake of sugar in many countries being 2-3 times the maximum recommended safe level.
If you have tried cutting down on sweet foods and found you are constantly craving them then try giving them up entirely for a few weeks. You might need to avoid artificially sweetened foods and beverages too if they maintain the craving. If you do find your cravings drop off then stick with it for as long as you can because if you start consuming sweet things again you will soon start craving them again. If you substitute fruit for sugar you should find it easier to stick with it, but only eat fresh, whole fruit, and drink fruit juices with no added sugar.
While eating well is the most important factor for being healthy, there is something that trumps it—smoking tobacco. If you smoke then you have to quit if you want to be healthy. If don’t want to stop smoking then doing things to improve your health is not pointless, and might allow you to live a bit longer than you would otherwise. Tobacco is so incredibly toxic though that no matter what you do to offset the damage it does it will likely kill you anyway. Even if giving up tobacco means changing your job, your friends, and your place of residence, which it will for some people, it is still worth doing, so think seriously about it.
Sleep is very important for good health, so if this is an issue for you then you need to adopt some good sleep habits. Go to bed at a reasonable time, and if you have trouble falling asleep try a few relaxation techniques, read a book, think happy thoughts, or do whatever helps you to relax. Avoiding caffeine for at least six hours before you retire, and using an alarm to establish a regular waking time, may also be beneficial. If you can, have a rest during the day—even 5 or 10 minutes sitting in a quiet place will help.
Exercise is important too, but what you do should depend on your situation. If you are young and healthy aim for a minimum of 30 minutes five times a week or 50-60 minutes 3 times a week. This should be fairly strenuous exercise, such as an aerobics class or a weights routine. If you are old or frail then yoga and tai chi are good options because they can help to maintain good posture and range of movement.
If we want to be truly healthy then we need to do something about the manmade toxins we are exposed to. Avoiding them completely is virtually impossible, so we need to reduce our exposure to a minimum. If you are routinely exposed to toxic chemicals at work seriously consider getting a new job. If this is not an option then try to limit your exposure as much as possible by wearing gloves, mask, overalls, etc.
With regards to the many other sources of chemical exposure, it is just a matter of being persistent. Read the ingredients list on food labels, and try to eat unadulterated foods. Avoid plastic as much as you can, and store food in glass containers. Be sparing in your use of deodorants, perfumes, skin lotions, etc. If you have mercury amalgam fillings have them replaced with a non-toxic substitute.
If you live in a heavily polluted city or town consider wearing a mask when you go out, especially if you have a respiratory illness like asthma, or a susceptibility to chest infections. If you are not willing to do this then at least hold your breath when you are passing through a smoky area or somewhere that smells bad.
I lived in London for most of 1986, where I experienced big city air pollution firsthand, and coming from Perth, Western Australia, it was a bit of a shock. Every time I went into the city on the underground—average trip about an hour—I would blow my nose on arriving at my destination to find that my snot was black. This can’t be good for you but how bad is it really? Up until fairly recent times the air quality in London was so bad it literally killed people in the thousands. This occurred when certain atmospheric conditions led to the formation of a phenomenon known as a killer-smog.
When this happened in December 1952 over 4,000 people died in a 5-day period, with a further 8,000 estimated to have died later due to the residual effects of the smog. This led to the passing of the Clean Air Act of 1956, which mainly restricted small particle emissions. The Clean Air Act solved the killer-smog problem but did little to address the long-term effect of air pollution on chronic respiratory diseases. Mass deaths due to acute city air pollution may now be a thing of the past in major cities, but air pollution still kills around 6.7 million people a year globally.2
Once you have made the changes necessary to minimize your exposure to toxins, the next step is to remove the toxins already stored in your body. There are a lot of detox programmes to try, and most will help to some degree. Many are fundamentally flawed and can make you feel quite ill, but do not be deterred. Regular detox is one of the most effective things we can do to maintain our health.
Finally, it is important to develop a good work/life balance. If we should eat to live, not live to eat, then we should work to live too. We need time out to relax and recharge, and get some happy in our lives.
If you like to follow a set of basic principles then the five below can be useful. It might not be possible to adhere to these principles all the time, so treat them as guidelines, not commandments.
- Eat everything in moderation and nothing to excess (a balanced and varied diet).
- Eat foods with nothing added and nothing taken away (organic whole foods).
- Eat close to the tree (locally grown produce that has been harvested when ripe).
- Get regular exercise.
- Get a regular service (do a detox once or twice a year).
There is no ideal healthy lifestyle that suits everyone, so we need to find out what works for us, and adjust it appropriately as we age. When you find one that works for you, you should start to feel the benefits within a few weeks. This might not be obvious, especially if the improvements come on gradually. A common one is having more energy, which often goes unnoticed, especially if you have a high caffeine intake.
If you have a high caffeine intake and want to cut down, think carefully before attempting to do so while also trying to make major changes to your lifestyle. Finding the motivation for these things will be hard enough as it is. It is good to be aware of your caffeine intake and reduce it if it is excessive, but do not reduce it if you feel you need it to get you through the day.
You do not need to give up caffeine to be healthy, and it is generally beneficial if taken in moderation. Caffeine is a renal stimulant, so can help in the elimination of toxins via the kidneys. Our main sources of caffeine—tea, coffee, and cocoa—are also good sources of antioxidants. Best not to put sugar in them though.
References
- D’Adamo, Dr. P. ‘The Eat Right Diet’ Century, London, 1998, p. 11-18.
- www.britannica.com/event/Great-Smog-of-London – Killer smog. www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/household-air-pollution-and-health – Air pollution death toll.