
Gluttony is eating a lot.
Sloth is laziness. Everyday, thousands of people will pray God(s) for good health
and a trouble-free body. So how should our God(s) respond to all these greedy
demands? Should they obligatorily help us to remove all the fat and saturated
cholesterol accumulating inside our bodies, blood veins and arteries due to
heavy eating and lack of exercises? Or help us to remove all the cigarette ash,
nicotine and tar from our lungs and bodies due to heavy smoking? And let us
keep on indulgently hurting our bodies with uncontrolled dieting or smoking,
and by not doing any sweating aerobic exercises?
So often I heard the patients of heart disease, lung cancer, high blood pressure,
stroke, diabetes or nasopharyingel carcinoma complaining their God(s) not blessing
or taking good care of them. After they have donated so much money or have spent
so much time voluntarily helping the poor, the churches or the religions. But
they have totally unaware that their God(s) has used different media or routes
to warn them the importance of exercising, the danger of smoking, the advantages
of eating more vegetables and the disadvantages of consuming too much oil, salt
and sugar. How many times have we refused or ran away from good friends when
they are seriously warning us? How often you use "No time to exercise",
"Just a tiny little bit won't hurt", "I am dying for a fag"
or "Can't control the addiction" as excuses, to keep on harming your
own bodies? Actually God(s) hasn't abandoned us, it is our stubbornness, indulgence
and laziness that defy all the friendly advises from God(s).
A lot of our pains or illnesses came from our improper dieting or daily habits.
Some people will always recline, with the head on one's hand, when watching
television, and injure their neck muscles from time to time. A lot of people
chronically carry heavy items or kids using their weak muscles or incorrect
methods, and eventually injure their necks, backs or shoulders. Too much alcohol
will harm our livers. Consuming too much of certain types of foods may lead
to denutrition or certain types of toxics building up inside our bodies, and
eventually become illnesses or cancers. Fortunately, our advanced modern medical
sciences and researches have helped us to find the causes, cures and prevention
of a majority of diseases and pains. But the majority of human mankind is still
living in self-center, stubbornness, indulgence and laziness, and rather be
the ostriches to bury their heads in the sand, by ignoring the constant warnings
from the governments or medical associations. Which makes the governments from
around the world spending billion of tax payers dollars in curing cancers, heart
diseases, high blood pressures and strokes, and pushes the death rates of lung
cancers and heart diseases to new height every year. These governments can only
collect heavy taxes from tobacco companies to cover some of the medical expenses.
A lot of people at middle ages don't do medical check-up every year, some people
even ignore the signals or pains from their bodies, and wait until the last
moment or critical stages to consult the doctors. Some people do not follow
the instructions from their doctors, to take medicines correctly or receive
proper medical treatments. Some people even defy the warnings from their doctors
to keep on smoking or consuming high saturated fat, cholesterol or calories
foods. Therefore, the top three killers of today's diseases are actually stubbornness,
indulgence and laziness.
Sometimes, I truly admire the subtlety of the Bible, by announcing gluttony
as one of the seven deadly sins at the budding stage of medical science. Indicating
that gluttony is doing a lot of harms to our bodies, just like committing suicide
by slowly taking chronic poisons. The sin from smoking will be even worse by
hurting not only our own bodies, but also others. A lot of the devotees will
go to church every week, proficiently recite their scriptures couple times everyday,
and completely devote their valuable time to help the poor and the sick, but
are carelessly unaware of the existence of these two sins, and constantly committing
them again and again everyday. It will be totally regrettable if they go to
hell after death because of incautiously committing these two sins, after they
have devoted so much to their beliefs or religions.
Heart disease, stroke and high blood pressure are among the top three killer
diseases in many countries around the world. The causes are due to lack of aerobic
exercises, and consuming too much cholesterol, oil, salt and sugar. Saturated
fat and cholesterol will accumulate inside our bodies, blood veins and arteries,
narrow the blood circulation, and raise up the blood pressure and even block
the flotation of the blood.
In U.S.A., due to the prevalence of the fast food culture and the high consumption
of hamburgers, french fries and soft drinks, estimated 1/3 of the adult Americans
has high blood pressure, and over 62% of Americans are overweight. Oily or crispy
foods like chips or french fries are everyone's favorite, but these high calories,
heavily oiled, and heavily salted junk foods, if consuming too much, will seriously
harm your bodies and health. A can of soft drink has an estimated 4 - 6 teaspoons
of sugar, drinking too much are likelier to gain weight and develop type 2 diabetes.
Diabetes can lead to heart disease, blindness, kidney failure, and amputations.
Egg, shrimp or liver is high in cholesterol; about 50% of American have high
cholesterol, and are in high risk of getting heart attack or stroke.
All the aerobic exercises like swimming, jogging, running, tennis etc., are
the best methods to remove saturated fat and cholesterol inside our bodies,
blood veins and arteries. Aerobic exercises will rapidly increase our heart
beats, the fast flushing blood will flush through the walls of our blood veins
and arteries, carry out the accumulative saturated fat and cholesterol, and
discharge through perspiration. Otherwise, the continuously accumulative saturated
fat and cholesterol around our whole bodies will raise the blood pressure; if
concentrating around the heart area will trigger heart disease; and if accumulating
inside our brains will lead to stroke. A lot of time, your body will go into
a nosedive with no sign, healthy today could be worsen tomorrow. Although the
sun shine, you still shouldn't leave your cloak at home.
Once you have any of these diseases, the doctors will suggest or force you to
control your diet and give up a lot of your favorite foods or drinks, and your
daily life will be completely filled with routine medication, and taking all
kinds of medicines and pills. There will be a lot of activities, works or sports
you can't try, and a lot of places like high mountains or deep seas you can't
go, then life will be filled with limitation, regret and repent. Therefore,
we should consume 2/3 to 1/2 less of those unhealthy junk foods, eat more vegetables
and fruits, and drink more water. These days, more and more youngsters are getting
heart disease, high blood pressure, or high cholesterol, from uncontrolled and
unbalanced dieting. Cardiovascular diseases have become a worldwide concern
among different age and ethnic groups; therefore, we should start our healthy
diet and aerobic exercising at adolescent.
A lot of people like to hike during weekend, but they find going uphill are
getting harder and harder, pant a lot sooner and faster, and get tire a lot
easier and faster. These people may misunderstand that their bodies are weakening,
they are no longer young and energetic, and hiking is too much for them and
refuse to hike anymore. But they may not aware their weakening bodies are caused
by improper dieting, lack of aerobic exercises, saturated fat and cholesterol
building up to narrow the blood veins and arteries. The narrowed blood veins
and arteries make the heart bumping a lot faster and harder; if one keeps on
refusing to exercise, eat properly and control their appetites, the blood veins
and arteries will narrow further more, until the body starts breaking down.
If we do not mind panting hard and heart beating fast, and insist of hiking
continuously, after a few tries, you will find instant improvement on your body,
you should be able to walk faster, pant less, breath easier, sweat less and
feel healthier. Easy come, easy go, easy in, easy out, boom-boom and pee-pee
can help our bodies to remove partial garbage from eating, aerobic exercises
can help our bodies to remove the rest. Then we can keep on lightly tasting
our favorite junk foods, without worrying about giving them up completely forever.
Swimming is my favorite aerobic exercise, and I have been swimming twice a week,
16 pools, and all four styles for couple years. A lot of people will find their
primary swim pretty exhausting, and they will have to stop a few times to swim
a 50M-pool. If one can step up to the plate, to insist on swimming continuously,
one should be able to complete a 50M-pool non-stop after 4-5 tries. As the techniques
and lung capacity improve, one should be able to swim 20 to 30 pools continuously.
Compare to all other aerobic exercises, swimming is the most effective, safe
and injury less sport. The buoyancy of the water can reduce our weight and the
damage from gravity, and the water resistance will increase our physical activity,
swimming can really kill two birds with one stone.
We used to have very incorrect concepts about the life style of our elders,
we used to think that the elders should work less, walk less especially steep
roads or stairs, take a car when necessary, and better be air-conditioned during
hot weather. These concepts are already outdated and totally against today's
advance medical science of good health, and could be fatal to the elder. Unless
the elders have serious leg problems, and can not walk up hills or stairs too
much, otherwise, these sweaty mild exercises could be helpful to their health.
Fire and water are good servants, but bad masters. Driving is very common in
big western countries today, it can easily send you to different places faster,
but on the contrary, it makes you to walk and sweat less. A lot of doctors are
suggesting us to walk at least 5000 steps everyday, walking, although is not
as good as aerobic exercises, this limited exercise is still better than doing
nothing. Lack of exercises will also lead to arthritic, arthropathy, osteoporosis
etc. Therefore, we should always cast an anchor to windward. No matter how busy
we are, we should start exercising at youth and at least 2 hours of aerobic
exercises each week. Our bodies are just like an automobile, correct maintenance
and carefully tuning can make the automobile to drive in good condition for
life.
We can use aerobic exercises to remove saturated fat and cholesterol from our
bodies, blood veins and arteries, but the ash, nicotine and tar accumulating
inside our bodies and lungs so far have no effective method to remove. The ash
in an ashtray can be washed and cleaned with water, and this ash can not damage
the hard surface of the ashtray. But the ash inside our human fleshy ashtrays
can not be washed and cleaned, the burning of cigarettes will release a lot
of harmful ash into the air and breath into our lungs and bodies. After the
ash accumulates to certain degrees, it will not only reduce our cardiorespiratories,
it will also erode our lungs, and turning the healthy cells into cancers. The
secondhand smoke can also seriously affect the health of other non-smokers;
a lot of youngsters having nasal congestion are allergic to cigarette smoke.
So, if you do care about yourself and others, please quit smoking today.
I always admonish others to quit smoking, eat wise and exercise, but I don't
get too many positive and friendly replies. Instead, I always hear people complaining
that I am too pragmatical, giving them too much stress, and want me to leave
them alone. They said everyone has their own life style, and know how to handle
their own bodies. But if we go to the hospitals, and look at all those patients
suffering from heart diseases, lung cancers, diabetes or strokes, living in
agony and fear everyday, then we know human being literally don't know how to
take care of themselves. They are confessing for their stubbornness, stupidity
and ignorance everyday, and blaming themselves for not listening to the quit
smoking advises. I even hear patients blaming their love ones not pushing them
hard enough to quit smoking, on diet or work out. God loves us and is trying
his best to save us, but our human demerits are pushing ourselves further and
further from him and his heavenly kingdom.
This is just like a battle between good and bad, God and devil, rationality
and extravagancy, but the bad side is always winning. Birds of a feather flock
together, a lot of smokers like to hear flattery big lies or compliments. They
will tell you they know an eighty years old smoker, doing no exercise, drinking
vodka and eating chunks of meat everyday, but with absolutely no illness or
sign of heart disease. This one in a million lucky man is their idol or guardian
angel, to protect them from those annoying admonitors or true friends, from
forcing them to quit smoking, drinking, eat right and exercise. But they have
forgotten the majority of losers, taking dozens of pill everyday, or lying in
hospitals moaning about their pains, and confessing about their sins.
This is just like a tug of war, one side is trying to pull you to hell, and
the other side wants to rescue you from hell to heaven. Without these true friends
and advice, one will only falls deeper and deeper into the abyss; the cocky
winner one-day will soon become the gloomy loser. Therefore, no matter how difficult
and how repulsive I am, I will still try my best to convince everyone beside
me to give up their bad habits. I had lost one close relative died of heart
disease and one friend died of lung cancer recently, by not admonishing them
hard enough, just because they felt disgusted by my friendly advice. Therefore,
I hope every decent and well-educated fellow who is reading my text right now,
no matter how much criticism or complain you have heard, do not give up in helping
and advising others, we should try our best to convince others to give up their
bad habits, start exercising, and eat properly.
This is a lost world full of flamboyance, desires, beer and skittles and sins.
A lot of time, we will lose control and fall into the traps or danger without
notice. If you are lucky to have true friends brave enough to tell you what
you have done wrong and insist on helping you, please do not discourage them
and give them proper respect. These people are quite fragile sometimes, they
may stop helping or advising others because of your unfriendly counterpunch.
If you scarce away all of these true friends and one day you hear the same advice
from the doctors, it may be too late for you.
We not only need to give up these bad habits; we also need to remind others
to take good care of their own bodies, and to stay away from improper diet,
cigarette and alcohol. Even a smoker or drinker should always share their painful
experiences and remind others the demerits of smoking or drinking.
A lot of people like to donate money, or be a volunteer to help the poor or
the charities. These are signs of beneficence and should always be praised.
But the best and the biggest beneficence is to help people from inside, to remove
their bad habits or demerits, to turn them into a better person, instead of
just giving them their primary need or money to spend or waste. You really don't
want to see your donations becoming cigarettes or alcohol, or donating to the
casinos. A better person will always lead to better life; they will learn how
to use or safe money correctly, to love and take good care of themselves and
others.
Money can't buy good health; comfortable, air-conditioned, sweatless and maid
serving life style sometimes will mess up your health. Therefore, one should
eat less, eat healthy, walk more, sit less, drive less, exercise more, sweat
more, breath fresh air, stay away from unclean or smoky environment, follow
the correct regimen and be methodical. No matter how busy you are, you need
to arrange at least 2 hours of aerobic exercises each week. Otherwise, you may
be arranging couple hours of doctors' appointments instead each week.
One of the main reasons of separation is because we can not give up our bad
habits or amend our demerits.
Happy marriage also needs healthy life style and habits, and we should always
save against a rainy day. So start working at the morning, if you want to have
a pleasant evening.
Postscript:
The best friend who helps me to proofread and publish this site in the near
future is big chubby Mr. Tang. He is a celebrity and a philanthropist with big
charitable heart, and always recommends relatives and friends to read my site.
Because he is into the dinning business, and has a lot of chances eating high
protein, high saturated cholesterol gourmet food; he is gaining a lot of weight.
Since he is always as busy as a beaver, he rarely has time to exercise. I am
truly concerned about his health and hoping by proofreading this text, he will
go on diet and start exercising.
After I e-mailed him with my script, he told me when I first told him about
the importance of diet and aerobic exercise, he had already borne in mind and
started consulting dietitian for correct diet and arranging time to do aerobic
exercise. Now he is working out everyday, working 7 times more than I recommended,
and had already lost 7 kg, he is already planning for his next routine, and
hopefully to lose another 10 kg.
His high enlightenment, so said, so done, positivity and enthusiasm towards
correct goal, not only earn him good health, but also earn my triple respect
and appreciation. You will never hear him says excuses like, "Leave me
alone", "Mind your own business", "I know what I am doing,
I don't need you to remind me", "I have no time" etc.
Buddhism said stubbornness is flesh, enlightenment and amendment are Buddha
or bodhisattva, to be able to do the right thing at the right time, following
wisdom instead of stupidity, progress instead of decline, and march forward
without hesitation. Mr. Tang is truly on the path to enlightenment, and should
earn the entire blessing from God. He is truly an idol everyone should follow
and learn. I sincerely hope God will lead him to better life style and more
successful future.
Those who are born with a silver spoon in their mouths will draw a lot of jealousy
and always been questioned about their own ability. Being born in a wealthy
family means they will receive better education, have better chances to learn
from decent and well-educated persons, and will have more chances to get in
touch of new knowledge, books or items. Which make them more polite, humble,
patience, easygoing and have a more positive attitude toward life, society and
different people, these are all the key factors to success. The innate conditions
are important, but the acquired character and taste are also indispensable.
The seven deadly sins are pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed and sloth.
The other five had already unintentionally discussed in the prior texts. Hope
everyone can own happy marriage and good health at the same time.