Getting Healthy

Good morning everyone! I hope you're having a great Saturday!

It's amazing what you can find on the internet - lots of information, good and bad, and lots and LOTS of opinions. A couple of days ago, an article about the H1N1 virus (formerly called swine flu) caught my attention.

"According to the Center for Disease Control’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, obesity may play a role in the severity of H1N1 infections. The report said that the CDC was "surprised by the frequency of obesity among the severe cases that we have been tracking and do think that this is an important result.”

Among 30 H1N1 cases admitted to California hospitals in April and May, 37% had underlying lung problems, and 20% took medications or had other conditions that suppress the immune system. Four patients had diabetes mellitus—another condition that predisposes to complications—and four were obese. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Hospitalized patients with novel influenza A (H1N1) virus infection—California, April-May, 2009. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. May 18, 2009/58[Early Release];1-5)

Prior to this analysis, CDC had not considered obesity to be an independent risk factor for complications of H1N1 infection, but the organization is now considering whether obese individuals should be treated differently when they acquire H1N1, or whether immunization protocols should differ for obese persons."

In reading some of the comments that people left about this study, one comment really stood out. It was from a woman who described herself as 5' 4" and 280 pounds, with a BMI of around 50. She blasted the report and talked about how healthy she was, stating she was never sick and had lots of energy. She then went on to talk about her 135 pound husband who seemed to catch everything that went around and had no energy, concluding that she was much healthier than he.

So here are my thoughts for today :-). First of all, there certainly needs to be a lot more research done into H1N1 to determine why some people seem to be more impacted than others (pregnant women are another group that seems to have a higher rate of complications). However, the observation that obesity can play a factor in the complication rate should not be ignored.

Obesity has a well-known set of health risks, but there may well be other hidden risks that aren't fully realized, such as the complications with H1N1. The truth is that we don't really know exactly what obesity may be doing to us, since much of it's dastardly work is silent.

Because the damage is so often silent, a person with a BMI of 50 can believe that they are healthy - more healthy than a thin person, completely unaware of what's happening internally. (Do a Google search of "abdominal adiposity" for eye-opening information about what fat does to our insides.) The truth is that being overweight puts us at MUCH higher risk for a variety of health issues (and that's on top of the damage it does to our self-esteem). Certainly there are obese people who manage to escape the health issues of obesity, and there are life-long smokers who live to be 100 and never have lung cancer or breathing issues, too - but these are the outliers, not the norm. I don't know about you, but I wasn't willing to bet my life on the slim chance of being one of the outliers.

Lastly, getting back to the woman with the BMI of 50, she talked about her 135 pound husband being sickly and lacking energy. There is a big difference between being thin and being healthy! A person can be at a normal weight and be very unhealthy if they don't eat right and don't take care of themselves.

That's why this program isn't about getting thin, it's about getting healthy! We are losing weight as we eat healthy, nutritionally complete meals, and we are learning how to do this for the rest of our lives. I've heard Dr. Andersen say that this program is NOT about getting thin fast - he said that if you really want to do that, he highly recommends crack cocaine; you'll lose weight really fast, you'll get your house clean, but then you die.

This is about returning to a healthy weight - and for some, perhaps for the first time in your life. You'll get there quickly - I believe this program is THE fastest way to lose weight safely - but you'll also get healthy in the process. Getting to a healthy weight and doing it in a healthy way greatly increases the likelihood that we will live longer and healthier, with a much better quality of life. That's what motivated me to stay on plan, and I hope that's what's motivating you today, too!

Who's committed to an on-plan Saturday?