I’ve been focusing a lot on my health for the past couple of months. The key thing here is that I’m too fed up with not having optimal health, of being too tired, of lacking energy, and of being too uncomfortable in my own skin.
I decided that I’m done with all of that and that I’m going for the win this time around. I plan on getting in good shape in the next 2 to 3 years. I know it is going to take plenty of hard work and a kilo-ton of patience and perseverance, but I’m up for it.
I know for a fact that losing extra body fat is entirely about diet and has nothing to do with exercise. Phase one of my journey is all about losing all the body fat that I can shed away by all means necessary.
Phase two will be all about building it back from the ground up. Hopefully, I’ll do a better job of it this time around.
I am actually writing about this journey as it’s happening and documenting my steps as I go along in a separate blog post.
My main goal is to be able to enjoy a high quality of life with my family for as long as possible all while maintaining my mental faculties. I am 43 years old now, and I think I’m just about to embark on the second half of whatever time I’m destined to spend on earth.
It’s quite ok if it’s taken me all this time to figure out how to do it the right way.
From the books I’ve been reading in the past couple of years, I know that nutrition is the main master key system that will help everyone achieve optimal health and cognition.
I was on Twitter the other day and I stumbled upon this tweet that hit home for me.
Are we really to blame for the status quo of how we manage our health in today’s world?
It is indeed a complicated discussion. One that I’m going to try to briefly tackle here.
Modern Medicine
Modern medicine is important.
Every single one of us is alive today because of the vaccines we took as infants and the myriad of antibiotics and medications that had pulled us through certain death due to injury and infection. That’s not to mention all the brilliant lab works, scans, tools, and gadgets that were used to get us all sorts of life-saving surgeries and mend our broken bones.
Yeah, and the absolute miracle of dentistry.
Need I also mention painkillers?
But…
My Doctors Rant
With that said, I do think that we should not neglect an important fact and that is people who go to Med School are really good at compliance with rules, and cramming a tremendous amount of complicated information in their heads. They are bound by the rules established by the hierarchical institutions from which they graduate, get training, and seek employment. They bow to authority, and they think of themselves as one.
Doctors and engineers, both, use applied science to the benefit of humanity. Science is at the core of their professions, but I do believe that as they go deep into the rabbit holes of specialization, they miss the forest for the trees.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t have anything against doctors or modern medicine. When I get sick, the first thing I do is go to a doctor. I really have an issue with not putting certain things into perspective and blindly following medical advice without making it pass through your brain cells for a lap or two.
If you really think about it, our relationships with doctors have always been one of trust. It all boils down to how much do you know or trust that person in front of you wearing the white lab coat of authority.
Doctors are people. There are good doctors and bad doctors. They could get it right or wrong. Most of the time they have your best interest at heart, sometimes they want to just make money off of you, and some other times they just want to cover their asses. Some of them are the decent salt-of-the-earth type of people that you feel care for you more than your own mother, and some of them are predatory butchers who would cut open their own mother if it’ll turn a profit.
You are allowed to think for yourself and question authority.
You are allowed the choice in the type of care and treatment that you should get.
And you are allowed not to let people take advantage of you.
Nutrition Education
What I mean here is the complete and utter lack of nutrition education in Med Schools, and how it’s disregarded as a major factor in health and longevity.
Most doctors, nutritionists, and dieticians will advise you to eat a ‘balanced diet’. That is lots of grains, carbs, sugar, vegetables, legumes, vegetable oils, dairy, nuts, fruits, and meat.
They tell us not to eat saturated fat, full-fat dairy, and to stay away from red meat because of the relationship between red meat, LDL cholesterol, atherosclerosis, and heart disease. Which is all rubbish based on wrong information pushed onto the public by politicians in the ’60s. You can read about it all in Nina Teicholz’s eye-opening book “The Big Fat Surprise.”
There is something seriously wrong with the common nutrition knowledge that is mistakenly considered common sense nowadays. People who take it upon themselves to really educate themselves in the effects of diet and nutrition on health, manage to stave off and reverse chronic diseases like metabolic syndrome, diabetes, hypertension, autoimmune conditions like psoriasis, and multiple sclerosis, along with depression and other mental health conditions.
Authority Guidelines
The problem is that we are all trained to defer to authority. That’s what we’ve all been taught and conditioned to do since our days back in school.
Our teachers knew better than us, and we had to refer to them for instructions, and knowledge. It is through our learned disciplined behavior at school that we all learn to conform to the orders, thoughts, doctrines, and ideologies of authority.
That’s especially true if we are not experts in the specific knowledge they are qualified to identify, quantify, diagnose, administer, and prescribe to us.
After all, you’ve got to be really smart to go to med school, right?
When we get sick we know we should automatically go see a doctor, and we know to trust them blindly and obey their orders and treatments, rightly so. Because we recognize the authority of science.
Doctors’ Role In The Mix
That doctor you go to has a lot to deal with and they’re juggling too many balls in the air at any one moment.
I sincerely believe that doctors are to the core, and for the vast majority of them are good people who have your best interest at heart. They try their best to help people out, to alleviate their pains, cure their illnesses, and to restore them to perfect health.
But we have to understand the tremendous pressures they have to deal with as a profession under an unrelenting constant amount of stress.
People trust their doctors implicitly. If you’re having a medical problem, for which you know not the cure, your best bet is always to see a doctor.
But patients usually don’t know the background of what is happening behind the scenes with their doctors.
First of all, they have to see a lot of people and they don’t usually have a lot of time for each patient. They have to categorize the symptoms to the nearest thing that fits one of the hundreds of diseases and conditions they’ve learned by heart and then fits these symptoms into the arsenal of available pharmaceutical medications that will cure such a condition.
And that’s just the beginning of it all because then they actually have to make their decision of the type of medication they are going to prescribe within the confines of the medical insurance coverage that the patient has.
Tough luck if your insurance will not cover the fast-acting effective medicine, but it will cover a less effective medication that will take way longer to show any benefits if it does help at all.
The story gets more sinister if you’re actually being examined by a surgeon because surgeons are under pressure by the hospital to make profits for the hospital by the tremendous amounts of fees they generate by performing surgeries.
All of this adds up. It is an insane amount of stress, that gets compounded by performance reviews and malpractice lawsuits that can deviate or ruin a doctor’s career.
Food Products Manufacturers
Politics rule our health because it rules the way we make decisions about our nutrition and health. The entire society is built upon complex systems that are driven by the economy and how society leverages the specialties of some of its members towards providing products and services to the rest.
Farmers grow food, traders sell it, the baker makes the bread, the blacksmith forges iron, the bankers hold the money, the police keep us safe, doctors keep us healthy, and politicians help us make the rules.
The thing is that since the agrarian revolution that led civilization before the industrial revolution took lead and supercharged food production, one of the top rules of all government is to keep everyone well fed. It’s a matter of national security.
With time and industrialization, we got to do it more efficiently, with science we managed to do it on a bigger scale and with a much bigger yield. Now food production in many areas of the world exceeds local needs.
This led, of course, to the selling the extra produce in foreign markets, hence globalization. But on the other hand, people were encouraged to consume more of these massively produced agriculture products, and subsequently, to consume their derivatives of processed foods.
Processed food was at first created out of necessity to preserve food from going bad over time but then became a necessity to facilitate the transport and storage of such food products when sold in faraway markets.
So, over time instead of eating whole grains, whole milk, fresh vegetables, fresh fruits, freshly slaughtered poultry, and meat, we found ourselves having to deal with packaged products on the shelves of supermarkets.
The modern household now rarely has any food item that is fresh outside of salad components. We stuff ourselves and our children from a bag or a packet covered with colorful designs with flashy brand names, containing what was supposed to be potatoes chips, baked goods, or some dairy product, but they’re pumped full of sugar, covered in preservatives, artificial flavors, artificial colors, and a slew of undecipherable chemicals on the label.
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The constant bombardment of advertisements from our TVs, on billboards, newspapers, magazines, buildings, in traffic lights, on radios, and everywhere else online these days keeps us in a constant state of desire to get that new exciting and brilliantly marketed product that sounds too awesome not to consume.
It doesn’t help one bit that most everything we eat or drink these days is drenched, stuffed, and wrapped in sugar. Sugar deserves its very own spot in the history of the evilest and most destructive drugs humanity has ever known.
The result is that we overindulge in too many unhealthy food choices and then our health suffers greatly.
Disease doesn’t happen by itself.
It baffles me how some people think that getting sick and living in prolonged debilitating pain is normal, inevitable, or a normal part of life. It isn’t!
Our human bodies are extremely resilient, and we have evolved to have complex systems that could help us navigate the natural environment in which we live. But, nothing around is natural anymore. We have artificial everything.
We pump our stomach, intestines, liver, kidneys, and blood full of excessive amounts of necessary and unnecessary elements round the clock. The chain breaks at the weakest link. Whatever is the weakest part in our organs system in the body, will break down first under such stress.
That’s how we have chronic diseases like diabetes, hypertension, and autoimmune diseases. Your human body can take so much punishment before it breaks down.
If you purchase a brand new car and you do not take care of it, never fill it with premium clean fuel, never replace its filters, never check its oil, never clean it, it is bound to break down after a while no matter its build quality. It’s the same with your human body, even though the human body is a much much more powerful and much efficient machine, but if you do not take care of it, it will break.
then we have to visit our human mechanics, our doctors to mend the problems that we have caused with our misusage of this one body that we only get to have for one lifetime.
If you break your body, you can take it in for service and some repairs, but you won’t be able to have it completely replaced by the manufacturer, or by insurance. You won’t be able to trade it in for a newer model, either.
Insurance
Insurance companies are a HUGE business. they’re supposed to collect premiums from us for the duration of the contract, and in return, they cover our medical expenses in case we get sick.
I do not know who invented this system, but it is extremely lucrative, as it is vicious. But more than anything, it builds upon the need for providing healthcare to the millions who are damaging themselves through bad nutrition on a constant basis.
The tranches, tiers, and layers of health insurance in the countries that apply this business model are ridiculous and predatory. They do not care one iota about how to benefit the patient and keep the patient healthy and cared for. They only care about making the business profitable, cutting costs, maximizing profits, and making sure they are providing the bare minimum of healthcare they could get away with for as cheap as possible.
And when you’re a doctor who has to prescribe medicine within the constraints of the financial means of your patient, whether they’re self-paid, or covered by a predatory health-insurance policy, then you have to jump through a million hoops before you choose the best medication to treat your patient’s condition.
In countries where there is no private health insurance business, doctors have to prescribe medication based on the incentives provided to them by pharmaceutical companies’ salespeople. Pharmaceutical salespeople go to hospitals and private practices enticing doctors to prescribe their brand of medication even if it’s more expensive than a competing brand in return for lucrative incentives, trips to medical conferences, paid for vacations, or any other type of kosher bribery.
Big Pharma
In countries where they have insurance companies to pay for the medication made by big pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies who foot the big bucks bill to big pharma, know they are dealing with fellow predators as well, so they always stipulate that doctors exhaust all cheaper means of treatment before they go for the big guns that actually provide the actual cure.
Big Pharma is also a for-profit business. They are supposed to pay for the Research & Development necessary to create those important medications that we need to get well from the complicated and devastating diseases that our complicated technology-infused life has created for us. But they also try to cut costs, make huge profit margins and overcharge for most of their drugs especially if the disease their medication is treating is rare and fatal.
The summation is that people who are unfortunate not to be educated well enough in the benefits or harms of what they consume in their environment will find themselves getting sick quite often. Consequently, they will have to go to doctors many times and will find healthcare getting too expensive, so they will get health insurance to mitigate those expenses. Then they have to deal with the purchase of medication using their insurance or pay out of pocket if their insurance will not cover it. Some folks will actually have to go into debt to be able to afford medical treatment for extremely serious conditions.
It’s a bad deal all over.
Why “Because Everyone Else Is Doing It” Is Not Really A Good Or Valid Reason At All
You should take matters into your own hands.
You should do whatever you can to be aware of the things that will make you healthy and those that will make you sick.
You should not expect to get sick and be in pain and think of it as a normal part of life.
Yes, we will all catch a regular cold, or flu, every now and then, or at least that was the case before the pandemic. But getting chronic diseases should make you seriously look into your lifestyle and diet in the long term while you check with your doctor on what you can do in the short term to fix your health issues.
Just because everyone around you is asleep, doesn’t mean you have to follow the herd as well.
Think for yourself. Take charge of your health.
Watch what you eat.
And for the love of God, educate yourself enough to be able to have an informed conversation with your doctor regarding the medical decisions they are making on your behalf that could affect YOUR BODY AND HEALTH longterm, especially when you are certain that they are NOT NECESSARILY thinking of your best interest as their top priority.
A lot of people take what their doctor tells them at face value. God knows I’ve done this way too many times in my life, but we shouldn’t make this the norm.
There are excellent compassionate and really smart doctors out there who are a true blessing to their patients and who go to battle every single day for the common good of those who do not know the world of monsters who prey on their illnesses.
But on the other hand, there are weak souled doctors with a God Complex who will guilt their patients into dangerous or unsound treatments and medications with a dismissive condescending tone and utter disrespect for those they are supposed to help.
Be careful who you put in charge of managing your health.
No one is ever going to be a better steward of your health other than you own self.
Remember that health is the most precious thing that you will ever have in your life and without it, nothing you can accomplish in life will be enjoyable at all.
Closing Thoughts
You’re eating a lot of garbage because that is basically all you can see all around you being marketed to you and advertised all around you by dedicated professionals who specialize in SELLING you that shit you consume.
You are buying this bullshit concoction of pseudo-foods and chemicals from huge corporations that specialize in manufacturing these chronic disease-inflicting food products because they can produce them cheaply at scale and can figure out ways to sell them to the masses at enormous profits.
The result is you overwhelm your natural body defenses and catch life-changing illnesses and chronic conditions for which you must seek treatment and medical care.
So, you go through the grindhouse of healthcare and down the rollercoaster of dealing with medical caregivers and the establishments that employ them with their diverse top-down policies that are revolve around…*drum roll*… you guessed it… making money!
But they don’t get the whole pie themselves because they share it with the health insurance companies that provide you the service of “affordable care” for a premium, and you basically get what you pay for.
So, if you go cheap with your medical insurance you’re going to get a very poor excuse for healthcare. But that’s not the entire story still. Insurance companies will not approve the more expensive medication UNLESS the physician exhausts ALL LESS EXPENSIVE—even if futile—treatments and medications. Which ultimately prolongs the period of your suffering.
The rabbit hole goes further because pharmaceutical companies are also for-profit businesses. They want to sell patent-protected medication that they can monopolize and sell for huge returns, for as long as they possibly can. Big Pharma is actually invested in you and me NOT TO BE CURED if their profits are based on us being return customers for whom they can supply a lifetime of pills, syrups, creams, and injections.
Politicians and policymakers are constantly being bought off by all those big businesses that can afford to pull their strings to steer the ship of public guidelines and regulations. The guidelines of good health, what is considered proper nutrition, what causes chronic diseases, and how to treat them, are not at all based on science, but on politics!
There are multiple rings of power and influence at work behind every single thing that is considered an act of government over the masses.
The end result is that you are overfed, overmedicated, and constantly overwhelmed into submitting your free will and sense of personal agency.
I almost feel like an anarchist or anti-capitalist here saying these things, but getting your eyes wide open is no easy feat.
A lot of entities are taking advantage of you.
Lots of people make money off of you left and right.
Taking back control over your life is within your means.
You only have to open your eyes.
Stay well.
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