The world of dieting and fitness

With all the food that we have around us, we also have a big problem. The problem is 
that we cannot say "No", "No more" or "It's enough" to ourselves. Eighty percent of the 
population in the western world is overweight. Simply because we can't say NO! 
All the food around us, in supermarkets and fast-food restaurants, seems to suggest 
that we should eat all the time. We eat much, but we also sit a lot and we don't 
exercise. The food that we see and eat is not what we really need. It certainly fills 
our stomachs, but it won't keep us healthy. I told you in another chapter that a large 
part of our food is poisonous rather than healthy. The next problem is that we do 
not really use our body for work. Many people work with their mind, sitting down. 
During this time, the body is in a sleeping state. It makes us lazy and the body 
gets stiff, because it does not get the exercise it needs to be healthy.

The western world believes that the answer to this problem is in the magic word DIET! 
To lose some pounds, we go on a diet. We exercise on machines for long periods 
on end. We also take vitamins, minerals and so on. The world of commerce tells us 
that we need them. It pretends to know better and in the meantime gets rich from their 
prophecies. And so we go from unhealthy food to extreme diets and fitness. There are
many different diets, based on pills, powders and all kinds of diet products, even 
injections! Using these, we can fix the body and think we regain our health. Many will 
tell you, after a large expensive diet, "I have lost 20 pounds, but now I feel terrible". 
Naturally, because they have destroyed their health. Most of those who have 
completed a diet, regain their fat after some weeks! Others go to the opposite 
extreme and try to keep their body thin as a rake. They get so thin that they should 
nearly listen to the gale force forecasts before they go out! It is unbelievable that our 
western world wastes so much money eating poisoned, harmful food. Much money 
is spent on food and just as much, or perhaps even more, is spent on diet products 
and fitness! Diets are not necessary, not needed, if you listen to your body and do 
what it tells you to do. Instead of doing so, we listen to radio and TV commercials, 
which tell us how beneficial sport drinks, fast food or pills are. The endless TV 
commercials drive people crazy. The same people who propagandize how thin you 
should be. However, to get to that weight, you need their products. After the 
commercial talk, they will show you one of the best and tastiest snacks you can buy. 
These commercials are then followed by a talk show, with experts debating with great
interest how healthy we ought to be. Take one pill 3 times a day and you will lose your 
excess fat in just a few days!

Sick people in a sick world! And yet, many people buy those products. They are 
willing to shorten their lives by taking poisoned food, pills and injections. They act 
like sheep, following blindly people who say what is best.

The next part of this chapter is about health and the healthiest people on earth. 
A profile: One is going to the gym at 7 o'clock in the morning and does his workout. 
Returning home, he eats one plain cracker, an apple, some vitamins/minerals and 
goes to work. He sits there for hours doing his work. In the afternoon, he goes to a 
restaurant and has a salad, of course without dressing, or only a healthy one! Then 
back to work. In the evening, on the way home, he will have his second workout in 
the gym. Back home, he has some cereal, which is supposed to be very healthy, 
full of whole grain and vitamins and minerals.

This is one of the scenarios, showing one of the healthy people we see on TV or in 
books. Do you think this is healthy? To me, people like that seem narrow-minded 
and martyrs of their own body! They are addicted to machines and pills. Are they 
healthy? I wouldn't say so. Only outward appearances are important to them, to 
resemble the healthy-looking person the TV tells them to be. They believe that by 
doing so they have the perfect body, as proclaimed on TV. Many of those who go to 
the gym every day, also visit plastic surgeons regularly for all kinds of "lifts". Many of
them die young, because of all kinds of complications. They believe that they look 
young and sometimes it's difficult to guess their age from looking at them. All this is 
just the outside world, the world that others make create. The world, they think, as it 
should be! Skin without wrinkles, a perfect nose and a body that looks as thin as a 
rake. Do you think that is healthy? In the gym, you can see them with their new, 
fashionable clothes, so others can say to them "Oh, you look so young and healthy". 
They have a serious health problem. They work on the outside, but forget about the 
inside.

Then there is the farmer who works hard on his land all day, in the middle of nature. 
His face has hundreds of wrinkles; his meal is usually a big plate of bacon and beans. 
He wakes up before sunrise and goes to bed by sunset. This man will reach the age 
of a hundred and probably will be healthy his whole life. He ignores the pain in his 
back while he works on his land in the middle of all that the earth is giving him. 
He takes from the earth, but he also gives back to the earth!

Let me give you a wake-up call, what I have written so far should be simple to see. 
What is going wrong around us?
     - We listen to that TV stuff, all the commercials and we think too much about
       being healthy.
     - We do not need to be as thin as a rake; we do not need to be without wrinkles 
       and let the inside of us be destroyed.
     - We do not need TV and radio talk.
     - We do not need unhealthy food!
     - And above all, we do not need negative energy.

We should change our pattern. Eat fresh fruit and vegetables, not when we think we 
have an appetite, but when our body tells us, "I need some food". Don't drive your car 
to the next corner, but walk instead and get some fresh air. Walk in a park or in a 
place where you can connect to Mother Earth. Work in the garden, if you have one, 
or take care of the plants in your home or on the balcony.

A healthy person is someone who accepts his body the way it is, including its wrinkles. 
Somebody who is healthy sees his body as being "perfect" and it is. Not this thin, 
overworked gym body, with all the lifts it could get.

Let's return to our diet. Going on a diet is the most stupid thing you can do. It is 
unhealthy and perhaps the worst thing you can do for your body. Taking pills, powders, 
sport drinks and diet products is like asking for problems.

Stop…
     - Eating junk food and taking diet stuff.
     - Sport drinks and juices based on chemicals.
     - Caffeine products like tea, coffee and chocolate drinks.
     - The sugar addictive things like candy and ice-cream.
     - Alcohol or other drugs.
     - Eating pork.
     - Driving your car if you can go walking.
     - Having unnecessary snacks.
     - Taking dressings based on chemical flavors.
Stop… okay, I will stop now, because you know and see what I mean. It is not that you 
cannot take these occasionally, but only when your body asks you for some. You can 
eat as much as your body asks, as long as it is fresh fish, clean water, fresh, not 
manipulated vegetables and fruit, many grain products. Your body will tell you what to
have. Take a big walk in a park outside the city and work in the garden or with plants 
around you. Take in the fresh air and observe what is going on around you in nature. 
Stressing in a gym, doing all kinds of things that people think are good for you will 
destroy your body. If you think you should go on a diet, ask yourself this question 
before you start: "Have I done everything my body asked for?"

              Diet NO! Listen to your body, YES!
                     And one more thing:
           " Keep moving as much as possible".

(Chapter 39)