Few in Hollywood should be considered the ideal for anyone to want to look like. No one is supposed to be a size zero!

At the other extreme, we ought not to be waddling around with 35 to 100 pounds of adipose tissue either.

"Nutrition and Physical Degeneration" written in 1939 by Weston A. Price painstakingly documents why the processed foods wealthy nations are fond of make us sick and fat.

Food companies manipulate their processed "food" so you can't stop eating it. Without some 50 to 70 nutrients present in any food that goes in your mouth, your appestat goes off duty.

The message your brain gets is: "Where's the nutrition?! Keep eating until something goes down the hatch we can actually use!"

Mounds of calorie dense food are consumed but you don't feel full.

The average body consumes around 68 calories an hour laying stock still in bed listening to music. If you weigh 150 pounds, that's about 1600 calories (fuel) just to run yourself.

Talking or reading requires more fuel.

If you don't eat enough good food and participate in too much hard core exercise, or eat too much junk food with too little movement, the message you send to your body is: "We're starving! Keep this fat so we can survive!"

We're still ancient survival machines; our bodies are not equipped to eat the Caffeine, Refined carbs, Alcohol/Aspartame, Processed foods we're eating because we haven't evolved one iota in 200,000 years.

When you consume more carbohydrates than your body can use, organic, whole, processed or otherwise, the pancreas releases insulin to clear the blood of the excess glucose, storing it as fat on the belly and butt.

Insulin's sole purpose is to make and store fat. Whenever insulin goes up, so do estrogen and cortisol.

The more estrogen dominant one is (the apple/pear shapes so many Americans now have), the harder it is to lose fat. The more body fat you have, the more estrogen those fat cells produce.

Weight loss becomes more difficult (not impossible) as this cycle spins.

A 53-year-old woman I know eats between 2500 and 3000 calories a day. She trains 3 times a week for 45 to 60 minutes each session.

She doesn't do any cardio, other than walking her dogs when the Seattle weather permits. Her body fat is around 21 percent and carries a muscular 158 pounds on a 5'7" frame.

That 53-year-old woman is me. In fact, it's all my clients, male, female, young, middle aged and old.
How is this possible?

We all eat plenty of nutritionally dense, certified organic meat (which includes fish, beef, chicken, lamb, pork, shell fish, wild game), raw whole dairy, lots of butter, coconut and olive oil, leafy greens and veggies, some nuts and seeds, and very few grains, unless they're sprouted.

Grains make cows fat and they make us fat, too.

I have been able to stop miserable menopausal symptoms in my female clients and myself as well as completely stopping horrid IBS issues, for instance, by good food alone.

These are the wise foods our ancestors have eaten for thousands of years. Being healthy and happy just isn't about pigging out, starving, eating "foods made more functional", fitness boot camps and making meat the bad guy.

If it were true, one in three Americans wouldn't be obese and 750,000 of us wouldn't be dying every single year from diseases that are directly related to what we put in our mouths.

Our societal wellness will come from the whole foods our vital ancestors were smart enough to eat...not from "wonder drugs" that treat symptoms and create more symptoms for more drugs.

Medicine is big business and sick, fat Americans are good for business.

Only 15 percent of Americans have the ability to think critically. That means an astonishing 85 percent of us believe and follow blindly whatever we see, hear and read in the media!

And, interestingly enough, over 85 percent of us are on multiple prescription and OTC meds.

Where are you in those correlating statistics?

DISCLAIMER
The views expressed in this column are for information only and not intended to replace your current medical protocols. Always consult your health practitioner before undertaking any dietary changes or exercise programs.

Nancy is a CHEK Institute Holistic Lifestyle and Exercise coach and an ACE certified, IDEA awarded Master personal fitness trainer. She helps clients find optimal health and fitness through practical nutrition, holistic conditioning and lifestyle coaching out of her home in SeaTac. For more information contact Nancy at 206-852-4768 or visit her Web site at www.nancyjerominski.com