Health Consciousness
I also believe that advanced health and fitness education should be compulsory subjects in all faculties at universities. But nutrition is generally not even covered in the medical schools. After all, isn’t a healthy body and mind the “sacred temple” that we all require to be in great working order so that we can be happy and productive throughout the rest of our lives? If you are not well, what good are engineering or accounting degrees? To be a bit cynical, that approach of including health and nutrition at all levels of the education system would be teaching people to become responsible. That would not be good for corporate profits! So such an idea is very unlikely to be adopted. What government would have the guts to implement such a policy and risk reducing corporate profits? That certainly would not do, would it? Sales of fast food and of sugary beverage drinks would possibly drop if such an approach were taken. And prescriptions for Big Pharma drugs might go down too. In this article, I also want to provide a bit of an update as to our own health and fitness program. We now have progressed to be aware of some “finer distinctions” compared with only a couple of months ago. General Comment As western society makes claims that they have “progressed” with new medical technologies, the national health statistics and costs have continued to balloon. Why is that? Despite the massive amount of money thrown at new technologies and pharmaceutical drugs, obesity is at pandemic proportions, cancer and heart rates continue to climb through the roof, diabetes rates are getting worse, rates of mental illness continues to skyrocket, and more. A couple of weeks ago I read where the suicide rates in Australia produced twice as many deaths compared with fatalities from car/road accidents. But which one gets the most publicity? If medical science was so good, why would mental illness keep on increasing? Do psychotropic drugs make people feel worse. In my experience, they often do. You don’t have to look far to find other similar examples. To an outside observer, one could hypothesize that there is a conspiracy theory at work. When you hear that there is a “war on cancer” or a war on some other disease, and billions of tax payer dollars are promised to fix the problem, you can probably bet that the main recipients of those government funds are going to be the existing industry players and lobby groups – and the disease will get worse. That is what has happened with cancer. It has also happened with mental illness. Let’s look at the players in the field:
o Question: to what extent do the existing agricultural policies and practices lead to poorer consumer health?
o Question: to what extent do the existing food processing and packaging lead to poorer health?
o Question: to what extent do the existing beverage industries contribute to poorer health?
o Question: to what extent does Big Pharma contribute to poorer health?
o Question: to what extent does Big Government and their policies contribute to poorer health? Here are some other questions to ponder: o Why was fluoride added to drinking water in the concentration camps in Germany? Could it have been to make the prisoners more passive? Can the same question be asked about the drinking water in many countries? The source of this poison is a waste product from the aluminium processing. o Is the media in cohorts with the “Bigs” above? Do they only release and show information that is “approved”? Health Freedom Advocates There are now many respectable health freedom advocates who constantly monitor these health and political issues mentioned above - and more. They also release information about natural alternatives that are safer and have no side effects. I subscribe to many newsletters, but three that I find that offer constant and up-to-date information on healthy alternatives and health and political freedom information (and warnings) are:
When I
have sometimes mentioned articles by some of these people, I have
occasionally received responses like “Oh, that’s no
different to such and such; I already know that”. That might
be true, but the difference is that these people reach huge audiences
(probably over 3,000,000 subscribers between the three names mentioned
above). They are probably making a much bigger difference to the lives
of many more people than the average person. Do you want to be “normal”? Most aspects of characteristics about human life can be described in statistical terms. They follow normal distribution patterns. There is a huge range from the lower end to the upper end of most characteristics, with most people fitting in the middle. The mathematicians describe this distribution pattern a “bell curve” on a graph, where most of the people fit in the middle of the range. It’s only a very small minority that can be described in the top 1% and also in the bottom 1%. Just
think of any human characteristic (IQ, education, health, fitness,
weight, height, awareness, political persuasion, religious beliefs,
sexual appetites and attitudes, etc, etc) and you can imagine a normal
distribution pattern or bell curve for each. The
majority of people fit into the central area, regardless of the
characteristic being described. They are considered to be
“normal” or “average” because
they represent the majority. I
have been described as being “abnormal” by quite a
few people since I was quite young – and not only in a single
aspect of my life either. It was not in reference to my IQ, height,
weight, fitness, etc. I fell into the mid range for those
characteristics. But I was in the small minority outside the normal
range when it came to more controversial subjects. Maybe that happened
because I was sent away to board when I was only six years old and a
survival instinct kicked in. Perhaps I learnt to think independently to
my family’s values and controls because I had less contact
with my parents. After
I studied statistics at university, and later reading that only a very
small percentage of people become financially independent, or achieve
great things, I said to myself: “why
do I want to become normal?” According to the research
made by CapGemini and Merryl Lynch published in the World Wealth Report
2006, there were about 2,669,000 millionaires in the United States, or
about 0.9% of the population (less than 1%). In 2011, maybe having a
million dollars of net wealth does not even qualify someone as being
financially independent anymore. What couple can afford to not work,
but still live off the earnings from an investment of $1,000,000? Most
of that wealth could easily be the value of the family home which does
not earn any cash income. Does that put food on the table, or pay for
the gas for the car? If you could earn 5% p.a. on your investment, that
would only be $50,000 per year. And what inflation erodes the value or
purchasing power of any further liquid investments? Can you even earn
5% in a secure investment? Perhaps a million dollars would be enough
wealth to live in a 3rd
world countries, but it’s unlikely to be enough in
the US, Canada, Australia or most European countries. So you can see that if your
goal was to be financially independent by being a millionaire, then you
would need to at least be earning in the top 1% of the population, or
maybe even in the top 0.1%. Therefore you would have to be
“abnormal” in mathematical terminology. The other
99% or more would be in the “normal” part of the
distribution curve. Is that a good place to be? Of course
“success” is not only about the measure of money.
Mother Teresa was not a financially wealthy person, but she was still
considered to be a big success in her chosen profession – and
was even awarded Sainthood by the Pope in 2003. I
think that to achieve success in life in your chosen profession and be
a more interesting person and have a more enjoyable and exciting life,
it is much better to adopt an attitude that you are probably better
served by thinking and doing the opposite to what most other people do.
That means you probably need to think and act abnormally. I think that
Mike Adams, Joseph Mercola and Mark Sircus are
“abnormal”. But I would prefer to follow their
example than be just average. See
http://www.thirdage.com/aging-well/redefining-age
(article published in 2009) http://www.georgiatrend.com/features-sports-leisure/bill-daprano.shtml
(an article published in 2003). Our
own progress We
are a long way from being like Bill and Jeanne Daprano and probably
will never be like them. However, at the moment we are really enjoying
our Speed 8 workouts and alternating days with 90 minute walks. They
represent quality time together as well as having an enjoyable and
healthy interest to share. Now
that we are fitter and are not so challenged compared with less than
two months ago, we have noticed more ways to make the Speed 8 and
walking experiences even more enjoyable with new and ongoing short-term
goals. In the beginning all we could concentrate on was just completing
the eight Speed 8 repetitions every second day. In fact we
didn’t even get there with an acceptable heart rate to begin
with. It seemed like too much hard work. We were quite unfit. I stopped
at about five repetitions for the first few weeks and have only managed
the full eight repetitions in the last two weeks. However, I had all
the settings on the exercise machine that I was using set at the
maximum level of difficulty. My wife was more patient with her level of
difficulty settings. I am more of a “no pain, no
gain” sort of person. We
only looked at the timer and our heart rates on the monitor panel in
the early stage. Our short-term goal was to simply finish the 8
repetitions, and get our heart rates up to 160 beats per minute or more
during the 30 second sprint sessions. Now,
however, we are also starting to monitor and log: ·
the
calorie counter, and ·
the
distance measured. Within
just two Speed 8 days this week, we have found that we can monitor
these additional measures and make new small improvement goals each
week. In fact in my try (three times this week), I have improved the
calorie counter and distance substantially. When I started I managed to
only do 30 revolutions in the 30 seconds, which then dropped to about
25 by the fifth repetition. Now I can maintain over 35 revolutions for
five repetitions, and drop to about 30 for the last few. I am getting
fitter, and the improvement has happened very quickly. I
have also managed to keep my average heart rate higher. If I can
continue improving in only a small way each week, I will be making
important progress. I am my only competition, and that is just a mind
game. It’s not a bad game to play at the age of 60. I also
get to practice being a personal trainer for my wife, and witness her
benefits too. The
good thing about this Speed 8 discipline is that it is really hard to
think about other problems – and there are a few at the
moment. The heavy breathing (and puffing) is virtually the only focus
we can concentrate on!! We certainly can’t easily talk during
the sprints. The focused exercise might even be classified as a form of
meditation. The
equipment we are currently using at a local gym has various electronic
read outs on its display. It is called an Elliptical Exerciser (EE) and
we prefer this to a stationary bike or a treadmill. Dr Joseph Mercola
prefers a recumbent bike. It has a back rest. We don’t have
access to one of those machines in the gym we are using. But on a
recumbent bike you still only use your legs, just like a stationary
bike. CLICK HERE
if you want to see Mercola demonstrating Speed 8 on a recumbent bike.
In the YouTube video he is being coached by Phil Campbell who wrote the
book “Ready,
Set, Go! Synergy Fitness The
EE gives our legs as well as our arms and upper body a good work out if
we set the adjustments levels at maximum difficulty. It also offers a
non-jarring exercise on our knees and hips. This is an important factor
for me with my bad knee. The level
of difficulty can be changed. On the left, the level (10-100) refers to
the step height or how high the knees rise. The adjustment on the right
(2-20) alters the resistance. It is harder to pedal at the higher
levels. That’s when your arms doing some work help a lot. We
are now working at the maximum level of difficulty on both parameters. After
only a few weeks of feeling a bit uncomfortable with exhaustion, we now
both look forward to our Speed 8 days. The small time interval taken
(less than 20 minutes) passes very quickly, yet we feel like we have
really done ourselves some good - if the heavy sweating and breathing
are “proof”. I think we are starting to feel the
Human Growth Hormone affect from Speed 8 that Mercola talks about. On every
other day, we go for a walk for about 90 minutes. For this we wear
heart monitors and try and stick to 110 – 130 beats per
minute. We can still talk comfortably at this rate. We try and fit some
weight training in if we feel like it. The experts say this also helps
with weight loss. The great
benefit from our programs is that we have noticed that our respective
blood pressures have already dropped substantially. We have both been
on BP medication. My wife has managed to cut out her pills altogether
and still maintain normal BP readings. This has happened in quite a
short period of time. After the Clean Program that we finished a few
weeks ago (Clean:
The Revolutionary Program to Restore the Body's Natural Ability to Heal
Itself
), she was
able to cut her medication down by 50%, but now after settling into the
Speed 8 and regular walking for a few weeks, she is down to zero pills.
We measure our BP’s every day after our morning exercise. I
have cut my meds by 50% and my BP readings are in the normal range. I
also hope to be down to zero meds after another few weeks and after I
have lost some more weight. My wife
was
also on prescribed thyroid medication. She has been on them for many
years. As of this last week, she is experimenting with doing without
those meds too. Her last blood test a few weeks ago (after the cleanse)
showed that her thyroid readings were in the normal range. She will
check them again in another few weeks. We are hoping that the Speed 8
and HGH affect will produce thyroid and other hormone improvements. If
not, then she will go back on the meds. We are
also both sleeping very well. For me that is a huge bonus. I have had
an insomnia problem for a large part of my life. I am also managing
with less sleep compared with 6-8 weeks ago (about 6 hours) and am
automatically waking up early. And when I do, I feel like immediately
getting out of bed in an energetic way. It has been quite a while since
I felt like that. I am mentally and physically much more productive. Other
options for Speed 8
You
don’t need to have access to a special fitness machine to
achieve what we are doing. But you probably do need a heart monitor as
a motivating tool. An expensive version will have a calorie calculator
built-in. However we purchased a cheap $50 one last week and
it works fine without a calorie counter. You can access a calorie
calculator on http://www.braydenwm.com/calburn.htm.
This is good just for walking and other forms of exercise too. The
calculator form looks like this: Just fill
out the first six cells and then press the
“Calculate” button and you will get a good estimate
of your calories burned. I have
found that running up stairs for 30 seconds is a great alternative to
doing Speed 8 on a gym machine. You will still
need your heart monitor. After the 30 seconds walking/running up the
stairs, you then just walk slowly down and repeat the exercise in 90
seconds from the time you started to descend from the top stair that
you managed to climb to. Do that 8 times. Don’t forget the
warm up and warm down. With your
heart monitor and the above calculator (estimate your average heart
rate over the whole exercise period), you will see that you can achieve
the same benefits as if you are on an expensive gymnasium machine. If
you want to make the exercise harder, just wear a backpack with some
sort of weight in it (eg. Books). I have read that you can also do
Speed 8 with swimming. But you will need to make sure your heart
monitor is water proof. I found my cheaper version let a small amount
of moisture in this week. You may
wish to log your details in a book, or on a spreadsheet, so that you
can monitor your progress. It will become a motivating tool for you. A
set of bathroom scales will also help. It has been proven that people
who weigh themselves often, also tend to weigh less than people who
don’t. It is just another motivating tool –
especially after you commit to a health and fitness regime. PS. If
you think the above sounds too daunting, just think about what Bill and
Jeanne Daprano have done with their senior years. Phil Campbell
(“Ready Set Go”) makes the point in an article
about the Daprono’s (click HERE)
that he lost his father to heart disease at the age of 50 – a
loss of over 25 years of quality life by comparison. What would happen
to the cost of national health if more people thought and acted like
the Daprano’s?
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