A physician's body mass index (BMI) may have an impact on how he or she cares for overweight and obese patients, according to a nationwide survey.

Physicians with normal BMI were more likely to engage their patients in weight-loss conversations compared with those who were overweight or obese acording to a study out of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Pastors and churches have as much responsibility to address the health of their members as doctors do for their patients. Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit and our health status affects our ability to serve the Kingdom with our talents. FULL POST

Now that the New Year is upon us and all our resolutions are at the forefront lets think about how our metabolism is functioning in accordance to how He designed it. This is important because many of the marketing hype out there is geared towards revving up your metabolism – which doesn't mean it is triggering it to burn calories from stored body fat, which is the key indicator as to whether or not you will lose the weight and keep it off.

Not that everyone is trying to lose weight and become healthier, but if that is you here are a few things you need to consider so you don't waste your precious time and energy.

1. Losing weight isn't a simple math equation! The good Lord didn't design your body or allows your body composition to be based solely on burning more calories than you consume. If He die there wouldn't be so many people, struggling with their weight even though they exercise and watch what they eat. In order to achieve long lasting weight loss you need to make sure your metabolism is burning calories from stored body fat. Just because you burned 300 extra calories from working out – doesn't mean you burned stored body fat. I talk about this in "To Burn or Not to Burn – Fat is the Question"
2. Your body burns calories by breaking down carbohydrates, proteins or fats. Those are the only three choices you have available. People who struggle with fatigue, cravings, irritability, hormonal imbalances and the inability to lose weight or add lean muscle are typically burning calories from the breakdown of carbohydrates and proteins (lean muscle). You'll never drop those extra inches if you aren't burning calories from the breakdown of fats.FYI...He designed your metabolism so that it would prefer to burn fats more readily than carbohydrates, which is why you generate more than two-and-a half times more energy when you burn fats in comparison to carbs and proteins. This is one of the biggest reasons why fatigue and weight gain always seem to go together!
   
   

   Test your Metabolism and see if it is working for you or against you. FULL POST

In my last post I wrote about studies that have shown that religious activity, specifically church attendance, has been shown to be related to higher levels of obesity. According to several studies, people who regularly attend church are more likely to be obese than those who do not regularly attend. I find this disturbing.

It's not the simple fact that these people are obese in and of itself that is the issue. But the research clearly shows that obesity is linked to higher rates of mortality and other related diseases. Obesity in the United States is also a $179 billion burden on our economy. When obese people have to conend with many of the associated health conditions like diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and certain cancers these conditions require treatment and the treatment costs money. Imagine if even a fraction of this money could be directed towards missions and the needy.  Wouldn't that be a better use of the money? FULL POST

Religious activity is generally associated with good physical and mental health. But it also is associated with higher rates of obesity. On the surface, this just does not make sense.

A half dozen studies of mortality risks in the last ten years have found that frequent worship attenders were anywhere from 18% to 35% less likely than non-attenders to have died during the time period studied. But there have also been other studies that have shown a strong relationship between church attendance and levels of obesity.

Researcher George Fitchett of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago presented his findings on religion and obesity at a recent joint meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and the Religious Research Association in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He found that people who attended church services or otherwise participated in organized religion weekly were 62% more like to be obese than those who never participated, according to data that he studied from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis of adults ages 45 to 84 sponsored by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. FULL POST

It's easy to let your training and dieting efforts drop to the wayside during the Holidays, but don't despair because the attitude you have when you have that extra helping of food or dessert can have as much of an effect on the scale or in the mirror, as those extra calories and fat grams.

If you are in a happy, joyous state of mind...go ahead and eat those extra yummy treats, because the effect it has on your body won't be as bad, if you ate the same thing in a negative, unhappy state of mind.

There is a biblical passage that i'll paraphrase, and it goes something like this, "better a plate of veggies in a state of happiness than the fatted calf in anger." What do you think that means?

I think it was understood way back then, that there is a mind/body connection. So don't get all bummed out and depressed if you splurge a bit during the Holidays, especially if you're enjoying the Holidays and are in a happy frame of mind. The positive, mental feelings have something to do with how your body absorbs and utilizes those nutrients. FULL POST

In a recent article in the NY Times, researchers reported on the impact that forclosures are having on the mental and physical health of people.

Foreclosure is linked to a number of intense stressors, Julia Lynch, an associate professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania says. "An awful lot of people in this country right now are subject to a huge amount of stress. Foreclosure is wrapped together for many people with a horrible, messy combination of job loss, ill health, uninsurance or underinsurance, and debt. When you put those things together, people are subject to really intense stress, which is likely to lead to depression and other health problems."

In their study, they also found that for every 100 foreclosures, there was a 12 percent increase in anxiety-related emergency-room visits and hospitalizations by adults under 50. FULL POST

Our reactions to the trials and stressors of our life are a key determinant of our emotional and physical health. It's not the events or the relationship issues that have a detrimental impact on our health, it's our interpretation and perception of them.In most days of our lives, we find ourselves in situations that can impact us in either a negative or a positive way. First, the event or circumstance occurs. This is generally quickly followed by the emotions that we experience. Then, typically, we react with our behavior and what we say. Our reactions are most often automatic because we do this out of habit. Our reactions will have either a positive or a negative impact on our body based, based on the accompanying emotions we experience.  FULL POST

If you are hoping to keep your temple in shape and I hope you all are, one of the biggest questions I get is what is the best exercise to do to trim my tummy.  The two most common movements are crunches and leg raises, so I want to explain why one is superior over the other, and why one can contribute to back pain.

Let me first say that depending on how old you are you may have forgotten that straight legged sit-ups were shunned years ago, because it aggravated low back pain. But aren't leg raises pretty much the same thing as the straight legged sit-ups... done in reverse?

To understand why I am cautious about recommending leg raises, you only need to know a little anatomy and physiology. I'll also show you a simple test you can perform at home to illustrate why I recommend one movement over the other.

The good Lord designed our boy like a 'pulley' system, so all you need to know is where muscles attach. Once you know that it's pretty easy to understand which exercise or movement works a specific muscle.

The Basics FULL POST

It was Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine who said,

Let food be your medicine and let medicine be your food

What do you think that meant? Don't you think he was saying that some foods have healing, therapeutic benefits to your health? Didn't it say in Genesis that all foods (fruits, veggies, seeds, beef, fish, etc.) was given to us and they were good?

If some foods can have positive healing effects on us, couldn't you also argue that some foods can also have a destructive negative effect on our health?

Do you think all the processing and refining of our food that takes away all the nutritional value of the food is very healthy?  What about all the soft drinks, snack foods and junk food on the market...do you think they have positive, healing effects on the body? Or are they more destructive to our healthy?  Which do you eat more of?

I wonder if Hippocrates was still around today, heading up all the medical schools – if he would be saying the same thing? Do you think he would be emphasizing to all the medical students how powerful various foods, plants and herbs can be to our health. Would he be preaching on how some foods can have a negative impact on our overall health and how important it would be to educate the public about that fact alone? Would he be teaching that some foods, plants, and herbs have tremendous healing power – and that they don't subject the individual to any potential side effects? FULL POST

An article in today's Wall Street Journal – Antidepressant Use Rises – reports that the use of antidepressants is significantly on the rise. The article cites a study published in the journal of Health Affairs, authored by Mark Olfson, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University.

Antidepressants were the second most widely prescribed class of medicine in the United States in 2010, after cholesterol-lowering statins, according to IMS health. It appears that physicians may be prescribing antidepressants for more mild forms of mood and anxiety disorders, or for isolated psychiatric symptoms like sleep disturbance, nervousness or nonspecific pain, Doctor Olfson said.

"Over 10 percent of people over the age of 6 were receiving anti-depression medication. That strikes me as significant," says Dr. Olfson.

In a similar vein, an article on the Psychology Today website reports that antidepressants are oversubscribed.  Christopher Lane, Ph.D, indicates that a reported study more than 70% of patients in the survey who were prescribed antidepressants presented no medical need for antidepressant treatment.

It sure seems that the trend is for people to turn to pills instead of God to relieve the results of stress that they are experiencing in their lives. On the one hand it sure seems like a simple and quick fix to go to your doctor's office or to your counselor and ask for and receive a prescription for an antidepressant drug. Just pop one in your mouth every day and you'll feel better. This is not God's way of handling stress.

Yes, there may be times when medication may be the right thing to turn to... for a short time... but I believe God wants us to especially turn to him above all. FULL POST