The Heartwise Blog

The world, hopefully, is discovering a health principle that is as difficult to swallow as when people were first told that the world was round.

Here it is.

Food has become our enemy.

Eight out of 10 people reading this are sacrificing their physical, emotional, mental and --- most importantly --- spiritual health by eating too much and eating the wrong foods. Six of those eight people will believe --- beyond a shadow of a doubt, in fact --- that this article does not apply to them whatsoever.

I urge you, especially if you think you do not have a weight problem or if you think your eating habits are healthy, to continue reading and let me take an initial crack at your resolve. (Perhaps you are one of the few who really do not have a problem.) The first test I would ask you to consider is to click over to the CDC website and calculate your body mass index. Visit it here: http://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/assessing/bmi/adult_bmi/english_bmi_calculator/bmi_calculator.html. Plug in your height and weight (be painfully honest) and examine where you are on the BMI range.

Like most folks, you will discover you are either within the overweight range or the obese range. And your first reaction, if you are like most people, will be to dismiss the results as data recommended for people living in ideal conditions or perhaps for someone with a smaller build or perhaps for someone who does not have your particular set of life challenges. The reasons for dismissing this data are numerous, but I promise you, the data on the CDC website is well-tested and extremely credible and does apply to you.

Now, go back to the website and, by continually plugging in lower and lower weights, find out where your weight would have to be in order to reach the middle of the CDC normal range. Then subtract it from your current weight. Today, I weight 176 pounds at 5 feet 10 inches high. According to the CDC website, I am still in the overweight range, though I have friends and family complaining that I am too thin. In fact, the Body Mass calculator reports that, even if I weighed 135 pounds, nearly 40 pounds less than I am now, I would still be in a normal, healthy range and I would not be considered underweight.

How far down would your weight have to go in order for the calculator to consider you underweight?

The underweight calculation is a great exercise when one considers science has proven that your body works best when you are slightly underweight. Are you aware that eating a caloric restrictive diet is the only clearly proven method by which men and women can live longer lives? Some have seen their life spans extended 10, 15 or 20 years by eating a nutritionally rich diet that allows for virtually no fat to become stored on their bodies.

However, here is the problem: Most have lost the ability to identify healthy weight in themselves and in others around them. As our average weight continues to rise as a society, our ideas of what constitutes good health continues to change for the worse. We see fat people as healthy. We see healthy people as gaunt. Again, well-meaning friends, often obese, express concern about my weight loss.

Food has become our enemy.

Six years ago I joined Overeaters Anonymous (OA). I had ballooned to 225 pounds and realized I needed help. The program was free and for some blessed reason that I believe was God's leading, I embraced it. Though I began introducing myself as a compulsive overeater at the weekly meetings, it took me six years before I believed what I was saying. That's a good lesson, by the way. I don't expect anyone to suddenly have a spiritual epiphany about food and weight by reading this article. Realizations such as the discovery that the world was round take time for folks to embrace the new found truth. I just pray that this article causes you to begin to consider a new point of view.

Today, in fact, I also introduce myself as a food addict. And I believe it wholeheartedly. What I have discovered over the years is that it should come as no surprise that we are addicted to food as a society. Food is the last acceptable drug of choice. Spoonfuls of sugar, fat and calories are used daily to combat depression, to enhance our celebrations, to soothe pain, to congratulate ourselves, to lower anxiety, to quell anger --- the list could go on almost endlessly. Meanwhile, the food industry is learning more effective ways to hook us with chemicals (google the ingredient "natural flavorings," for example) designed to create addictive responses by us, the consumers.

I know people who have had bariatric surgery and who not only learned how to eat around the surgery because of their addiction but gained weight again in spite of the surgery. I know people who work out 2 hours a day in order to continue their bad eating habits. They are normal weighted, but they are putting their bodies through serious trauma in order to keep shoving the food into themselves. Meanwhile, food ads are touting the idea of a fourth meal, and restaurants are packing an entire day's worth of empty calories into a single meal.

Food has become our enemy.

I am on a lifelong food plan today. Within three months of adopting it, I wrote a friend about the changes that had occurred in my life. Here is what I wrote:

"I am waking at 4 a.m. ready to go and start the day after only 6 hours of well-rested sleep -- no alarm. The lethargy I felt so often has left me. I feel an ongoing sense of peace, even when addressing the occasional life emergency. I no longer snore. My hemorrhoids have disappeared. I was using my asthma inhaler up to five times a day, and now I might use it once, or not. My acid reflux completely dissolved. I am not physically craving inappropriate foods whatsoever. And I cannot get sick, even when all those around me are suffering.

"I find that I am taking better care of myself --- taking more, deliberate time to brush my teeth; taking a hot, epson salt bath occasionally before going to bed, spending a little more time in meditation; making sure I complete my daily readings; spending a little more time in prayer. I'm spending much less time in front of the TV, and I am addressing several bad habits in my life that have begun to dissolve after struggling with them for years.

"I find that I am taking better care of others. For the past month, I've kept the kitchen clean for my wife, who has not had to worry once about tackling a pile of dishes from the past 2 days, among other household messes I've caused. I've been more conscientious regarding my work clients. I was willing (and you likely have no idea what a miracle this was) to be a sponsor. I have fixed almost a dozen meals for other OA members who are attempting to stay on food plan.

I should have pointed out to my friend that, during that three months, I lost 35 pounds without exercising.

Since that letter, I have discovered other benefits as well. But until one believes the world is round, one will not take a ship and attempt to sail off to explore new vistas. It takes a new world view in order to embrace a new direction and a new journey. During the early 20th century, not knowing that radiation could kill, shoe stores used to bombard customers' feet with huge doses of radiation in order to create an X-ray that could be used to build a perfectly-designed, custom shoe. Many died. The world once thought lead pipes pumped healthy water into cities, and doctors once drained the blood from sick people in order to cure them of disease. Both led to deaths.

One day, hopefully soon, we will realize that food is compromising us physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.

The world is not flat. The world is fat. And dying.