Fully Alive!
10 Steps to Inner Harmony
Tom Goode, ND, DD
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2008 Dr. Thomas O. Goode
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Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1: Get Started
Chapter 2: Overcome Obstacles
Chapter 3: Cut It Out
Chapter 4: Optimum Health
Chapter 5: Holding Tension
Chapter 6: Self Healing
Chapter 7: Satisfy Taste
Chapter 8: Inner Drives
Chapter 9: Flush Away Fat
Chapter 10: Too Acidic
Chapter 11: Quality Counts
Chapter 12: An Old Story
Chapter 13: The X Factor
Chapter 14: Be Wary
Chapter 15: Living In The World
Chapter 16: Healthy Choices
Chapter 17: The Best Exercise
Chapter 18: Inhale Exhale
Chapter 19: Health Robbing Stress
Chapter 20: Get Enough Rest
Chapter 21: Love The Skin You’re In
Chapter 22: Stand Tall
Chapter 23: Get More From Meditation
Chapter 24: The Fully Alive Ten Step Program
Chapter 25: Full Wave Breathing
Appendices: Internet Health Resources; The Cosmic Waltz; Meet Dr. Tom Goode
Preface
I began sharing as a teacher what I had discovered in working with my mind and body (mindbody system) around the same time Prevention magazine reported my healing story. Overcoming severe challenges to my own health, I became a researcher with the purpose of making certain that you the reader have the information you need to succeed with your health. I report on health modes, modalities, and methods in the broad field of alternative medicine.
Traditional medicine is the use of surgery, drugs and procedures practiced in hospitals and institutions. Those modalities practiced that fall outside of the traditional are grouped under the category of alternative medicine.
In Fully Alive! you learn simple ways to empower and enjoy your best health. The emphasis is on managing weight, preventing premature aging and dramatically improving vitality. The word health implies the connection among all thing working together, or holism.
Holistic health is an inclusive approach utilizing both traditional and alternative medical perspectives. It considers the spiritual, the mental, emotional and physical levels. The benefit to you is the use of a dedicated and clear mind to empower emotions and focus healing effort toward the entire mindbody system—including the emotions..
The Fully Alive! book is also an easy guide to natural living. By reading it, you discover successful ways to increase energy and enjoyment while decreasing pain and discomfort. Success in improving your health is made simple as you learn how to make new choices regarding food, exercise and aging.
Holistic, comes from the root words for “holy” and “whole.” Its study embraces all levels of our existence. In being fully alive, you use your spiritual power, the mindbody’s natural tendency to toward growth and wellbeing to break through the barriers between you and greater health and life enjoyment.
I have been trained in many different healing modalities. Drawing from the ancient healing arts that were found buried in the information of our past, .I researched current information and, combining them, found my way out of the maze of medical treatment, physical pain, emotional suffering and mental confusion that was my life. Learning
“the way out” entailed much trial and error. Now allow me through the vehicle of Fully Alive! to be your guide, leading you upon a smoother and shorter path than the one I traveled. You’ll find yourself easily embracing health including greater energy and joy.
The radio resting on the radiator was my only companion as I lay alone in the early morning hours, burning in pain. Every time I started feeling sorry for my self again, I’d hear the song, “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” and became calm as I mentally repeated the words I used to sing in the high school and church choirs
This first song reminded me that we are never alone on our walk through life. The second popular song that I remember hearing is “Working on the Chain Gang,” which reminded me of how we are all connected through our pain. It stopped me from judging others.
Improving your health is simple. You will be changing what you do. You won’t be changing who you are. You are already whole and complete. And you are connected in a web of life that nurtures and supports you. This book is part of that support.
Though my having lived through losing and regaining health, I now have the privilege to pass on to you natural, holistic methods to harmonize and balance your whole health. My desire is that this Fully Alive! guide end your suffering and bring you joy all of your life.
Introduction
Fully Alive! Ten Steps to Inner Harmony
Feel Better, Look Younger and Improve Your Sex Life
Here I am today as a vibrant, healthy 68 year old man with the heart of a 30 year old, vital in all respects and filled with enthusiasm for life.
I was compelled to write this book to share with you the amazing results of more healthful habits that I learned along the way. I had to do something as my old way was already killing me. Actually I did much more than just learn about them. I lived them in rebuilding my health and live them now.
My life has been a pursuit of the most effective, easiest and efficient choices for health. It became very dear to me. Pain and impaired functioning will do that most anyone. Now it is my intent to save you time, energy and effort. You accomplish this by following the plan laid out for you.
It will work for you as it has worked for so many others. Start today to enjoy a life of greater health and aliveness. Dare to be fully alive in all that you do. Yes you can!
Fully Alive! tells you how to use natural principles for whole-life health that are condensed into easy-to-follow steps. You’ll find research from new sciences to explain how the body works to its optimal levels when we develop healthy habits in our lives.
Being fully alive is:
A Natural state,
Joyfully engaged,
Energized.
It includes your health. “Health” according to the World Health Organization, “is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity.”
Fully Alive! is about creating optimal use of your mind and body for your whole life.
Most People Simply Don’t Do It!
You are a conscious being ready to find out what you need to know to be healthy for all of your life!
Imagine that you could feed your body what it needed every day. Would that change your life for the better? Would you want the result of more energy, stamina, drive, focus, clarity and resilience? Yes, we all would want that and along with it comes the additional bonus of boosting your immune system so you naturally resist colds, flu, and fatigue.
Imagine that you exercised daily, easily and without struggle. How many ways could that beneficially change your life? Wouldn’t that make it better and easier to have the weight and shape you desire? Would you be able to get more done and have more fun? Wouldn’t you have a clearer and sharper mind?
Imagine that you could calm your emotions in an instant and re-direct your biochemistry instead of being a victim of it. You could then breathe easier, manage anxiety and pressures. Wouldn’t that now make your job easier and you more productive? You could relax more!
Most People Simply Can’t Do It!
If you could have, you would have. Likely you’ve already been reading books and attending seminars; trying diets, exercise regimens and food supplements. All of them work to some degree. The problem was you didn’t have all the information you needed to get the result you were looking for.
Now, in Fully Alive! you do learn what you need to know. I have spent over 40 years in research, reading, working with clients, and living the simple steps to better health, optimal health. I laugh in delight each time a client understands the true meaning of “take a deep breath” and feels their shoulders relax. When a friend effortlessly loses twenty pounds and smiles from ear to ear in joy, it lifts me up too. The system is so simple and has worked for so many that I must share it.
Living the healthiest life you can is easier than you thought. You can start by setting yourself free you from negative habits, distraction and stress. You learn in the following chapters how to do that and put into practice what you need to improve your health.
Be The Person You Want to Be!
Until now, you didn’t have a simple plan to handle all of your busy life activities. I have solved that problem for you. The solution lies in more than just having the information you need. It is about now becoming Fully Alive!.
Until you are fully alive, you won’t be able to follow through on all of the good information you already have. I’ll show you how.
When you are genuinely and full alive, you use a forgotten secret to stay focused. You easily apply a key strategy when confronted with the daily challenges and everyday temptations that undermine your health on all fronts--physical, emotional, economic and social.
Confusing Data
The growth of information has made it almost impossible to find out who is telling the truth and who is not. The truth seems to be not absolute. What is healthy for your mind and body continues to change and it clashes often with established practices. Now you can enhance your health the easy way-- following natural principles.
In Fully Alive! while updating your information on topics like food and supplements, water and walking, you learn about the Four Pillars of Health and how to use them for your optimal health and wellbeing.
What To Do When Confronted With the Challenges and Daily Events That Undermine Your Resolve and Your Health?
Learn How to Get Over Yourself
How to use ten simple secrets of self-discipline everybody needs to know
How to get your body to eat what you want it to eat and make it work to your advantage
How to get your mind to think clearly
How to remember that you are a conscious person and in charge of your life
How to stop killing yourself
How to create the ideal conditions under which your mind and body work best.
Fully Alive! is a holistic guide to health with emphasis on preventing and dealing with premature signs of aging including unwanted weight gain. I also wrote this manual to help you stop killing yourself by transcending the concept of “eating” and learning to adopt a perspective of lovingly feeding your body what it needs to function at optimal levels. You now have the latest information and direction to maintain your motivation and stay psyched for life. I also wrote it so you can improve your state of health anywhere in the spectrum from illness to high level wellness and naturally experience more joy.
Congratulations on your purchase of Fully Alive! and on making an investment in your health. Your health is your real wealth and your investment in your health yields powerful dividends as a result of your reading this book and putting its strategies to work for you. Fully Alive! is your guide to systematically and easily doing those things that most benefit you and eliminating those things that keep you from enjoying a greater life.
Wisdom of the Soul
No one can ruin your day without YOUR permission.
Most people are about as happy as they decide to be.
Others can stop you temporarily, but only you can do it permanentlyWhatever you are having to put up with is exactly what you have.
Success stops when you do.
When your ship comes in...make sure you are willing to unload it
You never "have it all together."
Life is a journey... not a destination. Enjoy the trip!
The biggest lie on the planet: "When I get what I want I can be happy."
The best way to escape your problem is to solve it.
I've learned that ultimately 'takers' lose and 'givers' win.
Life's precious moments don't have value unless they are shared.
If you don't start, it's certain you won't arrive.
We often fear the thing we want the most.
Everyone hears what you say. Friends listen to what you have to say. Best friends listen to what you don't say!
Yesterday was the deadline for all complaints
Look for opportunities...not guarantees.
Life is what's coming....not what was
Success is getting up one more time
Now is the most interesting time of all
When things go wrong.....don't go with them.
Sometimes the majority only means that all the fools are on the same side.
God can mend all broken hearts. You just have to give Him all the pieces.
A person who asks a question might be a fool for five minutes, but a person who doesn't ask is a fool forever.
A best friend is like a four leaf clover... hard to find and lucky to have.
A friend is someone who reaches for your hand but touches your heart.
A coincidence is when God performs a miracle and decides to remain anonymous.
I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.
Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God's grace... and your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God's grace.
Our eyes are placed in front because it is more important to look ahead than to look back.
(Author unknown—received over the Internet)
I once read that the only thing that is dangerous in this world is ignorance. This is certainly true when it comes to our own health. We take other people’s words as truth and limit ourselves through lack of education.
You may have noticed this happening in the medical and pharmaceutical fields. You are told, “Here, this is good for you.” And it isn’t. The drug, “Vioxx,” now withdrawn from the market is the example that comes immediately to mind. “Sorry, it’s not so good for you.” The dietary “experts” have been much better: Butter is good; then bad. Margarine is great; then labeled toxic waste. Healthy living requires more than just following the latest trend or the, often outdated, opinions of authority.
As a health-conscious individual, you owe it to yourself to find out how your body works and learn what you need to do to make it function more efficiently and effectively in your world. Your health constantly rebuilds itself when given the opportunity. With your help your mind and body have miraculous recuperative powers.
This book isn’t just about your body, or even about your mindbody system. It is also about your ego. Your ego is your personality self, the part of you that gets impatient and sometimes feels like a victim of circumstance. It is often referred to as the lower self—-physically based on programs, instruction and opinions you adopted as you were growing up. It is not who you are.
Without change however, your ego keeps you in personal poverty-—a poverty of health, wealth and happiness. Your ego likes the status quo and wants to keep it so. It naturally resists change even when change would benefit you.
Of course, our world is in constant flux, so the ego is never happy. And it nags you daily. It runs from ideas placed into your brain from outside influences. Ego holds programs that are a combination of myth and ignorance about what is true and how to live your life.
The ego voice makes you fearful and resistant to changing your habits for your well being. It speaks to you and tells you it’s OK to eat junk, and justifies that you don’t have time to rest or relax, much less exercise or meditate.
You probably make yourself grouchy by listening to ego—and it runs most of the time. I read somewhere that most people have about 50+, 000 random thoughts daily and that 90% of them are negative. How would this make anyone feel?
You change all of this by using your spiritual powers. You can also absolutely transform your health in the process. You change the form of your health from feeling not-as-good-as you-could to feeling better; from feeling better to feeling great. You’ll find that, as you continue, you develop high-level wellness, progressively improving your energy, mood and attitude.
Fully Alive!—Feel Better, Look Younger and Improve Your Sex Life is a handbook for being energetic and lively. As a friend pointed out, “You have to grow older; you don’t have to grow old!” Make your goals to feel youthful forever and to live life more fully. To then achieve your goals there are steps you need to take to make it happen. Follow my plan for ease and comfort.
Dedicated to all of us who are occupy mortal bodies, the emphasis of the book is threefold:
How to avoid weight gain and encourage weight loss—naturally and easily.
How to stop and reverse the signs of premature aging—without drugs or surgery.
How to reduce and prevent body fat—without struggle or strain,
There are four key elements to your whole health that I call the
Four Pillars of Health:
1. Breath: the key to vitality and inspiration
2. Nutrition: The key to nutrients and fuel
3. Exercise: The key to clarity and flexibility
4. Meditation: The key to calm
Improvement in any one area automatically benefits the other areas. Together they create a powerful, synergistic energy that works for you every minute of every day. I’ll show you how to incorporate the Four Pillars into your life—and to stop, unconsciously, killing yourself.
SIDEBAR
Your Spiritual Powers
1. Spiritual Power Number One is your ability to choose what you have on your mind. So learn to focus on what you desire. Allow yourself to feel deeply having obtained what you seek. Take back control of your mind and life by practicing daily, focusing on your goals and feeling how it feels to achieve them in present time.
2. Spiritual Power Number Two is your ability to breathe. By directing your breath, you calm your emotions, lower your blood pressure, and quiet your mind. There is no substitute for sitting quietly and breathing if you want to feel connected to Life and energized in your activities throughout your day. Combine it with focusing on your goals and expect an explosion of goodness in your experience.
END OF SIDEBAR
I also wrote this book because I want to share the spiritual powers that have kept me alive and well that I know will help you.. I know how to achieve optimal health because I have done it despite facing great odds. I lost my health and have rebuilt it, not once, or twice, but three times. Your health is an extensive topic and includes your body, mind, and relationships to people, animals and all life.
As you read you learn how to have more love and energy in your life and to share it more abundantly with others. You fulfill your life purpose, refining your purpose and strengthening your spiritual focus.
Fully Alive! holds powerful information to be applied to health. If everyone used this information, our national “healthcare crisis” would dissolve. I once had an MD tell me that if we could teach this nationally, we could empty the hospitals except for ER and Obstetrics. When you use it, you immediately realize more of your innate potential, thinking more clearly and loving more deeply; having more energy and passion for life.
Until now, you may not have considered your body from an energetic viewpoint. Doing so at this time enables you to take greater control of your life--from this point forward. It is quite simple when you think about it. From the energetic perspective, your choices and activities either add to your energy or detract from it. This basic understanding empowers you to dramatically improve the way your mind and body perform. The only problem with this understanding is that once you have it, you don’t get to be a victim of your circumstances. Once you “get it,” you have to take responsibility for the rest of your life.
You have the power and ability to change as part of your heritage as a spiritual human being. Even if you attempted to improve your health before and weren’t satisfied with the result, the new information I share with you is what you need to now succeed—including how to overcome your mood swings and chemical imbalances.
Fully Alive! teaches you important health-producing ideas and gives you a plan to follow. You learn how to control your weight, resolve the issues surrounding it and improve the direction of your life. Yet it is far more than a weight management handbook.
Fully Alive! is a holistic guide to natural living. The most natural thing you do is to breathe. Breathing is the first thing you do when being born and the last thing you do as you pass. So, one of the first things you learn about is your breathing.
Breathing, besides being the connection we have to life itself, is an ages-old method of improving health proven in thousands of years of application. Yet the way most people have learned to breathe contributes to a decline in energy, even sucking the life out of them on a daily basis. Over time they run out of oxygen and energy for life.
You, however, learn how to now change your breathing and rapidly increase your energy reserve to feel better and accomplish more. Even if you never make any changes in your life other than to improve your breathing, positive results reverberate throughout your entire life from that one activity.
Fully Alive! also teaches you how to choose food from a different angle, one that breaks through the hypnosis of commercially induced food consumption. Imagine freeing yourself from other people’s food agendas and eating for your personal benefit. You’ll find out how to de-fuse the emotion-based eating triggers that are stored in your mind and body. You become your own person.
You’ll learn how to actually quiet the ego chatter in your mind and feel profound relaxation. You’ll also learn how to more easily meditate and deepen your experience with your meditative practices.
The bottom line is that I was really stuck and if I could get out of the predicament I was in, so can you. If I could so dramatically and drastically improve my state of health, so can you. We both had the same maker and our bodies are truly miraculous creations with amazing capabilities. Take the suggestion, perform the action, then watch and see what happens for you!
Maybe you have trouble believing any plan will work for you. I understand; yet, I urge you to follow the 10 step program for 30 days and observe the result. Tangible, beneficial results in your body, emotions and life, occur as you move toward your goal of radiant health.
Supercharge your stress management skills!
Feel better and have more energy!
You would have already done it if you knew how before.
Three Realms
There are three realms to your physical existence: the physical, the non-physical, and the spiritual. You have a physical body made of cells and atoms, comprised of bones, skin, blood, organs, hormones, and so much more. You also have a non-physical body with emotions and thoughts. This s is where archetypes are held. The physical, emotional and mental bodies together form the soul or person. We, you and I, are none of these. Instead we are spirit or consciousness—-that has a mind, a body and emotions.
Energetic vibrations from the spiritual realm are attracted to the soul and coalesce into physical matter, sparked by Life. You breathe in spiritual essence, bringing oxygen to the blood that pumps through your heart and feeds every part of your body.
Traditional medical methodology approaches life on Newtonian physical principles. Since we also live in a non-physical world, the endless analysis, naming of symptoms and looking to constituent DNA can yield only partial answers. In the meantime, decline, disability and disease increase their grip on an aging population.
Thought and Emotion
The non-physical world of thought and emotions are important aspects of your health often overlooked by doctors trained in specialized uses of drugs and surgery. Drugs and surgery have their place in symptomatic remedy and repair. They in no way are they the ultimate answer. A long-term, real solution requires a much broader scope be taken into account beyond just treating a collection of physical symptoms.
The non-physical world understandings of quantum physics, invisible particles and non-linear dynamics have important information for all who value their health. The latest sciences of psychoneuroimmunolgy (PNI) and psychobiology reveal how all parts of the mind-body system are interconnected and in constant communication.
Fully Alive! tells you how to remain balanced and in harmony with all of life by using your spiritual powers. Read first. Then, taking self-loving action, you’ll begin to feel better. People notice that you look and act younger. Your mood improves and you have energy for all that you want to do. You become more Fully Alive!
Chapter 1
Get Started
You are about to provide your body with the tools you need for health. This means that you feel younger and operate more efficiently. Looking leaner and more youthful is a fun side benefit to your journey. This is not some “pie in the sky” concept. Do the work, get the results.
REMOVING ROADBLOCKS
Ideally, the road toward improved living will feel exciting and rewarding. Many people never start this valuable journey because they either don’t understand taking care of themselves or they feel overwhelmed by the process. In Fully Alive! you learn to overcome these roadblocks by applying practical solutions for better living. Rather than feeling confused and helpless, you feel empowered and confident. So, let’s get started with some crucial questions.
WHAT DO YOU WANT?
Would you like to enjoy the best health possible? Would you like to feel and look younger? Would you like to have more energy and less stress? You would? Then the next questions may have more complex answers.
EFFORT REQUIRED
Are you willing to make the required effort to manage your lifestyle according to the mind-body’s natural development? Most of us would like to keep doing what we’ve always done, hoping somehow the results will be different next time.
NO KIDDING
It’s easy to become addicted to doing the same things over and over. Yet repeating negative patterns only yields the same, and most likely undesirable, results. You must change for the outcome to change. There is no other way.
NO MAGIC CURE
There are no pills, potions, or procedures to replace investing YOURSELF into your life. Since no outside source can solve your health problems, it’s up to you to become fully alive. I tell you this despite repeated promises of people who want to seduce and sell you some pill, potion or product that promises results without effort.
YOUR JOB
You have to participate if you want to make progress. You already know that this is true in your career and in your relationships with others. It also applies to managing your health and weight. I can make it simple for you and even easy. Yet if it is to be, it is up to thee!
SELF LOVE
Do you love yourself enough to act in your health’s best interest? Your willingness to do so is the key to your success. It is the first step to living a longer, livelier, more abundant life.
EGO DESIRES
Can you look beyond your ego? Our egos prefer pleasure and the status quo. The ego reaches a certain comfort level and then locks into it; at times even convincing you change is futile. This takes place on a biochemical level and is usually happening beneath your conscious awareness.
OWN PARENT
You change your body’s habits as you would change the habits of a young child – gently encouraging and reinforcing daily. Doing so creates a new habit. Your body then locks into it – for your benefit.
REINFORCEMENT
The new habit replaces the old one. As this occurs, you feel better. Remember, this is a natural process. And because you like feeling better, you are then motivated to continue improving.
LOW ENERGY STATE
The body, usually allied with the ego’s preference for comfort and ease, does resist change. Part of the reason this occurs is the habits we have developed keep us in a state of low energy. This low-energy state makes it seem impossible for us to do what is needed to make the changes we say we want.
CONSIDER
As soon as we do shift or make a change--for example, cutting out toxic foods--we then feel discomfort as the mind-body system rebalances its chemistry. If a long-time smoker stops smoking, withdrawal occurs. The smoker experiences cravings and may feel anxious. When you stop eating toxic food, you may also experience withdrawal symptoms, including aches and pains. The body has gradually accommodated the toxins and now depends on them to feel normal. This occurs even though your “normal” state may be compromising your health.
NORMAL TENDENCY
When we don’t feel good, even thinking about our health can be overwhelming. We most likely decide to discontinue the changes we may have made and resume or continue, perhaps with modifications, the same health-disabling behaviors as before. Maybe you know people addicted to soft drinks, candy, coffee, or some other drug. For them, the thought of giving up the treasured item produces stress.
IS THIS PERSON YOU?
Do you worry about starting a health-gaining, fat-loss program and being deprived of your favorite foods? If so, focus instead on being healthy. Substitute this empowering thought for the one of loss. Feed yourself this new thought throughout the day, imagining the feeling of being fully alive.
SHIFTING OUR STANCE
It’s helpful to know beforehand that positive changes in diet produce a result and your body adjusts and may create discomfort. It’s no different from starting a new exercise program. At first, your muscles may feel sore, and as you continue with your program, becoming stronger and fitter, the soreness vanishes. In the same way, it’s important to maintain a new food regimen until the changed biochemistry is recognized as the new “normal” by your system.
STAY THE COURSE
We must put up with interim discomfort for the long-term gains we seek. The discomfort doesn’t last long as the body adapts quickly. You help with this process by using some of the health producing “secrets” you’ll find in this book.
VICTIM OR VICTOR?
To help us choose the best health possible for ourselves, we have to realize taking no action is the same as choosing to be overwhelmed by our past and our environment. Pain, misery, suffering and premature death are the natural results for most of us if we continue as we have been. Normal, as defined in our culture, is not so healthy. Absence of a disease is only the midpoint in your movement to wellness.
NEW CHALLENGES
If you suffer from excessive stress, you must learn stress resolution and management techniques. This area needs your conscious attention if you are to be healthy. You learn how to go beyond just dealing with the stressors you greet every day. You find out how you to erase old, stored stressors. Learning how to personally alleviate your stress also teaches you how to help teach loved ones to lower the negative impact of stress in their lives.
EVERYTHING WORKS TOGETHER
Anything you do to improve your health helps. From this book, you learn the single most important exercise-–and how to rationally take charge of your eating habits and your health. Your results are guaranteed to far exceed the little effort involved.
THE LATEST INFORMATION
My job is to make it easy for you--easy to understand and use. I share with you what has been learned from the latest sciences-–neurobiology, quantum mechanics, and cosmic physics--and from the oldest philosophies.
STEPPING FORWARD
You may have already experienced injury, surgery or accident and have a residual effect. Recovery may call for long-term involvement in new behaviors. I know this from experience. When I lay on my back in a hospital awakening from a ten-day coma, I knew things were going to be different. The casts on my head, arm and leg made it clear my process would take time and I would need to be patient.
BOTTOMLINE
I wrote this book to help you in your journey toward optimum living. Yet the spiritual power to drive the process starts with you. If you have fully considered the emotions and possible food and other addictions preventing prior progress, it is now time to learn how to deal with the outside, societal pressures you still have to face. I call them external roadblocks.
CHAPTER 2
Overcome Obstacles
You know what you want and have begun to consider how your own personal and internal situation prevented you from enjoying more radiant health. As you start working toward your goals, you must also understand the external factors negatively affecting your health and energy—-and underlying weight gain.
INDULGENCES
Either unknowingly or deliberately, we’ve abused our health in our youth. We may have ingested things we knew were unhealthy and done so more than once. We have finally stopped the deliberate abuse. We’ve also been exposed to toxic environments without fully understanding them or the effects of food choices we’ve made.
BYSTANDERS
Our health may not be so good as a result of unconscious exposure to health-impairing circumstances. For example, being exposed to mercury in fish or amalgam dental fillings, eating stress-producing foods, or having to drink and bathe in chlorinated water. Our health suffers nonetheless from our lack of awareness or information.
SOCIETAL PRESSUE
Most of us have been conditioned to consume more. Through advertising and our culture, our eating habits have spawned a growth industry with food as its full focus and fixation. Our food habits are recorded and analyzed so we can be marketed-to and made to eat more. Food additives cause us to eat more. Then we are bombarded with ads for remedies to “cure” the ailments caused by overeating. These remedies then fail us, treat only symptoms, and may cause a host of new problems.
DRUGS AND MEDICINE
Television and magazine advertising would have us believe our salvation lies in drugs and medications rather than making life-saving changes. Drugs have side effects (direct effects) and a cosmetic change-over isn’t going to make us feel more whole either.
SEEING THE EFFECT
Current food providers, restaurants and processors are already offering smaller sized choices as the trend shifts from “more food is better” to healthier portions. Yet, in many instances, they give us low-fat solutions without considering the whole story-and increase our intake of sweeteners. We may think we’re eating less, but even one 12-ounce soda a day translates into enough calories to create 20 extra pounds of body fat in one year. Temptations are everywhere, beckoning us to eat, eat, and eat and drink, drink, drink.
WE ALREADY KNOW
Studies over the last twenty years say one key to longevity is to cut caloric intake. It works for lab rats and people. Vow to eat less—-progressively. You’ll look and feel younger automatically.
RICHES OF INFORMATION
There is a wealth of information about what you should eat along with how, where, what time and in what order. Some of this advice may be sound, and the greater problem in its use is recommendations are often made to a general audience without regard to individual differences. At times, “expert opinions” are either conflicting or confusing. Worst of all, some of the information is simply inaccurate, outdated and ignorant.
WATCHING YOUR WEIGHT
Friendly support groups exist at every strata of society and you can find committed companionship in commercial weight controls programs. Their programs are based on serving size, self-control and peer support. You may consider refining their food offerings and suggestions after you have read this book and found out about the effects of the suggested foodstuffs on your mind and body.
VESTED INTERESTS
Commercial interests often override health considerations while nutrition-poor guidelines in most schools produce poor habits, leading to disregard for dietary considerations. Snacks pushed on children through “sponsored” programs at school further undermine their futures. Most of the media coverage about changing to healthier vending machine selections is just noise. Don’t become distracted by token efforts at reform. An activity is either adding to energy in our system or detracting from it. Use this truth as your guideline, not the media reports
LABELING THE EXPERIENCE
Next time you read about children with ADHD or ADD, substitute the phrase “nutritionally bankrupt” and you have a more accurate label to apply. An overdose of a detrimental foodstuff is much more serious for a growing body than for an adult and most of what children eat is nutritionally deficient. Consider a baby with colic as also having a nutritional issue. Essential fatty acids (EFA’s) can resolve the symptoms in two or three days.
ADULTS SUFFER TOO
Poor thinking from poor nutrition doesn’t just plague children. It is a national problem affecting people of all ages and socioeconomic backgrounds. Ever wonder how many billions of dollars “fuzzy thinking” costs governmental and corporate organizations? How much has it cost you personally?
EVERYWHERE WE LOOK
Weight gain has caught the public’s attention, reported in daily newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and generating an annual wave of diet and recipe books. We have become a nation of fat people, and we keep getting fatter. Researchers analyzing USDA food consumption tables from 1967 through 2000 found by the end 2000, obesity affected 30 percent of the public, growing by over 30% every ten years. Recent statistics show even faster growth.
SIDEBAR A BRIEF HISTORY--
The average body weight of Americans rose slowly from 1900 to the late 1980s, at which point the average started to climb sharply. Accompanying this rise in weight was the growing intake of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), up 1000 percent between 1970 and 1990--and far exceeding the intake changes in other food groups.
Obesity in children has grown out of control over the last 25 years. The percentage of obese teenagers has tripled, from 5% to 15%. Preteen obesity more than doubled, from 7% to 15%.
Two-thirds of adults are overweight. And the calculation doesn’t consider, in recent years, the “normal” weight charts have added 10 pounds to the old “normal” figures.
CLOSE SIDEBAR
WEIGHING US DOWN IN OTHER WAYS
Fat is more than a cosmetic problem. Excess weight overtaxes the organs, impairs movement, and decreases the ability to breathe. The cumulative effects of being over-weight lead to a decline in the quality of life and even premature mortality. The direct cost of obesity is estimated to be over $300 billion annually—not counting the costs of overloading healthcare staff and facilities.
THE NUMBER ONE CAUSE
Obesity is now having as widespread an effect among people as smoking. It is thought to kill as many, and disable more. It is taking place across our entire society, covering us like a fog, making us more sluggish and non-responsive. Some refer to it as digging our own graves with a fork!
CHEMICAL TOXINS
Aside from poor habits we may have developed, chemicals causing weight gain pose a hidden danger. They are in our everyday world and we are absorbing them mostly unknowingly. Eat them and you gain! They are found in most all processed foods. Health champion Jack LaLanne puts it simply, “If man makes it, don’t eat it.”
IT’S PROTECTING YOU
There is also the hidden overload we consume through other chemicals added to foods--antibiotics, preservatives, pesticides, fungicides and herbicides. Yes, we may appear to eat less, but the body continues to gain weight, doesn’t it?
LOVE YOUR LIVER
When your liver becomes overloaded with toxins, it stores those it cannot process as fat. More toxicity = more fat. Your fat is protecting you from toxic overload. To get rid of the fat and prevent its reappearance, you are going to need to cut as many toxins as possible.
SLOWS DOWN
Years of accumulation of toxins wear the system down. The body becomes sluggish and inactive. Then it no longer eliminates toxins and cannot repair and heal itself. We may find ourselves turning to drugs, but these introduce new pollutants for the body to handle. Health declines and symptoms appear we call cancer, heart disease and obesity. Changes are required to reverse this spiraling deterioration.
BIG BUSINESS
$30+ billion is now spent on the attempt to lose or maintain weight each year. Judging from the articles, ads and remedies offered to us, weight management is a national hobby. 97% of dieting Americans gain back lost weight within five years according to the National Institutes of Health. There is a way out of this predicament, too!
IT DOESN’T ADD UP
We also know from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the average caloric intake rose about 7% for men and 21% for women between 1971 and 2000. During this time, however, the percentage of obese adults rose by 113%. This is a 900 percent rise in obesity compared to caloric intake! Clearly something doesn’t add up.
Chapter 3
CUT IT OUT
The problem is so serious even surgery is used to deal with obesity. Over 100,000 people had “bariatric,” or bypass, surgery in 2003. The average weight loss is 75 pounds in the first year. So far people undergoing the operation have been able to lose half their bodyweight and keep it off for at least five years.
Some researchers claim this surgery saves lives. Yet one study shows that the mortality rate after only one month is 2%. Critics point out that surgery also sets people up for malnutrition with a long-term success rate of only 10%. Complications from the surgery include bone loss, immune system damage, and liver failure.
The latest thing in obesity treatment is gastric band surgery; the most prominent surgical approach to the problem in the UK. Since the 1980’s dividing the stomach into two pouches with band surgery has ended binge eating since it causes pain. Think of it as imposed will power.
ONE GOOD THING
Most of us don’t qualify for bypass surgery because we aren’t 100 or more pounds above our ideal weight. We also may not be able to pay for an average cost of $25,000 or have insurance to cover the operation. Even Medicare won’t cover it all. Gastric bands are less expensive and still not covered by most insurance. Taking care of ourselves is the best solution, and it is highly affordable.
TECH TIPS
There is even a medical procedure to trigger your feeling full. An implant sends signals to stop eating. What many people don’t realize is nature already gave us a similar device. Most of us have turned it off without knowing it. The pharmaceutical companies are working diligently to produce a pill to artificially provide a feeling of fullness. Potential side effects are unknown.
SIDEBAR TOM’S TIPS--
Finding out how weight gain is happening and what to do about it is important to everyone interested in health. What is going on? For most of us the issue is far more complex than simply “eating less and moving more!” People do differ and no one formula is going to work for everyone. You need to be in charge of you own, individual program based on your nature and genetic make-up.
CLOSE SIDEBAR
GENES
Obesity may be genetic—about 1%--resulting from a missing protein code for leptin. Almost all obese persons have excess leptin in direct proportion to body mass measurements. For these people, supplements work wonders. Others may inherit a body type unable to measure up to today’s cultural fashion for slenderness or muscularity.
There are many genetic factors influencing your health. You can overcome genetic dispositions toward poor health with correct food choices, exercise and lifestyle modifications.
THERE IS HOPE AHEAD
Perhaps your waist to hip measurement ratios tend to remain constant regardless of exercise and diet. Whatever our genetic predisposition however, we can all improve our health and condition.
MEDICATIONS
Drugs such as steroids and some antidepressants can cause weight gain directly. Others may increase appetite, shift taste preferences, disable signals that tell you to stop eating, or cause hormonal imbalances. You’ll need to evaluate what you are taking and ask your doctor to change your prescriptions as required.
BEST HEALTH POSSIBLE
Your current state of health may already be compromised through the effects of time or circumstance. The “best possible health” may be an ideal no longer available. You may never become an athletic competitor or scale mountain peaks because of chronic conditions already developed. AND you can improve from this point in your life forward. Let being fully alive become your ticket to adventure and a better life.
YOUR CONDITION
Even if you have experienced decline, your health can be measurably improved. This is true even if your genetically caused shape doesn’t change much. You can reverse the effects of inactivity simply by improving your metabolism. The body periodically replaces every single cell, from your skin to your heart to your bones. Exercise and movement supports the process.
YOUR BEST CHOICE
What would happen if you created the most favorable circumstances for renewing yourself? Your body would rid itself of toxic substances and you’d have more energy to draw on for inner healing or outer activity. The new, replacement cells would be healthier too.
SELF-REPAIR
You can enjoy your best health possible. The mind-body system is amazing in its ability to self-repair and regenerate. You have likely read or know of some of the stories of individuals overcoming difficult, even seemingly impossible health limitations. Most of us personally know people who overcame the odds to enjoy life more fully despite handicaps or history.
LIVING PROOF
I invite you to start today to become healthier, leaner and livelier and prove the effectiveness of what you are learning. It worked for me, so I know it is possible – and worthwhile. If life is worth living – and I assume it is for you or you wouldn’t be reading this book—wouldn’t you like the best life possible?
WHAT ONE CAN DO
What one of us can do observing natural principles and putting them to work, so can another. There are many stories of men and women who suffered setbacks only to regain health and excel in their fields.
Regardless of where you are, you can learn how to feel better. It is a matter of progressive realization of having energy. In other words, small steps add up.
Your energy level improves easily, and you feel better. Feeling better encourages you to continue your fat-loss plan and expand your activity level. It is only logical, then, that you improve your health, living longer, leaner and livelier.
NO STRUGGLE
Following the Fully Alive! ten step weight loss, anti-aging and fat prevention program to harmoniously improve your health and manage your weight is easy because there is no struggle. You are working with instead of than against, your body’s evolution and genetic make-up. Follow the plan and you cannot fail to get the results you seek.
SUCCESS IS GUARANTEED
Success in our Western culture is defined as the progressive realization of a worthwhile goal. You are an energetic being, undergoing continuing change. Make your goal to raise your energy level. Your weight management and youthful-feeling goals fall into place as you do things to boost your energy and stop doing things to deplete or constrict it. More energy enables your mind-body system to balance and harmonize itself. A healthier weight and better health are within everyone’s reach.
AFFECTS EVERYONE
Weight management interests most of us, even the young and slender. They too soon discover as people age it is “normal” to gain weight. A pound a year is the current norm or ten pounds each decade. If you weighed 160 pounds at age 21, expect to weigh 190 by the time you are 51. If you were 115 when you were married, you probably move up to 151 or more — unless you do something about it. Think of weighing your most healthful weight. Notice you already feel better.
The skinny teen all too quickly becomes normally overweight. And it doesn’t take long. Then drugs and steroids, some antidepressants, hormone stimulants and environmental toxins all contribute to weight gain beyond the not-so-healthy norm.
HOW LONG?
Most of us gained unwanted weight gradually. Others may have attracted it more rapidly following trauma, or even natural life events like childbirth. In most instances, the body sheds weight as quickly as is in the interest of your health. It does take time. Get used to the idea--gently and easily is best for you. As a Self-love exercise, give yourself the gift of patience.
SMALL STEPS = BIG REWARDS
What would happen if you gave yourself a year or two to reach your healthiest weight? How would you look and feel? How much would you weigh? Even a measly ½ pound a week of fat loss is a tremendous 26 pounds in a year.
THE END RESULT
(Pun Intended) As far as weight gain is concerned, everyone is guilty and there is no one to blame. We are all in this together, so let’s focus on what can be done for ourselves and, thereby, for everyone else. Depending on your outlook and personality type, your choice to do something for yourself and your willingness to make healthy changes in your own behalf are:
1. Powerful weapons in your war against weight.
2. An irresistible force for harmony and balance in your life.
GOING FOWARD
With so many different factors coming into play, it can seem as though there is no way out of a corner in which we find ourselves. But there is a solution to the problem. I recommend you embrace harmony and balance as Fully Alive! shows you. Then you’ll be able to allow everything else to take place easily.
Chapter 4
Optimum Health
THE FOUR PILLARS OF HEALTH
Your new life management model consists of four pillars of health:
1. Breath: The key to vitality and inspiration
2. Nutrition: The key to nutrients and fuel
3. Exercise: The key to clarity and flexibility
4. Meditation : he key to calm
These four pillars form the structural foundation of your well-being. Your best performance requires they all become part of your health regimen.
HOLISTIC PERSPECTIVE
Holistic health embraces the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual aspects of being. A program must consider all aspects of your being or it cannot work for you.
All is energy, and all energy flows from the spiritual to the mental, emotional and physical levels. These planes make up one whole system with interrelated and overlapping parts, separated for examination and discussion.
What would each of us do if we were conscious souls responsible for the health of our mind and body? Everything possible to protect and expand it is the answer. The next question to ask is, “who is in charge?”
WHO IS IT?
The one who lives in your body is the one who eats. The one who looks back at you from the mirror occupies your beautiful, sensuous body is responsible for it. It is your Self. Will you honor your Self?
THE KNOWING YOU
There is a part of you who knows intuitively how to eat well and be well. There is also another part of you who, perhaps habitually and unconsciously, sabotages your wellbeing. It is up to you to choose which one is in charge of your feeding your body, exercise and your health.
A MASTER SOUL
As long as you think you are a body, then you eat, victim of your body’s appetites. As long as you think you are your thoughts, you are the victim of your ego programming and all advertising. Wake up!--you are a soul. Acting like one enables you to rise above your habits, ego-based preferences, opinions and addictions.
SECRETS REVEALED
Throughout this book I’ll share with you some little known, easy to use secrets—Tom’s Tips--to overcome disabling habits of thought and action. You’ll learn how to quickly feel and perform better, starting right now and improving progressively.
SHIFTING YOUR VIEW
Several things occur as you move away from eating and, instead, adopt the perspective of feeding your body.
You stop “over-eating”
You gain portion control
You stop eating for taste alone
You choose to feed your mindbody system for health
ALREADY KNOWLEDGEABLE
You already know a lot about weight management. Some of the things I share with you to help you may be new to you. And even provide you with the breakthrough you have been looking for!
WHO DECIDES?
It is up to you to personally to weigh the validity of am idea before you adopt it for yourself. We all have our biases. I am presenting information I believe to uplift and enable you to live better in all respects. After you read this book, then it is up to you to make the best possible choices for your higher nature. Go ahead and choose to have the energy you would like for all of your life—both in quantity and quality.
YOU ARE THAT
What I mean by your Self or higher nature is the loving, considerate, calm and caring part of you. You are expressing your higher nature when you are being the person you want to be.
THE BODY TEMPLE
Most of us are familiar with the phrase, “The body is the temple.” Indeed, it is the living place and vehicle of communication for our higher nature. It is up to each of us to create the most favorable mindbody conditions so our higher nature can express itself more easily and fully.
Full Wave Breathing
My holistic approach introduces a major element you won’t find in other health, anti-aging or weight loss programs. It is called Full Wave Breathing™. You will find it to be a powerful natural method of stimulating your own healing resources and directing them toward health and balance.
THE ONE THING
I have found Full Wave Breathing to be the one thing to helps you do everything else you need to do to take care of your weight. It’s the cornerstone of your Four Pillars of Health for your best performance, emotional harmony and ideal state.
MANY POSITIVE RESULTS
Testing results and testimonials show you can have more energy and become more focused and motivated by using this simple method. Added information, articles and resources for you are on the Internet at www.fullwavebreathing.com.
WHO IT BENEFITS
Regardless of our age or current condition, we can all live fuller, richer lives of greater contribution to those around us and to Life itself. Taking action benefits us, individually and collectively.
ENERGY CRISIS
First, we must have the energy to act. To have the energy we need, we must stop limiting our energy and, instead, expand it. You’ll learn how to do this step by step, restoring health and growing younger while losing unwanted weight.
SIDEBAR TOM’S TIP--
Let Full Wave Breathing become your primary energy management tool to deal with low energy states from toxemia, the anxieties driving you to eat, and the cravings. You can perform this breathing movement anywhere as a daily exercise -—a self-responsible method to improve your blood oxygen ratios and shift sluggish and toxic biochemistry to a positive state. You can also use Full Wave Breathing intermittently throughout the day to manage cravings.
CLOSE SIDEBAR
IMPROVEMENT NOTED
If you were to observe people in diseased states, you would notice a condition of impaired breathing accompanies most all diseases. From a holistic perspective, changing one component automatically changes all others, so you automatically improve your health as you improve your breathing. If you are under treatment for chronic disease, ask your doctor to keep track of your improvement as your breathing program progresses.
IMMEDIATE ACTION
Changing your breathing enables you to shift your biochemistry and electromagnetic field. Applying Full Wave Breathing immediately alters a disease state by redirecting respiration. Use it to manage your emotions and to remain calm and alert.
LOGICAL RESULTS
Full Wave Breathing can be employed for a variety of healthful purposes. Since your breathing affects everything else, it makes sense that you can improve a variety of conditions simply by improving the way you habitually breathe.
OXYGEN FOR LIFE
Most of us know a good supply of oxygen is essential to our health. How well do you think your body runs if you progressively decrease the oxygen you get? This is what happens “normally” as you age--unless you act now. Oxygen-poor foods only add to the problem.
HEALTHGUARD
Even old studies point out cancer cannot live in an oxygen-rich environment. Newer studies show when our blood oxygen ratio declines to a certain level, our organ systems rapidly deteriorate.
BREATHE AWAY FAT?
Some weight management programs maintain your breathing to be even more important than calisthenics or diet when it comes to burning calories. It may be the case and you’ll have to see for yourself. If you want to burn fat fast, you need oxygen! How much fat you burn while you exercise depends on the ability of your cardiovascular system to deliver enough oxygen to your cells.