All I’m saying, based on a lifetime of regular exercise and variable diet, if I were confronted with a choice between regular exercise and whatever diet is considered healthy at any given moment, I’d choose exercise. My admittedly anecdotal evidence supports that choice.
One of the more annoying aspects of the PP forums is when several of the contributors begin to slide from a knowledge of valid research into a myopic opinion of their perceived knowledge and expertise. C’mon; let’s get serious! Information abounds and morsels of truth thread through the results and evidence of much of the analysis done through the scientific method. Intuition accompanies much of the thinking behind individuals seriously in search of the truth. When our inquistive nature turns from deductive reasoning into an “axe-to-grind” inductive framework, in my experience, it is usually colored by monetary concerns, if not blatant avarice, couched in pride…
As an example, Les’s observations in post #13 that diet has the largest influence on a healthy outcomes can not be overly emphasized. Is it any wonder that gluttony was one of the seven deadly sins of traditional thought? These came from generations of experience and observation. What about sloth(exercise). Pride, envy, lust, greed, wrath?
We should not let ourselves ignore these warranted observations, as Chris’s article summarize. The cycle will continue to repeat itself until we realize, “Everything old is (really) new again” if we take the time to view it from rational and reasonable perspective. Be very careful of the narrative you embrace and the actions you take!
Doug wrote:
All I'm saying, based on a lifetime of regular exercise and variable diet, if I were confronted with a choice between regular exercise and whatever diet is considered healthy at any given moment, I'd choose exercise. My admittedly anecdotal evidence supports that choice.My daughter is following the “The Vaccine Friendly Plan” by Dr Paul Thomas for her young son. This plan prevents them from getting too many doses early in infancy. Dr Thomas is a pediatrician who has been advising parents on this plan for many years with excellent success. When she informed her son’s doctors that she would be following the adjusted timeframe she was shocked by the push back she received. She is a young mother, there was a lot of bullying to follow the recommended schedule, making her sign releases and saying they would need to call her husband first, She now takes his book with her for each well check.
A link to the book: https://www.amazon.com/Vaccine-Friendly-Plan-Effective-Health-Pregnancy-ebook/dp/B018PD2HWM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1550961260&sr=8-1&keywords=vaccine+the+safe+plan
Alimentary diet and exercise et al. are one set of factors affecting health, but another set is what we let into our minds. These can and do have a powerful influence on our physical well-being.
An acquaintance here some time ago had a job of what amounted to providing a clipping service for a politician, every morning going through the main national newspapers and making summaries.
He told me that the Murdoch press made him physically and emotionally ill, sending him into deepening depression and affecting his health. He was hugely relieved when he could quit the job.
I too cannot bear to look at the Murdoch press for any length of time. The local tabloid is a screaming propaganda sheet, vitriolic and disturbing; the broadsheet is a fanatical defender of business-as-usual and anyone who disagrees with it is a worthless barnacle on the ship of progress. Ingest any of this for any length of time and it’s highly likely to cloud your mind, warp your judgment and derange your bowels.
Then there’s the idiot box television. My better half and I stopped watching TV some years ago and only slightly to our surprise we don’t miss it at all. Now when I survey its offerings, it strikes me that so many of them are vacuous, time-wasting, mind-softening inconsequentialities. Oh to be sure, there is some good stuff available, most of it on the government channels (which the neoliberal government is committed to privatising), but we usually have something more interesting to do with our time. Like attending to our gardening or helping with community-building activities.
davefairtex wrote:
My takeaway: Avoid Hospitals, if at all possible. :)My attitude also. My GP (whom I consult once in a blue moon) once said that if he took a swab from under any bed in Canberra's main hospital and cultured it, he would be horrified at what he would find. He was not at all happy with the hospital's cleaning procedures and their effectiveness. I don't know if things have improved since then. My practice is to avoid admission to hospital like the plague.
This is absolutely amazing reactions and decisions on display by this officer:
https://twitter.com/i/status/1099374408064425987
Both neutralizing #1 and then not shooting #2.
All in ~ 2 seconds and under huge stress. This is some John Wick level action right here.
I have developed a saying:
“If you survive your first encounter with the medical profession, you learn to be more careful the second time around.”
Good signs in dealing with medical professionals:
They listen carefully.
They don’t care how much time they spend with you.
They have a humble, inquiring nature.
They understand the limits and problems of their own profession.
Bad signs in dealing with medical professionals:
They make snap judgments.
They see you as a “thing” to be processed through the system for profit - and don’t recognize anything wrong with that.
They don’t tolerate questions about what they recommend, they just give orders and expect you to obey.
That’s freaking incredible!
Try as I may, I can’t help but compare things to some movie or some scene in a movie. This may not surprise some of you given my posts. There are many that taunt me and haunt me these days. These are a few:
Dr. Strangelove.1964 (one of the best films ever made by one of the best directors ever born)
The Manchurian Candidate 1962 ( “they’re are exactly 57 card-carrying members…” ),
1984 released in the same year (not enough room to cover what it covers)
The Russians are Coming 1966 (Carl Reiner - comic genius)
Citizen Kane 1941 (the cinematography alone)
The Day the Earth Stood Still 1951 (are we forever doomed to war?)
************** and some lesser knowns *********************
Local Hero 1983 - (a funny look at big oil, simple living, and one of Burt Lancasters last film)
The Castle of Cagliostro 1979 (animation genius Miyazaki and global monetary conspiracies)
Collapse (2009 Documentary) (cross an ex-cop and a peak oil journalist & he’ll scare the ___ out of you)
Children of Men (2006) (2 decades of infertility and oppressive immigration laws…)
In return, I think those same principles can be applied to patients, as in are they fully invested in their appointment with their healer? It is a 2 sided relationship. I am sympathetic to the time pressures imposed on health care professionals many of whom very much want to spend more time and, in big box clinics, are monitored closely and reprimanded if they do so. The system needs a major overhaul to bring out the best in the healers as well as patients.
vegandb12-
In return, I think those same principles can be applied to patients, as in are they fully invested in their appointment with their healer? It is a 2 sided relationship.Yeah that's a good point. I'm now remembering a conversation with my brother-in-law who decided not to practice medicine (after graduating from medical school) because he found patients really annoying. Apparently some large number of them wanted a pill. His specific comment: people came in with the flu, and demanded medicine. Which (at that time) there wasn't any - the remedy was rest & fluids, etc, which they found unsatisfying. Other residents gave them antibiotics, but him? No. He was a crank. And my sister (who does spine surgery) talks about patients who are absurdly overweight. She informs them she simply won't operate until they lose 50 pounds, or 100 pounds, or whatever, because the outcomes from the surgery are really poor if they are grossly obese. She's a crank too now. She just won't operate until they lose weight. While the medical errors are there, so is (apparently fairly widespread) patient unwillingness to change lifestyle to help themselves. I'm mostly on board with assuming my own agency about healing myself, but I suspect many people aren't like that. Why do we think that is?
I knew a spinal surgeon who wouldn’t do surgery on a patient until he/she stopped smoking. Apparently smoking impedes bone healing.
Sometimes, I feel that I am the movie “1984.”
A while back I was at a college football game. They announced some Iraq war veterans. I have nothing about veterans, but every week they were “honoring” people that they called our “nation’s heroes” when actually I think that our military ventures abroad are a little more nuanced than that. I often stand silent while these celebrations are going on. But sometimes, I look around when these veterans are being introduced to see how other football fans are responding to this. Often, I see looks on their faces of almost rapture. As if being in a war is somehow a holy event and the participants are saintly creatures. I remember once saying to myself, "this is like ‘1984.’ "
Sometimes, I feel that I am the movie “1984.”
A while back I was at a college football game. They announced some Iraq war veterans. I have nothing against veterans, but every week they were “honoring” people that they called our “nation’s heroes” who were “defending our freedom” when actually I think that our military ventures abroad are a little bit more nuanced than that. I often stand silent while these celebrations are going on. But sometimes I look around when these veterans are being introduced to see how other football fans are responding to this. Often, I see looks on their faces of almost rapture. As if being in a war is somehow a holy event and the participants are saintly creatures. I remember once saying to myself, "this is like ‘1984.’ "
My own personal experience leads me to suspect systemic inflammation is a big factor in the obesity problem in the US, and something in the food is causing it. Unfortunately there seems no sign that this aspect of the status quo is changing anytime soon either.
My family travels back to the US for the holidays every year, and every time we pack on significant weight by the end of our visit. Some of it is due to the holiday meals and road trip restaurant food, but for the most part our diet itself and the kinds of food we ate remained the same. For example, this last visit we were in the US for almost 8 weeks and I gained 14 pounds by the end of it. Yet I shed half of that gained weight in just a week and a half since being back (and if past experience is an indicator the rest will be shed in the next month or two). Plus I just feel better and more energetic in general now, whereas just before leaving the US I was feeling just kind of “blah” with low energy. My wife experienced much the same thing.
We eat a pretty decent diet of veggies and meats and moderate amounts of dairy, while trying to keep intake of packaged food, carb-heavy food, and sugar to a low level. But for some reason while in the US that same general diet has me balloon up, only to shed it all once I get back here in Mongolia. So it makes me think there’s SOMETHING added in some of the foods in the US that’s creating a big inflammation response. Glyphosate, purely grain-fed meats and/or dairy, higher gluten content, added sugar… these seem to be the likeliest culprits to me, but that’s just a guess on my part. We may be spending more of our time in the US in the near future, so figuring this out is pretty high on my priority list…
davefairtex wrote:
One lady said to make sure and spread them out.
I am far from a paragon of health, but I have a really good general-practicion doctor. He takes his time, listens, challenges me when he thinks I’m doing things that are not beneficial to my health, and doesn’t just throw anti-biotics at a problem before ascertaining whether they are absolutely needed or not. He advocates a kind of medicine where you let your body do the fighting, and only bring in the “big guns” as a last resort. Medicine should help your body’s natural processes, not usurp them.
I remember my last physical, when I told him I was trying my best to exercise, drink fresh water, eat healthy, and get good sleep (none of which I’m perfect in doing). His response was “what do you need me for then? You’re doing the best preventative medicine right there.” He also disagreed with my decision years ago to become vegetarian because he was concerned about my ability to plug the gaps in my nutrition that most vegetarians have, but has seen now that I know what plant-based foods I need to have in order to maintain optimal health. He’s also perpetually late in his appointments, but I’m fine with that because I know he’s late because he’s taking his time with each patient. He does seem tattered and demoralized at times with a system that tries to force him to chug out patients like some kind of doctor-factory in order to maintain profitability. My sense is that GPs are struggling to make ends meet like most of us, and working long hours, while the healthcare systems they are part of make money hand-over-fist.
/shrugs
Not my wheelhouse, though, as I know little about the system. It’s fascinating reading everyone’s input on vaccinations though!
-S
At one point in my life I was pretty ill. I was functional in that I could walk, talk, and even work. However, I was plagued by some sort of weird inflammatory condition. It went on for YEARS. I spent a small fortune going from doctor to doctor. Test after test, they could not find what was wrong with me. I would get spells of incredible weakness. I was dizzy for one full year straight. It felt like there was a water balloon in my head. Some mornings I would wake up and one of my eyes would be swollen almost shut, like I had taken a right cross from Mike Tyson. Once I was up and about the swelling would slowly dissipate. Everything I ate gave me terrible indigestion. I walked through life like the walking dead. I was sure my days on the planet were numbered.
I did something radical, since I was pretty sure I didnt have alot of time, I figured I was going to use whatever time I had to do what I really wanted. I quit my job, sold my house, and bought cabin on 100 acres in a very rural area. It had some nice pasture, lots of woods, trails, and I figured I would slowly turn it into a sort of self sufficent little farm/homestead. The first year I was still sick but I forced myself to go out and chop wood, go for walks, build a wood-shed, and till some areas for a garden. I planted about 400 potato plants that first year. Next year I got beehives and chickens. The year after that I had a barn built and got some sheep. Little by little, year after year [ not all at once ] I felt better and better. It took about 4 years until I was certain I would probably live a normal life-span [ though I still occasionally had spells ]. My diet is now mostly stuff from the farm. The exercise speaks for itself, its pretty much all the time. I dont know if it was the change in diet, the exercise, fresh air, clean water…OR the psychological effect of taking my life into my own hands, living it on my own terms, and putting happiness and well-being at the forefront of all my endeavors. But now, ten years later, I’m not only fully healed but in better shape and more vitally healthy than ever in my life.
I’ll never know exactly what ailed me or what precisely healed me, but I am certain I saved my own life. Its been about ten years since I moved here. In that time I met my wife, had a son, and built a scrap of land into a real, functioning farm. I dont even think I would recognize myself if I were to meet the old, sickly brushhog. My body is different, my face is different, my spirit is different, I even think different types of thoughts. I know with 100% certainty that the mind, the spirit, and the body are one unit. When one part is flagging it often manifests in the other parts, treating the symptom can only bring superfiscial, often temporary relief.
As an antidote to the mind-numbing effects of The Groundhog Show, here’s today’s sobering but reality-based daily dose of news from Full Spectrum Survival (FSS):