“The body is a marvelous machine…a chemical laboratory, a power-house. Every movement, voluntary or involuntary, is full of secrets and marvels.” –Theodor Herzl
Most of us just don’t realize what an amazing gift our body is to us. It is a miraculous complex laboratory of chemicals that can achieve astounding things when maintained properly.
Did you know that your stomach cells secrete hydrochloric acid to break down foods for our digestive system? This type of acid is a corrosive compound used to treat metals in the industrial world. It can pickle steel, but the mucous lining the walls of our stomach keep this poisonous liquid safely in the digestive system. Amazing!
Yet surprisingly enough, many of us use our body as a guinea pig by experimenting with any diet plan that comes along. That’s what America does, bouncing from one diet fad to another. From liquid diets where nothing is consumed except three shakes a day to drinking grapefruit juice after every meal. Then there’s the no carbohydrate diet, egg and banana diet, and of all things, the hot dog diet. Give me a break!
Most of us don’t realize that when we decide to go on every diet that comes along, we put our bodies into major shock! In fact, many diets can be dangerous to our health. Most diets call for times of starvation, when we deprive our bodies of the necessary nutrients that they need on a daily basis. When we go without food for long periods our body actually shifts into a protective mode thinking that we are starving. This mode literally slows our metabolism and holds onto fat, storing it for use as the body needs it in the absence of food. So the well-intentioned dieter actually defeats the very purpose that they have set out to accomplish; they are storing more fat as opposed to burning it.
Weight loss is actually a fairly easy equation. Burning more calories than you consume equals weight lost. Consuming the same amount of calories as calories burned, weight is maintained. Taking in more calories than what you burn, weight increases.
The best thing we can do is to look at food as fuel that our bodies need on a regular basis. If your car’s gas tank is on empty, you can guarantee you won’t be going anywhere until you fill it up with fuel. We would not think of doing something as senseless as putting water or oil into the gas tank of our car, because we know that it will cause major damage to the engine.
However, day in and day out we choose to put the wrong fuel into our bodies. The food that we eat contributes greatly to how we feel. Many of us have simply fallen into bad habits that are hard to break, and our bodies are paying the price for it. The sad fact is that we do not suffer from a lack of information. The challenge comes in applying the relevant, life changing principles to our own lives.
Your body is miraculous. You only get one for a lifetime, so do everything you can to take care of it.
If we think hard enough each of us can come up with excuses for not being as healthy as we should be.
FIT FOREVER Tom Hopkins 