-Live Longer, Feel Better!
-You get out of a mirror what you put into it  
and out of a scale what you put on it.

from "Rust Out" by Dr. Royce Bailey, page 25

Cancer
If you had any doubt about the effects of obesity on your health, it is now clear that excessive weight has strong cancer links.  Obesity increases the risk of cancers of the uterus, breast, kidney, colon, and gallbladder.  For cancer of the uterus and breast, it has been shown that fat converts the steroid male hormone androgen into the female hormone estrogen.  When estrogen levels are high, this increases these cancers after menopause.  There is more estrogen in the blood of an obese women than in thin women.  A long colon transit time (and constipation) partially explain the increased colon cancer risk.

BMI
It is recommended to maintain a body mass index (BMI) between 18.5 and 25.0, and limit weight gain during adulthood to less than 11 pounds.  A BMI greater than 25 is considered overweight and a BMI greater than 30 is considered obese.  33% of Americans, aged 20 to 74, are considered obese.
To calculate your BMI:
A. Multiply your weight in pounds times 705
B. Divide A. by your height in inches
C. Divide B. by your height in inches again.
This will equal your BMI (1)
BMI is not a good measurement for the very muscular people, young people, pregnant women, and the frail elderly. (2)

Insulin Resistance
A crucial component in the aging process is an increase in insulin secretion, therefore, it is imperative to regulate your blood sugar and prevent insulin resistance.  The food industry has developed and advertised a wide spectrum of low-fat and no-fat foods.  They have substituted fat for sugar or more complex carbohydrates that are rapidly converted into sugar.  Such highly processed carbohydrates with their fiber removed are rapidly digested, producing  a sharp rise in blood glucose levels and consequently a sharp increase in the insulin levels.  The elevated insulin levels result in storage of excess glucose as fat and a rapid decline in blood glucose causing symptoms of reactive hypoglycemia, including food craving.  Women suffer twice the incidence of  diabetes than men.  Most female diabetics are overweight.  Nearly every case of adult-onset (Type II) diabetes (insulin resistance at the fat cell level) is preventable, and maintaining a normal body weight is one important way of preventing diabetes. (3)

Weight Loss
At any given time, 29% of American men and up to 44% of American women are dieting to lose weight.  A whopping 95% of all women who lose weight will regain it all within five years!  Most of the time, “diets” are restrictive, frustrating “yo-yo” regimens that cannot be sustained for a few weeks, let alone a lifetime.  But we keep trying them.  The newest “diets” are no better than those of decades past and some are frighteningly similar to fads gone by.

High protein, low carbohydrate diets are in vogue again and they are still not healthful.  Eating all day (grazing) is popular again and still hasn’t shown long-term weight loss 40 years after it was heralded as the new “treatment.”  In the 1960s it was called the Stillman Diet, then The Zone, Protein Power, the Carbohydrate Addict’s Diet and the Atkins Diet.

Yo-yo dieting does more harm than no diet at all, because every new weight gain leaves you with a new supply of fat cells just waiting to be filled.  Single food diets (like grapefruit for a week) didn’t work for grandma and they won’t work for you.  Any weight  loss will be from water loss and not fat loss.  Most diets rely on some trick or gimmick therefore, you ultimately fail to lose weight. (3,4)

Plant Based Diet
Epidemiologic studies have long shown that people who consume plant-based and low-fat diets are less likely to: be obese, develop heart disease, have hypertension, have osteoarthritis, have gallbladder disease, have diabetes or cancer.  Now, results show that low-fat, vegetable-centered (high fiber, low sugar) diets can be used to treat disease as well as prevent it, but we should have known this from history long ago. (Exodus 15:26; Deuteronomy 7:15)

Worry
Many of my patients eat poorly out of habit or eat for comfort due to stress.  If you will put this quote on your heart and claim this promise, you will see success.

“Worry is blind, and cannot discern the future; but Jesus sees the end from the beginning.  In every difficulty He has His way prepared to bring relief.  Our heavenly Father has a thousand ways to provide for us, of which we know nothing.  Those who accept the one principle of making the service and honor of God supreme will find perplexities vanish, and a plain path before their feet.” (5)

References:
1.    Another way to calculate your BMI is: your weight in kilograms divided by your height in meters, squared.
2.    Bauman, A., “Fight Fat, Secrets To Successful Weight Loss,” Prevention Health Books, 1999;3,48.
3.    Agatston, A.S., “The Promise Of A Modified Low-Carbohydrate Diet,” Mediguide to Heart Diseases, Fourth Quarter, 1998; 1(4): 1-5.
4.    “The Obesity Factor,” American Institute For Cancer Research Newsletter, Winter 1999, Issue 62;11.
5.    White, E.G., “Desire of Ages,” Pacific Press Publishing Ass., 1898; 330