Yesterday I was impacted by 2 newspaper articles, of course both regarding weight and wellness. The first article was about how the current recommendation for exercise (according to the Department of Health and Human Services) doesn’t seem to be enough. The guide lines, which are supposed to be to help people prevent long term weight gain, is 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise or 60 minutes of vigorous exercise–PER WEEK! How could the people who set these guidelines ever have thought going to an hour of boot camp, Cross-Fit or any high intensity training, ONCE a week, was enough? Even the 150 minutes a week of moderate exercise is just not close to enough to prevent weight gain, especially if we don’t take into consideration what we eat! Don’t get me wrong, a 30 minute walk 5 days a week is excellent for so many parts of our being, but it’s not going to prevent long term weight gain, being you may only burn about 100 or so calories during that daily walk. It’s pretty simple. If you want to keep your weight at goal, you need to watch what you eat and exercise with a good amount of intensity for at least an hour, most days of the week. Clearly the Department of Health and Human Services does not really have a clue about diet, exercise and weight management. This is not surprising, just frustrating. No wonder people are so confused!?!?!
But I have to say it was the 2nd article that really caught my interest. It was about how arguing with family and friends can lead to early death. I won’t go into the whole thing, but according to this study, argumentative people are more than twice as likely to die prematurely than people who are able to just get along. The more conflict in a person’s life, the more the odds stacked against them. Of course there are times when we cannot avoid stressful relationships, and over course there are times when we will have conflict with our friends, family and neighbors. This study (over 10,000 people) clearly showed that learning to go with the flow and walk away from conflict is much healthier. The problem with fighting is that it is very stressful to our system and the final paragraph of the article summed up rather well, why that is so dangerous, so I am sharing the paragraph in it’s entirety. After reading it, I hope you will consider how this might be effecting your own health or the health of someone you care about…
“Personality has been shown to influence social relationships and mortality. People with disagreeable personalities are likely to have more stress in their lives, and stress prompts the body to make molecules like cortisol and pro-inflammatory cytokines that can make people sick.”
So maybe we have a lot more control over our weight and our health than we think!
One way to achieve a more peaceful personality, I am convinced, is by choosing to eat plants, over animals. I am not an in your face kind of girl, so I choose to spare you the details of why it is natural to become more peaceful on a plant-based diet, but ask anyone who avoids animal protein and they will all tell you the same thing. I am positive if more kids ate less animals, exercised regularly and practiced things like peaceful yoga and meditation, our entire world would be a happier, safer, healthier and all around nicer place to live, work and play.
That’s my 2 cents for the day. As always, I hope YOU will consider a meatless meal or 3, today, and maybe someday, every day!
