Being Healthy for Life - Lesson 1

Before I begin, I truly hope that you have chosen to become at the very least curious about your own health and how it will affect your future. Also, I pray that you want to become a better you and if so, I will do my best to help you on your way.

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As you all may be aware, we live in a country that offers us freedoms that others do not. For one thing, we can chose to be healthy or not to be.
Picture this and let me know if some of this reminds you of your life or someone you know.
Keeping busy and being stressed out is becoming more of a regular occurance than it use to be. We live in a world that is getting more toxic as the years go by (i.e. Water, air and land pollution) affecting how we live and what we put into our bodies. Our budgets are getting tighter and tighter and our schedule is barely giving us free time, all of which will hinder the quality of our food that we allow our bodies to consume. The quicker it takes to prepare a meal or a snack the more free time we will have to catch up on your work day, chores, shopping, etc. You will learn, as have I, that the time you save preparing your meals will one day turn around and bite you in the behind as you will realize that quite a few years of life have now gone missing. Don't forget that your body is one of your greatest "earthly" possesions ... God didn't make junk, so why are you treating it like junk?

Look around you and you will see that obesity is becoming the prime epidemic in our current generation. It has been proven that a 20 year old, obese, white male is estimated to lose about 13 years of his life and a women up to 8 years (ref: JAMA, Jan 8, 2003, volume 289, No. 2)

Many of us have unknowingly been victimized and rendered into carbohydrate addicts. What does it mean? Well, in short when we eat foods that do not meet the body's needs, our body cries out for more. The word, "addict", is used because these people are experiencing a real chemical, physiological craving equal to someone addicted to smoking. Not too worry, this will be explained further in a future lesson, Keep in mind that this is just the introduction and is meant to get you ready for the real juicy stuff.

Here is the basic explaination of how our body uses sugar (glucose) and turns it into energy that our body requires to function. It all revolves around the not-so-simple cell. A cell is not an empty shell, it is an organ all in it's own. One of it's many functions is to produce energy we need to live. It needs a fuel source, glucose, in order to do this. This glucose enters into the cell and is transported to the furnace of the cell (mitochondria) where it is turned into energy. Now multiply this by several trillion cells and stand back in wonder as to how great our God is. Can you imagine having to create something so complicated that is able to function without us being aware of all it's functions? Now, the choices we make in our eating habits determine whether we empower, handicap or kill our body's cells which our Lord so carefully put together.



Keep these next two words in your conscious mind for the remainder of these lessons as it is part of the key which will free you of a prison you are currently not aware of yet. These two words are, "Glycemic Index". This is a scale in which we can understand how carbohydrates effects our body. With this index you will learn how to choose foods that will not spike your blood sugar, thus, ending our addiction.

Stay tuned for Lesson 2 coming really soon.