JIM “PAPPY” MOORE: Your Health: Self Inflicted Wounds

Too many people live in fear of being a victim of crime where some stranger harms you. As I have long said “the person most likely to kill you is YOU.” If you eat processed foods, if you eat too much, if you consume too much fast food, if you sit too much on your bulbous butt, if you do not exercise, if you pack on the pounds and keep them, YOU are trying to kill yourself, and you may be succeeding.

In our lifetime, the food in the United States has become something terrible. Because our regulatory bodies such as the Food & Drug Administration – the FDA – have become the servants of those they are supposed to regulate, our food is full of chemicals, dyes, and other ingredients which are bad for our health.

People like Bill Gates – who don’t care about your health but do care about making money selling you food – put things on your fruit and vegetables which make them appear healthier, shiny, free of blemishes, and appearing not to spoil. Gates and others spray on your supposedly fresh fruit and vegetables toxins which are bad for your body. Do not buy and eat such foods. It’s better to have a banana, or apple, or orange, or watermelon, or avocado which decays at the rate Mother Nature programs it than to have a long-lasting version which is covered in chemicals to delay its appearance of decay.

Your food pyramid, the one you learned years ago, called for lots of carbohydrates for breakfast. That is all wrong. You need protein to start your day. Bacon. Eggs. Not cereal. Not oatmeal. Not donuts. Not biscuits. Not bread.

Don’t tell me you can’t lose weight. I know different. You can lose weight but you have to stop eating processed meats like bologna, sausage, and hot dogs. You have to eat whole meats which are preferably not full of additives: beef, chicken, fish, pork, crustaceans. You have to eat fewer fried foods and more grilled or baked food.

Eating vegetarian is not necessarily healthy eating. Sugar is a vegetable product. That is why it is not unusual to find overweight, out of shape vegetarians. If they’re eating “food” products made from soy, they aren’t eating healthy.

You can eat sweets. You can eat things which are not perfect foods, but you have to stop eating nothing but junk food, which is most of the food you get in a supermarket or fast food restaurant.

When it comes to drinks, you can have a cup of coffee or two, but not ten a day. You can have a cola a day (with cane sugar not corn syrup or artificial sweetners). You can have some tea, but avoid artificial sweetners. But the best drink for you is water, and that should be your go-to drink. Your body needs water. Clean water, preferably put through a process of reverse osmosis to clean it up before you drink it.

You do not need to join a gym. You do not need to start your year like you’ve been shot out of a cannon, all energetic about going to the gym to lift weights and such. I’m not saying that isn’t a good option. It is. But mostly you need to keep in mind not hurting yourself, but walking one to three miles every day you can. This is especially true after you get to be in your 40s, 50s, and beyond. For those in your 60s and 70s, don’t hurt yourself is your prime directive. Don’t overdo it. Don’t pull a muscle, or gimp up an Achilles tendon, or grind a bad knee.

Take care of your body and it will take care of you. Feed it good food. Under feed it. Use portion control. Stop eating when you are full, and be aware of when that occurs.

YOU are the one who is either plotting to do you in, or scheming to keep you alive and healthy. Stop making excuses. Good health is up to you. Look yourself in the mirror and say “this is what you choose to be.”