Obesity, Fat, Cholesterol

I just finished watching a very informative program on KET2 this evening - Frontline: "The Diet Wars". I then proceeded to my computer to go to PBS.org in order to view some of the transcript information. I highly recommend everyone to visit this site and get more familiar with the obesity epidemic we in this country are facing and more importantly, our children are facing. Here is an excerpt from one of the pages (click here to view article):

How important is this as a public health epidemic? If we do nothing, what's going to happen?

The biggest thing that's going to happen is that diabetes rates are going to skyrocket. There was a projection published last summer by the CDC that suggested that for a child born in the year 2000, they faced a 50 percent lifetime risk of developing diabetes, so that means that one child in two, over their lifetime, would become diabetic.

Diabetes is a very, very serious disease. It has tremendous impact on life. It takes very, very careful management. It's an expensive disease. It is associated with cardiovascular risk, with blindness, with amputation, with renal failure, so it will definitely overwhelm our healthcare system. It's a disease that's chronic, so if you get it early, you'll live with it for a very long time. It's likely to be very expensive, but more importantly, it's likely to really compromise quality of life.

I have a friend whose 9 year old son has high cholesterol and her 4 year old daughter has cavities in her teeth. I am amazed by what the children around me eat on a daily basis. My nephew and niece (my brother's children - 9 and 6 years old) eat junk constantly. My nephew suffers from psoriasis all over his body and my niece is always sick and has allergies. When you go to their house and look in the refrigerator all you see is koolaid, bologna, and cheese and condiments in it. Everything they eat is in the pantry or the freezer - pre-cooked, processed junk.

I try my best with my own children (6 and 3 years old) to make sure they eat a proper diet and take their vitamins. They don't drink soft drinks or koolaide - it's mostly water, sport drink in the summer, or milk. No fast food or candy. Don't get me wrong - we do live in the world and indulge in the occasional sweet treats. But, I always make sure they have their supplements and meal drinks.

Back to the program. They mentioned at one point about the food guide pyramid and how it encourages the largest consumption from the bread, cereal, rice and pasta group and less dairy and meats. But how some are contradicting this. In my book Prescription for Natural Cures, Doctors Balch and Stengler recommend to their patients, in line with modern nutrition research, the following:

Starting from the top of the pyramid (the smallest portions):

Dairy products - optional
Quality protein (fish, lean poultry, eggs) 2-4 servings
Whole grains (low glycemic) 3-5 servings/Legumes 2-3 servings
Healthful oils (Oils: olive, canola, flax, hemp) Nuts and seeds 3-4 servings
Vegetables 5-7 servings/Fruit 2-3 servings
Water 6-8 glasses (48-64 ounces)

The two favorite books in my "nutrition" library:

Prescription for Natural Cures and Prescription for Nutritional Healing

Feel free to contact me with any questions.

Severe Arthritis helped...

Shaklee.net/go

Severe Arthritis Helped

Here is a testimony of what our company's Pain Support, Healthy Joint, & Soy Protein can do for someone with severe arthritis.

DOLORES

I became a member of the Monday/ Wednesday/Friday Y-Care group at Confederation Senior’s Center about 6 ½ years ago, on the advice of my doctor. I did not have a heart condition (which is the reason for the existence of the group) but had medical problems that could best be served with the activities of this form of activity.

I had been suffering for 50+ years with arthritis, throughout my body, and this became aggravated by sciatica, bursitis and osteoporosis. Compounding the problem was the fact that I had been treated for years for hypothyroidism so that exercise was difficult and weight gain inevitable, thereby augmenting the joint problems. My doctor was afraid that improper exercising might do more damage and he considered that the form of exercise activity with the Y-care training would be advantageous. Hence, I was authorized to take part in the group’s activities.

Initially, the regime of exercises were painful and exhausting but, with consistent effort and attendance, this improved to what I would consider a “discomfort” level, but not necessary any where near the pain threshold I had encountered earlier. That was - up until Christmas 2004.

I had always had difficulty with sloped grades, inclines, stairs, etc., sometime requiring a handrail to assist me by allowing me to “pull” myself up the stairs, or else holding the arm of someone who would pull me up an incline. For some reason, this was becoming increasingly difficult and, by Christmas 2004, I was needing a great deal of assistance navigating the stairs to my grand-daughter’s home for our annual Christmas get-together.

By mid-January, 2005, I was barely able to get out of bed, creep to the bathroom, and get back up on to the bed. Living alone, except for two cats, I was pretty much panicked knowing that I had been told that eventually I could expect to be wheel-chair ridden. This seemed to be it. What’s worse, my weight was still 40 some pounds more than it should be and I had developed high blood pressure. I also had a high cholesterol problem too. It stunned me since I had been on prescription pain killers all my adult life and even though they never freed me from pain, they did moderate it somewhat. Now, even that was not happening.

By a stroke of luck, I had recently subscribed to membership with the Shak Nutrition Company and had been researching their products as targeted to joint pain. I had placed an order which arrived (at my neighbour’s door - since I couldn’t get out of bed and to the door to receive it) and which I received eventually. I started on the Soy Protein (water-washed and prepared at 56 degree C so that it did not destroy the phyto-chemicals and phyto-estrogens nor become a source of carcinogens; the Joint Pain Relief; and the Joint Pain Complex. I noticed a little relief after three or four days… enough to navigate around my condo and feed the animals.

I then ordered some “Joint and Muscle Ache Cream” for future use. I nevergot to use it because, the day it arrived, I was back at the gym with it in mypurse. I ran into someone else in pain, offered it to him to try, he did, andpurchased it from me right away.

It didn’t matter. Since March 1st, I have never had to take as much as an aspirin for pain, have almost complete mobility of all my joints, have used other Shaklee products to bring down my weight (Team 15 style) and lost 35 pounds, have now got normal cholesterol, and my systolic blood pressure has dropped about 30 points. I still have a thyroid condition but hope to eventually rid my need for thyroid medication altogether.

Why do I continue at the gym? Because I probably would not exercise at all without the moral support and collegiality of those I exercise with. I certainly would miss the social contact and the friends I have developed with the Y-Care group, not to mention the opportunity I have had to direct people to possible nutritional supplements that could help them too.

I am now happy to be associated with Shak as a ”wellness representative” – being proactive on the medical scene instead of reactive, as is frequently the case with most of us who wait for disaster to strike before doing anything to prevent it.

Dolores