By Jennifer Shipp
Though there are plenty of Americans who earnestly wish to drop some pounds this year, weight loss is a deeply personal and often lonely journey. There are surgical procedures to hasten the process. A number of bariatric procedures can help certain qualifying individuals shed some fat fast through somewhat uncomfortable means. But no matter what, it's up to the person themselves to make the weight loss happen. There are no easy options.
When I first met my husband, he was roughly 60 pounds overweight. Over the first few years of our marriage, despite efforts to eat healthier and get more exercise, he still added weight to his mid-section. He was working on a farm, climbing up and down off of big machines, eating relatively healthy food (he thought), and staying active. It didn't really make sense why that fat was sticking to him.
We started a martial arts school in Kansas in 2004. That helped a little, but we only taught classes two nights a week. Over the next five years, we'd start five more schools in Nebraska and Colorado. Then we were teaching five to six times per week and finally, he started to lose some extra pounds, but teaching often isn't as rigorous as learning (teachers talk a lot after all). It was hard to find time to do additional exercise like jogging or weight training with all the classes that we were teaching. And for some reason that we just couldn't figure out, my husband just couldn't lose that weight around his mid-section.
Over the past six years, my husband has slowly made progress in spurts. He'd lose weight and then plateau, but finally, we learned about a medical intuitive in Castle Rock, Colorado who clued us in to gluten intolerance. Apparently, eating wheat can destroy one's intestinal lining which makes it hard to absorb nutrients. Then the body stores fat in an effort to store nutrients. If you can't absorb vitamin A (a fat soluble vitamin), then your body will hold onto your fat stores in an effort to ward off nutrient deficiencies. Removing wheat from my husband's diet was the key that finally allowed him to melt away those last twenty pounds after years of struggling with weight issues.
Although I think it's great that there are bariatric surgeries for people who really need that kind of therapy, I also think that there are some major problems with the food and drug industry in the United States. The general public doesn't realize how big the problems are and how our bodies have been ravaged by these problems. A lot of times, it may be difficult for a person to lose weight because something that they're eating is addictive (like wheat, which is filled with opiate-like substances). Sometimes it's because they're eating things that don't deliver the nutrients they need and their bodies cry out for more food because it's overfed but undernourished. I believe that there are a lot of obese individuals today who gained weight because very little of the food available to us today is nourishing. It's not because they're lazy or gluttonous. It's because the food we're offered is littered with toxins like MSG and trans fats, GMO's, and who knows what else.
So sixty pounds and fifteen years later, my husband has finally lost the weight that he's been chiseling away at diligently. It was never due to laziness or a lack of motivation to exercise, but because the food he was eating was making him sick, if not killing him. Kids are taught from a young age to obey the food pyramid when making their food choices, but the American public deserves to know that there are many diets that people adhere to successfully throughout the world that can lead to good health and weight loss. Finding the right diet and the right exercise regimen for your body can lead readily to weight loss, but it can take some time and collaboration with alternative medical practitioners to find it.
When I first met my husband, he was roughly 60 pounds overweight. Over the first few years of our marriage, despite efforts to eat healthier and get more exercise, he still added weight to his mid-section. He was working on a farm, climbing up and down off of big machines, eating relatively healthy food (he thought), and staying active. It didn't really make sense why that fat was sticking to him.
We started a martial arts school in Kansas in 2004. That helped a little, but we only taught classes two nights a week. Over the next five years, we'd start five more schools in Nebraska and Colorado. Then we were teaching five to six times per week and finally, he started to lose some extra pounds, but teaching often isn't as rigorous as learning (teachers talk a lot after all). It was hard to find time to do additional exercise like jogging or weight training with all the classes that we were teaching. And for some reason that we just couldn't figure out, my husband just couldn't lose that weight around his mid-section.
Over the past six years, my husband has slowly made progress in spurts. He'd lose weight and then plateau, but finally, we learned about a medical intuitive in Castle Rock, Colorado who clued us in to gluten intolerance. Apparently, eating wheat can destroy one's intestinal lining which makes it hard to absorb nutrients. Then the body stores fat in an effort to store nutrients. If you can't absorb vitamin A (a fat soluble vitamin), then your body will hold onto your fat stores in an effort to ward off nutrient deficiencies. Removing wheat from my husband's diet was the key that finally allowed him to melt away those last twenty pounds after years of struggling with weight issues.
Although I think it's great that there are bariatric surgeries for people who really need that kind of therapy, I also think that there are some major problems with the food and drug industry in the United States. The general public doesn't realize how big the problems are and how our bodies have been ravaged by these problems. A lot of times, it may be difficult for a person to lose weight because something that they're eating is addictive (like wheat, which is filled with opiate-like substances). Sometimes it's because they're eating things that don't deliver the nutrients they need and their bodies cry out for more food because it's overfed but undernourished. I believe that there are a lot of obese individuals today who gained weight because very little of the food available to us today is nourishing. It's not because they're lazy or gluttonous. It's because the food we're offered is littered with toxins like MSG and trans fats, GMO's, and who knows what else.
So sixty pounds and fifteen years later, my husband has finally lost the weight that he's been chiseling away at diligently. It was never due to laziness or a lack of motivation to exercise, but because the food he was eating was making him sick, if not killing him. Kids are taught from a young age to obey the food pyramid when making their food choices, but the American public deserves to know that there are many diets that people adhere to successfully throughout the world that can lead to good health and weight loss. Finding the right diet and the right exercise regimen for your body can lead readily to weight loss, but it can take some time and collaboration with alternative medical practitioners to find it.
Jennifer Shipp is one of the lead instructors American Kick Association, an online martial arts training program at http://www.martialartsonlineschool.com. She has worked with a variety of students to meet weight loss goals over the years through martial arts training, yoga classes, and dance classes. Online taekwondo classes provide students throughout the world with the ability to log on and workout with a community of others who share an interest in self-defense and the martial arts.
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