| Let 2004 be the year that you started living healthy | |||||||
| by BUDDY AMATO | |||||||
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The New Year is a special time. It's a time to start again and for some of us that means rededicating ourself to a better way of life, improving our health and taking more time for the things that benefit our quality of living. Americans are, statistically speaking, the fattest people on the face of the earth. We consume an ungodly amount of food each year and literally stuff ourselves to the point of obesity, Americans have done this to the point where there is now a national health crisis. This epidemic of ranenous, uncontrolled eating impacts every aspect of our society. Children can't have an active parent if the parent can't pry themselves off of the couch, or battle back a box of bon bons. Furthermore, children are fatter now than ever before. Blame video games if you want, but video games are bought by parents. There are parents that want to blame the television. Parents want ot blame video games. Of course, parents want to blame the schools. But, at the end of the day, children are the responsibility of parents and those parents are asleep the switch in bringing children up if they encourage poor health conditions in their children. At the end of the day, parents are the ones that are in charge of how a child develops, and not the people at Nintendo. Adults and children need a certain amount of exercise in their lives. In addition, they need to have a reasonable diet that does not include things like big bags of pork rinds, mayonnaise sandwiches with big bags of lunch meat dropped on the bread and the like. McDonald's is not an everyday stop in the lives of healthy people and the only kind of "big" that a big Mac is going to make you is "Big n Fat" if you eat enough of them all of the time. I teach the martial arts. So, people may wrongly assume that I don't fall prey to a bad diet. Maybe that's right, but it doesn't mean that I don't get tempted regularly. It doesn't mean that I have some kind of extraordinary will power when it comes to food that other people do not have. what the martial arts has taught me is respect and priorities I respect myself too much to become a fat slob. I respect my family and the time I have with my children too much to do that to myself or them. My priority is living my life and not falling into a box of donuts and never being seen or heard from again. Obesity turns people into desperate people. Eating can be an unhealthy way to cope with problems. Eating becomes an obsession. Eating becomes a way to shut out people. I don;t want to shut my wife and children out. I don't want to shut out my friends or my students, I want to live my life to the fullest. One of the saddest things that are happening today is that there are so many "get thin quick gurus" out there, and they are exploiting peoples desperation, food addictions and need for hope. I an not a doctor. I have no medical credentials. Of course, I have taught martial marts since I was a teenager. And I do know a thing or two when it comes to physical and mental fitness. Si, with that in mind, I want to tell each and every person reading this column that you are not going to find fitness in any pill. You can't find it within a chalky shake and you can't find it in a video. The only way that you can find the ability to lose weight, become healthy and lead a healthy lifestyle is within yourself. There are tools that can help you lose weight. There are many of them. But, without the will to lead a healthy lifestyle and accept responsibility for your eating and your level of exercise, then no real progress is ever going to be made. This is the New Year, and it is a time of celebration. Resolutions mostly do not work. But they can if you want them to work badly enough. With that in mind, I want to make a suggestion to you about 2004. My suggestion is for you to consider making a decision to save your life and lead it to the fullest. Let this be the year that your decided to close the door on obesity and poor health, and the year that you turned the corner on the rest of your life and started feeling better. Grandmaster Buddy Amato operates Amato's Karate and Weapons Academy, 589 Palmer Avenue, West Keansburg and is the author of Buddys Animal Kingdom. For more information, call (732) 671-9555.
Copyright Buddy Amato Amato's Goju-ryu Karate, Nunchaku, Bo-staff, Aikido, Sword, Kendo, Sais, Kick-boxing, Tai-Chi and more 589 Palmer Ave, Keansburg and is the author of Buddys Animal Kingdom, NJ 07734 (732) 671-9555 |
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