No Pride Zone
The journey of health through a peaceful biblical understanding of nutrition and wellness
As always this isn't medical advice. But to direct your interests, exploration, and to take control of your health. It is advised that if you are ill or on medication to seek out your medical advisor and discuss with them this knowledge you are obtaining and would like them to assist you in your desire. I will say you will most likely be pleasantly surprised how many medical people will want to help you in your journey to good health.
The No Pride Zone
Each person comes to a realization of oneself. A self that can be clearly seen in the mirror of truth. When we come to this awareness it can happen in a number contexts. Humility presents itself to us in our moral dilemma in life. Where have I been? Where am I going? Eternity asks us that question. It is truly something no other creature has and that is because of our soul. It fears its destruction and reaches out for help. If we deny it. We can instead be filled with any number of opposing spirits that will encircle the soul, keeping it, from calling out for help. But if we reconcile this dilemma, by truly looking at our morality, through a test of the ten commandments which have been written on the hearts of all man, we come to the no pride zone. This is humility to know oneself. We can see clearly now that we won't ever meet the standard for eternity, then, we call out for a savior, one whom will take the punishment for us. He will gladly do it all for us. But he won't jump in front of a runaway car for us. Or stop an avalanche from crushing us. However, He is there to rescue us from a guilty sentence that rests upon us and all mankind. Something we deserve our wages that we have earned in life. The wages of sin is death. So to enter the no pride zone, one needs humility—a look in the mirror of truth.
Likewise, our physical attention, health, strength, mind, and spirit can be exalted in humility or can be destroyed in its opposing spirits. The world is looking at truth as subjective and not objective. For instance subjective truth says you are healthy you just have high blood pressure take some of these pills and it will stabilize. Subjective truth, you are getting older as you get older you get sicker. As you get older you get diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity, foggier mind, dementia, bladder dysfunction, fungus, dandruff, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, etc. So again the world offers a solution for your symptoms that affect your life but, it comes with a price— its a reduced quality of life. A life that keeps getting more expensive, more treatment, always learning and never coming to the full knowledge of the answer. However, when we look into the mirror of truth and ask those that have turned their unhealthy lives around we find a similarity to those same people that have turned their imorral lives around in pursuit of the good news of eternity. They find direction because they ask the same question—where is this lifestyle leading me?
Can humility that changes a persons direction in eternity also change a person’s physical quality of life? Perhaps, it can and does. The ADA in an article published on its web site that lifestyle intervention is the strongest medicine. It outperforms all drugs. The American Heart Association has changed its recommendation on drugs also and stating that lifestyle choices have the strongest indication of reversing heart disease. Some cardiologists think some lifestyle choices are better than others.
Since humility is to know oneself. It can also empower one to self-denial and reverse a a chosen destiny.
Yes I said chosen destiny. Yes, Eve was deceived but she still chose. And when it comes to nutrition and disease. It still becomes our choice. While there is a volume of voices that say you can eat what you want and not get sick; or its this, or that which is causing this disease, or that disorder. Yet never reversing the disease. It almost becomes like a pea and shell game. Is it here? Is it there? And us human beings today are no different than Eve. What looks good to the eye must be good. But, again at what consequence? Does, eating sugar, lead to metabolic syndrome, then diabetes, for which there is a pill. Does that leads to high blood pressure for which there is another pill. Which leads to high cholesterol for which there is yet another pill, which leads to dementia for which they are developing a pill. Where will it end? And if Eve could have seen where will sin end, would she have been so easily deceived? God told Adam you will surely die. So he was given a vision. He knew the end But, Eve, was deceived and Adam let sin into the world. He knew better. So likewise we can be deceived but the still small voices that spake to Elijah, can speak to us today. There are a number of doctors that have questioned this notion of eliminating fat from the human diet. And medicating the patient into eternity, with no reverse of disease. Rather they note observational studies, and common sense in lieu of endless medicine. For instance in Gary Taubes books he references how to make Fois Gras--fatty goose liver. How? Give a goose excess grain and it will fatten a gooses liver wallah—fatty liver. How do farmers fatten cows for market—excess grain—wallah a nice fatted calf! Give a human excess grain why do we not think, we won’t get a fat human with fatty liver and diabetes? Is it because we think we can get back to the holy state of innocence in the garden of Eden by food? So if we eat like they did in paradise will we be healthy? It is true that God made us to be healthy, He didn't make us to be sick. But, It has been said by a friend of mine that food, drink and garment, aren't things that will bring us into the kingdom, but rather a humble spirit.
So humility lets us look in the mirror. It’s an honest look. We look at our life, and how we feel. I ask am I getting better, by the road I'm on? It’s the same humility that of an immoral man that looks at his life and repents. You might say what do I have to repent from? I was deceived. In this case knowledge is a tool to see how you might have been deceived. How you might be defending that interpretation that has led you on the road of denial, which has wages appropriate to be paid. Some are willing to receive these wages, they are content with these wages. So likewise, in the case of eternity the wages of sin is death. These wages are paid in a very poor and unhappy quality of life. But there is also a pill for unhappiness.
The deception we embrace is to compare ourselves among ourselves. And belief in new ageism. Man’s ability to overcome his world with technology. Technology has delivered so many from the sufferings of disease. Society today has accepted it as the go to for all infirmities. However, there are infirmities that are caused by our own doing. There really isn't much help other than reducing the consequences of our choices or our symptoms. For instance they haven't found a way to reverse lung disease caused by years of smoking. They can however remove or medicate the symptoms if one stops putting into the body that which is causing the disease. Sugar and tobacco. Yes there is sugar in most tobacco. Perhaps that's why it says on the label that it might cause diabetes. So if one stops smoking the body has an incredible way of healing itself. Our creator has built a fascinating system of regulation in the body to heal his most precious creation. The pinnacle of his creation—you. Now for more than 2000 years this was the manor though which doctors practiced medicine. Through dietary measures Hippocratic oath translated: “I will apply dietetic and lifestyle measures to help the sick to my best ability and judgment; I will protect them from harm and injustice.”, this is how medicine was practiced by the ancients. In fact this practical way of medicine (to remove that which was causing the infirmity) has gotten man to the year 2000. Diabetes and obesity over time has been on a journey through the nations; China, India, Greece, Egypt; from the ancients through today. Interestingly Gary Taubes notes that sugars discovery, use and merchandising corresponds to the evolution of diabetes in these societies mentioned, and in the modern world.
Stephan Guyenet and Jeremy Landen, http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com
In 1860 a British undertaker, named Banting, under the direction of his doctor tries to lose weight for many years. He eventually used an elimination diet philosophy that gave him success. It was published and his diet took off perhaps millions of unneeded pounds of flesh in Britain. I can only assume that it helped those with type 2 diabetes as well, as the ancient doctors noted in various text, that it was the wealthy and the obese which tended to have this disease and wasn't found in the poor. Another, was Dr. Salisbury in the United states, trying to find an answer to dysentery in the union army. He wrote, “In 1854 the idea came to me, in one of my solitary hours, to try the effects of living exclusively upon one food at a time. This experiment I began upon myself alone at first…. I opened this line of experiments with baked beans. I had not lived upon this food over three days before light began to break. I became very flatulent and constipated, head dizzy, ears ringing, limbs prickly, and was wholly unfitted for mental work. The microscopic examination of passages showed that the bean food did not digest.” His diet consisted ground beef muscle, (no gravy or mashed potatoes) it cured the union army of dysentery. So his diet took off healing many. It was very popular until insulin was discovered in the 1920's by another Banting in Canada. This changed everything for diabetics and saved type 1 diabetic’s while further complicating type 2 diabetes and ending the elimination diet. Like the ancients I am persuaded if the infirmity is caused by self indulgence, abstinence is a cure that is also aligned through the biblical narrative. Further, Andrew Murray a 19th century evangelical preacher from south Africa, says, that God won't heal a person unless he repents from what is actually causing the infirmity. Many ancient theologians preached against sweets, and in the bible its warning not to partake in eating of dainties because it makes the believer vulnerable. Also the minister, John Holdeman, also from the 1860s suggested that his congregation not eat of the dainties. It is also worthy to note that the poor did not know the pleasure of dessert after meals until the 1860s.
It was documented by a french author visiting England in the 1600s that the elite had blackened teeth and bad odor from their mouth, but the poor had good stable teeth. So in the end likewise, doctors really can't help a patient unless that patient comes to the—no pride zone.
Next Edition: It’s not your fault and you're not a sloth
This section will be reserved for News of the day, week, or month that relates to diet and nutrition through the lens of various elimination diets.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36035515/
Below is a link to an article from Medical News Today. It highlights the many benefits to approaching a lifestyle change through a Ketogenic diet.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/319196
While there are many ketogenic approaches this is an article at staying at 25 carbs or less. Different people reach ketosis at different modulation rates of carbohydrate restriction so this can differ according to age, muscle mass, metabolic illness. However, if anyone does start at 25 carbs a day restriction they will generally reach ketosis. Now that being said, as always this isn't medical advice. But directional information, to help your interests, and exploration to take control of your health. It is advised that if you are ill or on medication to seek out your medical advisor and discuss with them this knowledge you are obtaining and would like them to assist you in your desire. I will say you will most likely be pleasantly surprised how many medical people will want to help you in your journey to good health.
Reserved for recommend reading:
Gary Taubes: Case Against Sugar
Why We Get Fat
Good Calories Bad Calories
Jason Fung The Obesity Code
Recommended Podcast of the Week
Thank you
Thanks JW. Good thoughts, it has given me much to consider.