I am always amazed when I hear of Polynesians who have suddenly died of heart disease, diabetes, and even colon cancer. My grandfather was very young when he died of colon cancer. The 62-year-old mother now has a long history of chronic illness, arthritis, stroke, and now suffers from diabetes. Outside of my immediate family, I see some Polynesians suffering from foodborne illness, and I fear that they will not survive to see their grandchildren. So what is happening to our people, and what can we do to stop it?
I will give you seven best tips you can use to lose weight, and restore your health from now on, but first I want to tell you a little bit about myself.
I am a Polynesian man in his late thirties. I was born in New Zealand and grew up with loving parents of six children. I arrived in the United States in the late 99’s to attend school. After my first year of College, I had gained extra weight, about 15lbs. There is nothing too good, too bad. As each year passed I became more and more obese and unattractive.
This was unusual for me, as I was busy playing many competitive sports, such as rugby, basketball, tennis, and volleyball. I have always had a good sense of humor and grew up frustrated because of the body fat that accumulates every day. I ignored them for a long time until one day I was flipping through some of the pictures I had just updated. I saw my gun as my back turned to the camera. For a while I was confused about who that was. I did not see myself. I was embarrassed and ashamed to see that the way I looked, and the way I looked was actually completely different. Is this what people are seeing?
At this point I bought a scale to check for damage. After three years of denial I gained 246lbs. I was shocked. This was not the worst part. Then I started having chest pains, dizziness and shortness of breath. I always felt tired. I became increasingly depressed. So what happened? In short, I was eating the wrong foods, at the wrong times, and eating too much.
I decided to start a campaign, in order to lose 30lbs, after all that would be difficult. I mean, I’m a hard worker, I have to have a snap. So I did what most people do, went out to the local gym, signed up for membership and a personal trainer, bought all the protein bars, shakes and supplements they recommended. I even subscribed to a qualifying magazine and bought the products they recommended. All in all I had spent a little money to get started, but this was okay because I was really committed.
I spent the next 3 months exercising with my trainer twice a week, and alone four times a week, not only on Sundays. My exercise included 35-45mins of cardio six days a week and weight training 60 Min’s 5 days a week. Initially I started losing weight by 4-5lbs a week. I was really happy, a little bit but for sure, it started to drop to 2lbs a week, and not even one. My coach told me that ‘we need to adjust your diet a little, and work a little harder’. Believe me when I tell you that I was stretching my hips to be in good shape. There were days when I was alone in the gym at 1.30 in the morning doing cardio. The cleaners joked that I needed to pay rent when I was there.
And then it happened, with my next weight in a day I had gained 2lbs. My trainer assured me that this was a muscle gain, and I do not worry as the scales do not distinguish between muscle gain, fat gain, or weight loss and fat loss in that regard. I was skeptical because I felt so weak. I was unable to compress the bench or leg I could have done 3 months earlier, and if I was really gaining muscle, shouldn’t I be stronger. It made no sense to me. Nevertheless, I continued until the end of our planned training program. When it was all said and done I weighed 227lbs. I was losing 19lbs, not bad, but a long cry with my 30lbs goal.
What’s worse is the words that I can spell I often mistype. It was frustrating to think that I had worked so hard for 3 months and that I was not happy with the way I looked. I was still hiding, unexplained, and I still felt tired all the time, sometimes more tired than when I was so overweight. Then it started with me, the trainers in the gym had taken some courses and certificates to help their clients get better. Maybe they didn’t explain me enough. I began to pay more attention to the things I ate, the foods I ate, and the effect they had on me, even the foods my coach recommended for me. Here is what I found.
health Ninja 