Sometimes spiritual practitioners forget they are spiritual beings   
   residing in a physical body living in a physical world and must do work   
   in both spiritual and physical areas to live a balanced and healthy   
   life. This especially goes for those addicted to computers - good   
   reminder to exercise more than our fingers typing! Here is an old post   
   I wrote; "The King and Queen of Good Health"  Maybe of use to some of   
   you.   
      
      
      
   The King and Queen of Good Health ~ Written for an Overeaters Anonymous   
   group   
      
      
      
   In the old days obesity was not as glaring of a problem as it seems to   
   be developing nowadays. Sure there have always been fat people and   
   gluttons, but in recent years our sedentary, stressful and unnatural   
   lives have added to the fat problem. We live unnatural lives with what   
   we eat. a lot of our foods are manufactured in a factory as opposed to   
   farm fresh. The meat is loaded with antibiotics, growth hormones, PCB's   
   and mercury in the fish and tons more of c.rap in our foods. Ten years   
   ago the USA made it legal to use sludge as fertilizer. Sludge is the   
   solid waste that comes from the sewage plants. Now, human waste is one   
   thing but what about all the Drano, phosphates and other junk people   
   throw down the drain...it all ends up in our food supply. Now the mad   
   scientists have started to recombine and mix the genetics and created   
   another food health hazard of genetically modified foods.   
      
   Our ancestors also did more manual labor than just sitting at a   
   computer for hours on end or watching TV with the mandatory bags of   
   snacks to accompany us. Jack La Lane said that the king and queen of   
   good health is exercise and eating natural and healthy foods. In   
   addition, the king and queen must sit on a thrown of low stress living   
   for their reign to last any length. The foods we eat are also too   
   addictive and stimulate our sensation addiction unnaturally to a point   
   of being addictive just like drugs. Also loads of salt. Salt is a great   
   corrosive and starts eating away at our joints as well as cause us   
   other health harms such as high blood pressure. One can of soup has   
   almost the total daily allowance of sodium. My kid was on a normal hi   
   sodium diet and has high blood pressure and he was only 14 at the time   
   but was eating 5000 to 6000 mg of sodium a day when we were made clear   
   about this. Many foods I cannot have especially the factory foods   
   loaded with chemicals. They irritate my body and irritate my brain. I   
   had to accept I could not have them in my life as well as a healthy and   
   trim body.   
      
   For those that do not know how calories work, when you eat 3500   
   unburned or unneeded calories, whether in a day or over a week, it puts   
   on a pound of fat. (3200 calories is the same as 4 sticks or one pound   
   of butter.) It doesn't matter whether it is a few hundred unburned   
   calories a day or a thousand it all patiently adds up to fat as a   
   result of not accepting and living within pur caloric budget that   
   nature has allowed us. For my lifestyle this caloric number is about   
   1800 to 1900 calories a day. It took some time to figure this number   
   out, but thorough trial and error I now have it, although metabolisms   
   change with age. This is why a lot of the fat people of today were thin   
   people of yesteryear. The good diet of today becomes the bad diet of   
   tomorrow once our metabolism changes and to maintain our weight loss we   
   have to have clarity about this figure on a life long basis.   
      
   If you are in a big city you can get a RM test to find out your caloric   
   resting metabolism rate, but where I live in the rural area it is only   
   by trail and error. When I first started to study about calories and   
   nutrition I figured I should be able to eat 2800 calories a day with my   
   lifestyle - Wrong! This 2800 calorie diet still had me 60 pounds   
   overweight, so in the end our bodies will tell us what our real caloric   
   needs are we wont tell it. Knowing this caloric balance point is very   
   important to you for it shows the exact point you start going from   
   eating thin to eating fat. Now, really there is not exact point we can   
   pin down each day, since we burn different calories each day depending   
   on what we do and temperature extremes and the like, but it is a close   
   enough point for us to measure with. Also, knowing what to eat and the   
   calories does little good if you are living life wrong and are   
   spiritually sick. We need 12 step work on the spiritual end of recovery   
   as well as the mechanical tools of exercise, eating smart and eating   
   right.   
      
   It is good to see a nutritionist if you have no concept about what is   
   healthy to eat or not. My diet is based on the food pyramid and is well   
   balanced and diverse as my food allergies allow it to be. (Have trouble   
   digesting some proteins and fats) I also record my food and calories   
   and weigh and measure some, although I am not as rigid with weights and   
   measures as I am with calories. I picked up this recording technique   
   from my Debtors Anonymous program and have been recording my money   
   since 1987 and food and calories since 1998. I count the money in my   
   wallet and I have to count the food calories that go into my mouth   
   otherwise I have no natural ability to know how much to eat for   
   maintaining a trim, healthy body. My brain and my mouth and my stomach   
   are not good judges for this task.   
      
   I am a male, 5 ft 11 inches and can eat 1800 calories a day on average   
   to stay at my goal weight. Although on Sundays I can have up to 2500   
   calories and still maintain my goal weight of 155 pounds. When I was in   
   my 20's or so I could eat 2800 calories every day, but that was then.   
   Metabolisms change as we age...it is a fact of life. I can spend this   
   1800 calories each day any way I like. Food is jus like money. I can   
   spend my monthly income on drugs and hookers and be homeless or I can   
   spend it in balanced, healthy way and live a good life. I can eat all   
   junk or all healthy or a mixture each day, it is all up to me. If I eat   
   1800 calories of junk each day I also get the added bonus of   
   depression, stomach aches, poor sleep and deteriorating health for my   
   efforts. To get you started with an idea of what you need for success.   
   A general rule for middle age people is to take 10% of your daily   
   calories you eat and this 10% figure will give you the weight you will   
   be living sedentary life with no exercise. In other word, if I wanted   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)