's Motd Tuesday March 18, 2008 - Pain

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PAIN

Tuesday, 18 March 2008

Since the weather has been so nice here in LA, I've been sitting outside to read many of my E-mails. I sit there with my little reading glasses on as I read hundreds of E-mails from people who really want to shed those extra pounds.

The folks who write usually start off by telling me a little about themselves. By the time I reach the second or third paragraph, it's often the point where they begin telling me how miserable their lives are. I always get sad at that point because they tell me how much their health has suffered as their weight has continued to increase. They tell me things like this:", my knees are so shot that simply getting up and out of a chair is painful.""I'm a diabetic and was just put on oral medication. I just heard some horrible things about complications people get from having diabetes and that news scares me to death."", I have such terrible back pains that I must have missed 10 days from work already this year! I can't get my body into a comfortable position, even when I'm trying to sleep!"

"When I went to the doctor and he took my blood pressure, he almost fainted! He told me that my blood pressure had never been so high and that he was immediately putting me on medication to help control it."I don't think it comes as a surprise to any of us that weight- gain can wreak havoc on our bodies and our health. It can damage your skeletal structure. It can cause your heart to skip beats or to even stop beating, altogether! It causes anguish in your feet, ankles and your legs. And I have to tell you that after I hear all of these painful stories, I want to tell the people who share them with me that the majority of those pains will go away, if they will simply lose weight!When you go to the doctor with high blood pressure, he tells you to lose weight. If you want to control your blood sugars, weight-loss will help you do it. If you don't want to lose any more days from work due to back pain, well, lose some weight and you'll be able to go to work a lot more regularly.

I say to everyone who writes me with pain issues to...WAKE UP! I mean, you know you have a weight problem. You know your weight is causing you discomfort and pain. So please, start on a plan to get those extra pounds off your body and out of your life.And I have the perfect plan for you, too. Get yourself a FoodMover or, if you already have one, start using it!

The first thing you need to do is to go through the instruction booklet and look at the portion sizes in the food exchanges. Everyone gains weight because they eat too much of some of the six food groups. You know what I mean.If you eat too much from the fat group, you gain weight. Too heavy on the diary and, well, you'll get too heavy. If you eat too many carbs, ditto...here comes a weight gain. If you eat too many proteins, especially of a greasy variety, here comes even more weight!

So why wait any longer? Put yourself on a healthy food plan and stay there! If you haven't exercised in a while, start slowly, with something as simple as a few light walks but build your endurance from there by working your way up to 30-60 minutes a day.Follow my instructions and, sure enough, you can very well end up...pain free!Love,