4-3-10 Blog #3

Years of foolish choices, bad decisions and just plain ignorance have caused you to finally hit the bottom of the nutrition, fitness and health barrel. Do not despair, for there is no where to go but up!
However, before you start to climb the ladder towards your goal of optimal health through proper nutrition and fitness, make sure your ladder is planted on solid ground. You don't want to fall off the ladder and start at the first wrung again.

There is a right way and many wrong ways to attempt to improve one's health and reach one's genetic potential through proper fitness and nutrition. We as a society are inundated on a daily basis through the mass media especially, with countless bad examples of how to become nutritionally and physically fit. The only way to avoid getting hoodwinked by the masters of deception is through educational self improvement regarding nutrition and fitness. You may have noticed that I always mention nutrition with fitness and vice versa. That is because for one to reach one's optimal, genetically, predetermined health goals one can not have nutrition without fitness or fitness without nutrition.

The United States in all it's capitalistic glory embraces academics but in our most recent history it appears that the pursuit of schooling is nothing more than a means to the end of acquiring and amassing greater wealth and more toys than your neighbor. This is done by getting a good education, followed by a high paying job followed by piles of cash. The goal in this country seems to be nothing but money. Don't get me wrong, money can cure many ills but what does it say about a society that grows wealthier and wealthier as it becomes lazier, fatter, and more unhealthy? How can we be so educated and so stupid at the same time?!

Reading, writing and math are obviously all important disciplines to be mastered if one wants to succeed in life, as are science, geography and history (although the study of history has certainly not prevented us from repeating the same mistakes, has it?) But none of these disciplines is more important then an education in nutrition and fitness leading to the healthiest you can possibly be if you apply the knowledge.

America continues on it's current course, hurdling with reckless abandon towards redefining what is normal. If we as a people continue to live the unhealthy lives we currently live, normal will one day be a country where no one is overweight because everyone is fat! That will be normal. Most people being on some sort of medication due to their weight will be normal. Just take a pill and eat whatever you want! The handful of slim, fit and non medicated people will be an aberration. They will be scorned and ridiculed for not having fun or knowing how to live well. They will be labeled mentally ill, compulsive, anal retentive, stressed out and suffering from severe type A personality disorder.

I don't know how many of you may have watched the animated movie Walli-e, a good movie by the way. In the film, humanity has so polluted and trashed earth that our planet is unfit for life. We abandon it to live in a humongous spaceship until the earth heals and people can return home. Our technological advances are so great that within the giant spacecraft robots and computers do all the work. Humans spend their days eating and interacting with one another only through hi-tech telecommunication devices, while being constantly bombarded with advertisements. Their minimal activities all occur while jetting around the huge mother ship on personal hover crafts which look like futuristic, floating chaise lounges. They never leave the comfort of their lounges. All have grown so fat that they have lost most of the motor control in their legs. Fiction? Yes, but I heard  a recent radio news broadcast that a prototype hover craft had been built in Japan. Scary.

When did it became acceptable to develop the mind and ignore the needs of the body? Who split us up into mind and body? The shell carrying around the brain is just as important as the brain itself. If the body gets sick and dies, the brain dies too. They work together and depend on one another. The  stereotype of the brilliant yet fitness challenged nerd and the muscled up but dumb jock seems to have seeped into many people's minds, as what is. This perpetuates the stereotype.

You don't want to be the nerd or the jock. They are both missing important pieces. You want to develop your brain and body to their fullest, natural potential. That's the epitome of success. Would you tell your kids to study only in moderate amounts to achieve D's and C's on their report cards? I think not. You would tell them to study hard and always shoot for A's, for excellence. When it comes to nutrition and fitness all we have in America is moderation not excellence. It's time to strive for excellence in nutrition and fitness before the damage becomes irreparable.