My Blog   Just another WordPress weblog

METABOLIC TYPE

Determining your basic metabolic type can help you to better understand your body’s basic needs in terms of nutrition, exercise and rest. Fast and slow metabolisms, also known as fast and slow oxidizers or burners, have been written about for decades. In the book, The Balance, Oz Garcia describes three basic types of metabolisms: Fast, Slow or Mixed Burner.

FAST BURNERS

Fast burning metabolisms are usually found in hyperactive people who often thrive on anxiety and irritability. They are often impatient Type A personalities who seem to have their adrenal glands stuck on high. They tend to have bursts of energy and have difficulty relaxing. The fast burner often has an addictive type of personality and displays obsessive traits or develops an abuse of drugs or even food. Fast Burners may not all be lean and active, but they are constantly looking for quick boosts of energy, usually through quick carbohydrate fixes.

Being slim is no guarantee for having a flat stomach. Just walk around the beach on a hot summer day and observe the number of thin people with mild to extreme pot bellies. Being underweight does not mean a slim physique or good health. If you want to firm up your waist line, strengthen your back and trim that spare tire, read on.

The popular approach to flattening a stomach is often crunches, crunches, crunches. Then cardio, cardio, cardio. And finally count calories, calories, calories. Working out like crazy, while starving might get you into your best clothes prior to a wedding, prom or date, but your body will be straining to snap back into its original form.

A more intelligent approach is to work on your posture first. If this sounds ridiculous, try pulling back your shoulders and squeezing your shoulder blades together. Amazing, eh? Your stomach just sucked itself in a couple of inches. This is part of the success of systems like Pilates, power yoga and some martial arts: the trainees stand taller and appear slimmer. So, how to improve your posture in record time?

The number of new diets out there are over-whelming. While I cannot speak for everyone, I can give some PROVEN nutritional advice that has worked for friends and clients whom I have known personally.

You have to have a steady stream of energy to train and maintain lean muscle. Therefore, here is a priority list for eating:

Water, protein: beef, chicken, fish, eggs, vegetables, fruits.

Most unfit people will not follow the above. They follow something more like this:

Breakfast: Two waffles with butter and maple syrup, two cups of coffee.

Almost any fit lady has attractive legs. Whether they are sprinters, ballet dancers or even some female rugby players. However, over-training or certain exercises will give some women bean pole legs or thunder thighs. Take aerobic dance. Most classes work the legs from several angles, building lean muscle tissue on all sides of the legs. Now too many aerobic dance classes can leave the trainee with very lean legs or tree trunk thighs supporting a pyramid shape. What happens is that the leg muscles get wasted or most of the body repair efforts go to building the leg areas at the expense of the upper body.

To develop shapely legs work your body aerobically 3-5 times a week by cycling, walking, running, dancing, etc. Then twice a week (no more!) perform some strength training. The following movements will develop good tone without the bulk.

So you have the fitness course, the posture, the new diet, the exercise course and the new fandangled gadget that is guaranteed to curve your body into a beach god or goddess. Now all that you need is the time… and motivation. Time is something that you make. If you read any biographies of successful people, you will note that they had a good control of their time. But how did they get their motivation?

Actually, to get motivation or inspiration, you actually need to get engaged. When does a rock star, professional athlete or actor hang around hoping to get inspired any minute? (“Just let the crowd wait, while I get inspired.”) How many would be writers just sat in front of their typewriters or computer screens waiting for inspiration or motivation. Motivation will often come FROM THE DOING. This is where a few techniques can help you out:

The 5 minute solution. Whether studying, writing an article, cleaning the garage or exercising, you can usually do it for a lousy 5 minutes. Think about it. You just go for your 5 minutes and by then, you are inspired, ready to go. If I train for 15 minutes and still feel sick, tired or unmotivated, then maybe I really do need a rest.

There is something subconscious or almost occult the way that some people cannot get fitter and healthy. I know as a teen I could not seem to gain a pound of muscle or stop the taunts of bullies. There seemed to be something that wanted to keep me status quo. Fortunately, I figured out some methods to drag me up out of the 116 pound weakling status.

The first thing that really changed my life was changing my environment. In my case, I joined the army reserves and then the regular army. This got me away from my home town and high school. It got me away from people constantly talking about how skinny I was. I was also more isolated from media, the high school and neighbourhood. With time on my hands, I was more open to reading about health and fitness and not just popular magazines. I got away from the “push-push-push,” “more exercise is better” mentality. Instead, I concentrated on two weight-lifting workouts per week and ran every day. My bench press went from 75 pounds to 165 pounds and my body weight went up to 155 pounds. I also ate and slept more regularly. (What a concept for muscle building.)

Aside from physical location, I had also changed my routine.

So, what is your current environment like? Do you get constant criticism from spouses, parents, students or co-workers? Whether you are a working adult or teenager living at home, you can still have some control over your environment.

Jehovah’s Witnesses are sometimes labeled as being a cult. This might be a confusing definition for many, because cults can take on a wide variety of meanings. Usually this label is made by religious opposers. While not every definition of the term “cult” is the same, the first century Christians are sometimes described as a cult, which centered around the charismatic leader Jesus (actually, Jesus was more of a reformer of the existing established religion of Judaism), it usually carries a negative connotation, and has come to signify, in the mind of the public, as a religious (or other) group which has complete or extensive control over its members, using coercive and oppressive, most often times, unethical techniques and psychological pressure to obtain that control, in varying degrees, or micromanaging and making major decisions for its members.

The following examines those thoughts in a point by point comparison, taken from the book, Cults in Our Midst – the Hidden Menace in our Lives, by Margaret Thaler Singer, Ph.D., who is a clinical psychologist and adjunct professor at the University of California, Berkely, and who has counseled and interviewed more than 3,000 current of former cult members and their relatives and friends. She is an expert in cults and post-traumatic stress, and lectures widely in the U.S. and abroad on the subject. Jehovah’s Witnesses are not mentioned or alluded to in her authoritative book, although she mentions by names dozens of existing and former cults. All of the forgoing points are based on the descriptions given to cults in Margaret Singer’s book:

1. There are no secret stages to becoming a Jehovah’s Witness. Everything is out in the open from the start. Jehovah’s Witnesses generally study one book with persons, based on the Bible, and use the Bible as the authority in all matters. The Bible study aid, “What Does the Bible Really Teach” outlines all there is in becoming one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, which is freely available to the public and to any who study with Jehovah’s Witnesses from the start of one’s studying the Bible with Jehovah’s Witnesses. Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that “All Scripture (that is – the Bible) is inspired of God and beneficial for teaching, for reproving, for settings things straight”. At the same time, they recognize that their literature and Bible study aids are not inspired of God, but rather, merely aids to understanding the Bible. This has been the position of Jehovah’s Witnesses since their earliest years in modern history.

Jehovah’s Witnesses are known throughout the world for their zealous door-to-door preaching work. They are both loved and despised by many. Partly because of their zeal in preaching, and coming unannounced to doors, they have drawn the ire of both religious leaders, who might have an underlying fear of losing their flock from the zealous evangelizing efforts of the Witnesses, or from other opposers, some of whom may have apostasized from the religion for one reason or another. As a result, a plethora of anti-Witness propaganda, and websites have spawned up, much of it presenting undocumented or unfactual information designed to discredit Jehovah’s Witnesses at all costs (the end justifies the means).

At the same time, the Jehovah’s Witness religion or organization has not been without it’s faults, and sorting out the true from the fiction can be difficult for the average reader or casual researcher. The Knocking PBS documentary does an excellent job of present a multi-faceted and human view of Jehovah’s Witnesses, it’s website helps one to sort the wheat from the weeds, in terms of beliefs and controversies. It includes footage on medicine and the Witnesses, showing a liver transplant in live coverage, with a father donating to his son, who happens also to be an avid hard rock guitar player.

The producers of this video, neither of whom are Jehovah’s Witnesses, one having been raised as a Witness, but not himself being one, endeavor through this footage to demonstrate both the fact that even strong Jehovah’s Witnesses are basically like anyone else, not so constrained by organizational or even Biblical censure as the average older teenager, and at the same time to show the tremendous emotion of a father making what appears to be a supreme sacrifice for his son, the surgery performed successfully without blood, as is the Biblical and religious stand of the Jehovah’s Witness beliefs. (See Acts 15:28,29, where the scriptural admonition for Christians to abstain from idolatry, fornication and blood. While most other Christian religions feel that this involves only the practice of eating animal blood, Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that this injunction applies to human blood as well, including modern medical practice involving blood transfusions).

Hislop’s book dates from 1916 and is a scholarly work which is both factual, as well as opinionated. It chronicles the history of religion with respects to aspects of modern Christianity, which have striking reflections in ancient Egypt, Assyria and Babylon.

The specific areas that Hislop discusses are the Trinity, the worship of the Mother and Child, Christmas and Easter, Mass, Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead, Idol worship and processions, Relic worship, The Rosary, The Sign of the Cross, The Sovereign Pontiff or Pope, as well as the Roman Catholic offices of priests and nuns. He also endeavors to draw a striking parallel between the “whore” of Revelation, as it is referred to in older Bibles, or Babylon the Great, whom he identifies as the Roman Catholic Church. Hislop was a Protestant minister, and the work was published in the U.S. by Loizeaux Brothers, who are described as “A non-profit Organization, Devoted to the Lord’s Work and to the Spread of His Truth.

The book is illustrated, and it helps the reader to gain insight to ancient forms of pagan worship, and how the do indeed seemed to have influenced modern day Christianity. Christianity started out as a continuation or breakoff, depending on one’s point of view, from the ancient Jewish religion. That religion was a strictly monotheistic religion centered on the worship of the Supreme God, Yahweh, or in modern vernacular, Jehovah. Idolatry was strictly forbidden, and any mingling with paganism or other religions was considered an apostate offense, punishable by death, in the Hebrew Scriptures, commonly referred to as The Old Testament. Of course, the ancient Jews frequently did mingle in both their association and in their worship, and much of the Hebrew Scriptures devotes itself to righting that wrong.

This 384-page book features a detailed review of the major religions of the world, exploring the various ways of worship, cultural background, lands and peoples. It reviews the seemingly instinctual and universal need to worship, that seems to be present in all cultures, as well as the various forms through history in which that need has manifested itself.

Primitive religions such as animism, as well as the history to modern day practice of Hinduism, including Yoga are considered, as well as Hinduism development into Buddhism. Other Oriental religions such as Taoism and Confucianism are also considered. A small section also describes the Sikh religion. The various forms of Judaism are discussed, with a history that goes back some thousands of years to the first Jew, Abraham, as well as the other two major monotheistic religions, Islam and Christianity. The Christian section considers both the background and life and ministry of Jesus Christ, as well as the primitive and developed practice of Christianity, the Dark Ages and the development of the Roman Catholic Church, as well as the Reformation, Protestantism, and modern day Christianity.

There is a chapter which considers the historical development of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and a section on modern day disbelief which touches on both Darwinism, and worship of the state in socialist countries. The book is factual, non-judgmental, accurate, and it is a complete reference that is equal to an advanced college course on world religion. The only thing lacking in Mankind’s Search for God is information on some of the smaller Christian religions in modern times, that is Later Day Saints and Seventh Day Adventists, as well as more details on the present state of 21st Century Evangelicals. Other than that, one can consider it to be both a complete and authoritative guide on world religion. (The writer of this article passed a college test worth 3 credits on world religion, only from knowledge derived on the subject from this book.)