Living has a cumulative effect on life.
Or should that statement be, the actions we take/experience while living have cumulative positive and negative effects on the quality of our lives?
In my pre-adolescent and teenage years, I often heard people say that some such thing or event that had affected me in some way would not matter in twenty years.
Usually in the manner of "C'mon, what's it going to matter in twenty years?"
Well, I'm here to state that a whole helluva lot of the things I was told would not matter in twenty years do indeed matter twenty (and far more) years later.
It has been my personal experience that a lot of what transpired in the past did not simply disappear once the action/event was over. Many, many actions/events have stuck around...accumulated if you will.
Take food for example. It was a habit of mine to eat nearly everything that was set down on a plate in front of me without question for most of my life. When I say everything, I mean clean-the-plate everything, even if I didn't care for what was being served up.
That habit was born from being raised by a single mother who had to feed six kids on very limited means. "You'll eat what you get, and you'll like it" was a common refrain in the home I was reared in.
That childhood lesson never faded away, but my childhood metabolism sure has.
And every little enriched, bleached, and refined carbohydrate (when you're poor carbs are the vast majority of the food you eat) seems to have left its mark.
Accumulated.
Eventually, my weight exceeded 330 pounds, my BMI was slightly more than 38. It was not pretty, or healthy, and even though there were people who assured me I held my weight well, it was certainly not comfortable mentally or physically.
What I have learned in the past few years (knowledge is cumulative too, which is one of the good aspects of growing older) about the human body and the role habit and hormones play in health and wellness has opened my eyes and more importantly, my mind.
I'll give a quick summation of what I'm about to write: It's not just about how many calories you consume on a daily basis or where those calories come from, and it's not all about how much exercise you do or do not get.
Plus, sugar is the devil.
It is about when you eat and don't eat, and it's about balance in your diet, and how much the food and drinks you consume act on specific hormone production.
Plus, sugar, and most chemical sugar substitutes, are the devil.
The body's natural mechanisms that regulate what and how much a person eats can be compromised by ignoring the body's signals regarding hunger and satiety. When a person eats when they are not actually hungry and eats far more than they should at a single setting, well, it seems obvious now but it didn't to me for the majority of my life, but that can compromise the body's "desire and control" mechanisms, meaning you can develop the ability over time to desire more of the bad-but-delicious foods you eat and lose complete control over how much and when you should eat.
TLDR; If you habitually go to all-you-can eat restaurants and force yourself to eat plate after plate of high carb, high sugar foods in order to get your "money's worth", you are effectively killing yourself with food.
Sadly, resetting the mechanisms that naturally protected the body against such behaviors is hard, and continuing to stuff your face with butter or gravy smothered mashed potatoes and shoveling loads of macaroni and cheese (processed or otherwise) down your throat is not.
But not impossible. I'm not about to state, "If I can do it, anybody can," because that is a bald-faced lie. The fact that I can do something has no bearing on whether or not anyone else can.
The more correct thing to say is there is a path available that leads one away from obesity, and it can be followed by nearly anyone who is capable of making the choice to take the path.
Plus, sugar is the devil.
Next, I'll discuss my hips and knees and all those squats I did when I thought being a powerlifter was a good idea.
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