Tag Archive | health

Vitamin D3 Miracle: Book Review

Dec28

First of all, this self-published book is a complete mess. This is one of those books that definitely give self-publishing a bad rap. In interviews, the author seems far more coherent and knowledgeable, so it could just be he isn’t a writer, but, wow, could this book have used an outline, a focus, and an editor! The knowledge, however, is sound, and I think worth the time to consider.

The Miraculous Results of Extremely High Doses of the Sunshine Hormone Vitamin D3: My Experiment with Huge Doses of D3 from 25,000 to 50,000 to 100,000 IU a Day Over a One Year Period by Jeff T. Bowles. Wow, the title, I can’t even. The book is more a stream of consciousness, not really a detailed description of how taking high doses of D3 affected this man. Bowles is clearly very smart, as most readers are, but it’s as if he was thinking too fast when he wrote this and while there’s some useful information in the book, he has updated it periodically and frequently contradicts himself. It’s clear that he is onto something with Vitamin D and kudos to him encouraging everyone to do their own research, but this isn’t a book I would recommend spending money on. If you do, purchase the ebook, which the author himself recommends in the published book. Bowles has a few theories and ideas of why D3 works, especially the idea that if we don’t get enough vitamin D3 that we, like other mammals, go into a winter hibernation mode in which our body is just trying to stay alive and keep from freezing. Thus, we gain weight and have a great lack of energy.

I bought this book because I listened to a great interview that Bowles did, and I can now say, just watch/listen to the interview on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HCIm5kt8jI. See also the interview by Dr. Somerville on D3 as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYJ1GHRDiRc. Both these men are outside-the-box thinkers as so many are having to become today and finally a light is being shed on just how ineffective modern medicine and doctors are at actually healing people of disease. If you have a broken leg and need heart surgery, it’s not so bad, but for most chronic ailments and illnesses, doctors simply only have one tool: pharmaceutical drugs. From cancer to rheumatoid arthritis, all they can do is “manage” your illness for life, they can’t cure it. That doesn’t mean there are no cures, however, there are a plethora of natural ways to cure a variety of illnesses, but they require patience, perseverance, and endurance, something that modern man just isn’t all about. We want a quick pill to make it better. Trouble is, those quick pills come with a cost we are only just beginning to realize: even more chronic health conditions. (I also lump vaccines into this category, but won’t go into that today).

Bowles largely got a lot of his information from simply reading medical journals, studies, abstracts, etc., many on pubmed.gov, which anybody can search, and he encourages his readers to do just that, touting the wealth of information there that just needs to be put together. I cannot get behind his dismissal of the actual data in the studies, however. The data is vital. Sometimes the scientists come to conclusions that do not hold up to the data and their study still gets published. He’s also very into the theory of evolution and for me as a Christian it just makes more sense to go with a Creator who designed us. Our bodies are designed to adapt to our environment. My light skin likely came due to my ancestors living for many years in the North, where there’s little sun, just as those who have dark sun have ancestors coming from very sunny, hot climates. Anyway, a lot of Bowles’ ideas and theories are largely available for free online and also touted by others. He certainly doesn’t mind that and seems to be just a man who really likes learning, finding things out, and experimenting. He definitely has a scientist heart, even if he’s a poor writer.

So, Vitamin D. Well, it’s actually a hormone, something our bodies produce in sunlight, but since we all refer to it as a vitamin, I will, too. Is it a “miraculous” substance? A year and a half ago I heard from somewhere that we actually produce 10,000+ IUs of D3 with 20 minutes to a half hour in the sun. It gave me pause, because I realize the recommended daily allowance is low, severely low. It’s now 1,000 to 4,000 IUs a day, but I think was even lower when I was growing up. This is the case with other vitamins, like vitamin C and magnesium: The recommended daily allowance is just enough to keep one alive, not in optimal health. Is this a purposeful misinforming of the public? For money? Is is so that the pharmaceutical companies and doctors can all just keep making money as drug dealers “managing” all of our chronic conditions and illnesses? I don’t know the answer for sure, and neither does Bowles, but in this day and age it certainly appear wicked and nefarious.

For about a year and a half, I have been taking 10,000 IUs of Vitamin D3. In all that time, I haven’t had a respiratory illness, not a cold, not the flu, not covid. My allergies are better, and my health is generally better. After listening to Bowles and Dr. Somerville, I have decided to try 20,000 IUs a day, split up morning and night. After a few days, I can tell you my sleep is a lot better, and my skin and hair are softer. A sebaceous cyst I’ve had for almost a year appears to be healing faster now. I am also supplementing magnesium and Vitamin K2, both of which Bowles would recommend. Although I do have a few other sort of major health things I want to fix, at this time I am content just to increase the D3 a bit at a time and will maybe just still with the 20,000 and then go back down to 10,000 again when summer comes and plan to get a lot more sun time. I think healing needs to be thought of in the long term. Is D3 miraculous? Maybe, but it’s not an instant miracle even at high doses. From the testimonies in the book, people still have to take the high doses for several weeks/months to be healed. Bowles highly recommends testing your blood beforehand and also supplementing other vitamins as D3 uses those, such as magnesium and K2, to repair your body. It’s a fascinating concept and I applaud him for latching upon it.

Although in some ways this book isn’t worth the cost or the read, the information certainly is, but that info can be found for free elsewhere. It can, however, be important to financially support these outside-the-box thinkers, however, for their curiosity and persistence will surely lead to more studies being done on Vitamin D and other health aspects. Bowles mentions little about one’s diet and I wonder how supplementing Vitamin D3 fares with people on, say, a keto or carnivore diet. Those diets, too, people have touted as miracles. It’s clear to me our bodies are complicated and made by a designer, a Creator, who meant us to spend some time outdoors and in the sun, and who meant for us to eat natural foods.

Is Vitamin D the answer, the cure, for so many of our ailments? From personal experience, I think the lack of it is definitely why we get so many respiratory illnesses in the winter months. It also may be why we have so many seasonal and other allergies. My allergies, although not gone, are definitely better after increasing my D3. The healing of bones, we’ll see over time. The healing of tumors, we’ll see over time. The biggest part of this book is that modern medicine and doctors are really only taught what they are taught. If they are not curious and don’t have time, they will know little about the possible healing powers of Vitamin D, other vitamins, and proper nutrition. Fat and cholesterol, for example are now bringing people to better health as well as cutting their sugar and carb intake. Will modern medicine catch up to this? Well, it better, or it may find itself soon extinct, or at least relegated back to casting broken legs and open heart surgery. Really, I don’t think that would be such a bad thing. I’ve always thought it a bit silly that we run to our local clinic for colds and things like that, because rest and proper nutrition largely heal one within a week. Even with antibiotics or medicine, again, it’s usually a week and people are back to normal. It is only if one is already in poor, poor health that a cold becomes a scary cause for concern.

Am I glad I bought this book? Yes, and no. I am happy to support the author, but it’s just not a coherent enough book to pass along. It’s an extremely frustrating read and I skimmed much of it. Bowles also appears to contradict himself much in the book, and so it’s just better to look at the concept: Vitamin D3 can heal you, and take it from there. It may be worthwhile trying for yourself and certainly worthwhile looking up the numerous testimonies and discussions about the substance and considering that our society, since being encouraged to run away from the sun at every turn, has not been healthier. No, it’s been the opposite. For me, this is just one more lie in a growing list and I’ve come to think it’s malicious. Big Pharma and Big Medicine don’t want to heal us. They want to have power and make money. It could also just be stupidity, but I think not, not after reading and hearing so much about the sordid history of vaccines about which lies were told from the start. The sun is good for you, vitamins and nutrients are good for you. Fat and cholesterol are good for you. Meat and animal products are good for you. Sunshine and a change in diet will do far more for your health even than exercise will. In fact, you will feel like moving, like exercising more, and it will just be natural. No expensive gym memberships needed. But, as Bowles says, don’t take my word for it. Try it out for yourself. Three months, give it a shot. What have you got to lose? But be smart about it, do your own reading and research. If you begin and your body protests, listen to it. Everyone is different, and what works for one person may not work for another.

Happy New Year and I pray you have a blessed and healthy 2022 and be a slave to lies no more.

Ignorance is Death: Plague of Corruption Book Review

Sep8

Oftentimes we think of corruption as a minor ailment in our society. The saying is that power corrupts, right? Anyone in a position of power is likely to be a bit corrupt, that is, a bit selfish and looking out only for themselves and their own interests, and their own agendas. And while it is true that in a sinful world we can never stamp out corruption completely, we should still be smart enough to understand that it shouldn’t be tolerated. Corruption isn’t just a rot slowly eating away at something, no, it is the complete distortion of something. A corrupt government, for example, is not a government, but a different entity entirely. A government governs, a corrupt government destroys a country.

Plague of Corruption by Dr. Judy Mikovits and Kent Heckenlively deals specifically with corruption in healthcare and science. This corruption is horrifying, but really not surprising considering that almost every level of our society is now corrupt. Almost every institution in America, and other countries as well, is doing the complete opposite of what they were created for. Selfishness doesn’t adequately describe it, and it’s certainly not a minor ailment. What this book describes is abominable on so many levels. Health care is so far from being about health that the question arises: What exactly is the purpose of the health care industry now today? Science, too. Whatever “science” is that people love so *&^% much, it’s not the observation of the real world and how it works. And it’s certainly not about asking questions.

This book was a good read, but the latter half is much better than the first. The authors take their time and use a roundabout way to get us to the destination. I enjoyed the second half largely because I was familiar with much of the information already and was intrigued to see it all fit together with the information from the start of the book. Mikovits begins with a harrowing tale that could easily be a crime show segment or something from a John Grisham novel. Those already skeptical of what’s coming would at this point perhaps roll their eyes and put down the book. But if they did that they would be missing a great deal. Not missing so much the information this book gives, but the questions it raises. Questions we should all be asking now and questions we or our great-greats should have been asking from the beginning. Ignorance is not bliss, as the saying goes. Ignorance is death.

My brother-in-law is fond of saying that babies are stupid. From one perspective, yes, they are; from another, babies are simply ignorant, and that is why for the first few years of life a parent’s number one job is to keep their child alive. Parents have to teach their kids about all the ways they could die and how to avoid them. Babies will really stick their fingers in an outlet, because why not? Babies are so cute and innocent, and as adults we can aspire to be like that because it’s good, but we should never aspire to ignorance. As this book shows. Ignorance equals death, if not for ourselves, perhaps for future generations.

As you can already tell this is going to be a lengthy review. I have a lot of thoughts about the material and there’s just so much to unpack in the book and about Mikovits’s story. She is a scientist that began work in 1980s largely dealing with retroviruses, cancer, and the like. She and her colleague, Dr. Frank Ruscetti, who was a founder of the retrovirus field, and isolated XMRV, or Xenotropic Murine Leukemia Virus, and its connection to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Yes that Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. The most famous retrovirus is HIV and the book has much to say about that, too, and the corrupt Dr. Fauci.

As the book unfolds, it describes corruption in science, corruption in the law, corruption in government, corruption in testimony for the government’s vaccine court, which few know exists, but the heart of the matter is the physical manifestation of all of this corruption: Vaccines. Vaccines don’t equal dollar signs so much as they equal power, and absolute power at that. This book was written just before COVID hit and it’s obvious how all of the corruption and problems Mikovits describes are directly correlated to the medical tyranny we see today, right down to that dapper little Fauci.

So what’s wrong with vaccines, exactly? That’s the wrong question. Maybe the question should really be, what’s right about them? Mikovits takes one component: animal cell lines used in the manufacturing of vaccines and other medical research, and explains in detail the harm just that one thing in a jab is doing to the human body. Or could be doing to the human body. The staggering thing is, we really don’t know the affects and/or damage. Mikovits would encourage further study. Who knows, maybe further study would reveal more about what’s right in vaccines?

In her career, Mikovits came across quite a few instances where it was clear that these retroviruses were from animals and had been passed onto humans somehow. Each time she questioned a medical source, whether growth hormones given to cows, or vaccines given to people, she ran into trouble. Questioning these things is not allowed. Basically our corrupt institutions know quite well that these things are damaging people. They know exactly what they are doing and either they simply don’t want to get caught or they just don’t care. The animal cell lines used in manufacturing vaccines are directly related to HIV, XMRV, and other retroviruses and they are being passed to us, into our bodies are doing damage, causing AIDS, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and who knows what else.

“We are mixing animal and human tissue in laboratory cultures, then injecting them into human beings in a way that bypasses their traditional defenses, such as stomach acid breaking down pathogens.” – p. 124

Not only that, but we are injecting several pathogens at once with complete ignorance of what that combo does to the human body. In addition, we have no idea what injecting multiple pathogens along with animal cells, human cells, and the host of other poisons and chemicals also in vaccines actually does to the human body. How is this at all considered either safe or good for one’s health? I say ignorance, because it’s true. No one wants to know, not so many of the patients, or the doctors, or the health officials, or the scientists. When a person has a health problem after getting a vaccine, the vaccine being even a possible cause is across the universe in most people’s minds. When the CDC does a study on autism and vaccines and finds there is a connection that they should study further, they instead destroy the evidence. For some strange reason vaccines are considered a holy thing. A perfect creation made by humanity, far superior to the immune system that God gave us. Far superior to any medicinal plant God created. Sometime it’s like something beyond ignorance or even brainwashing of the general public. It’s a spell. If there ever really was an actual spell on people, this, to me, is it, this unquestioning acceptance of all things vaccine.

It’s only now, with COVID that more and more people are actually starting to question vaccines. And evil is showing its stupidity in forcing the vaccine, causing even more to question not only its effectiveness, but especially its safety. The stories Mikovits shares of people suffering, really suffering from vaccines and the disease and autoimmune disorders they have brought, are heartbreaking, as is the callousness of the powers that be. There are plenty of doctors and scientists who are not corrupt, who do want to, and can actually help. It’s just that they all have been and are now so often silenced from the public discourse.

Mikovits mentions her faith in God a few times in the book, but the fact that she ends in hope speaks volumes as well. She has hope that all this immune dysfunction people have now from vaccines can be remedied. Among the remedies, she mentions diets like keto and also practicing fasting. I cheered at that. So many people are finding better health by doing and especially eating the opposite of what their doctors tell them. Is it possible for corruption to simply fail when no one’s buying into it any longer? I hope so, I really do. People are waking up to the truth, and it has been a very slow process, but the tyrannical overreach has hastened things along considerably. That’s a strange thing to be grateful for, but I am.

No matter what side you’re on when it comes to health and science, I think Dr. Mikovits’s story is important and this book worth reading. We should be able to agree that both health and science need major cleanups for the good of future generations. We should be able to agree that people asking questions should not be silenced, but listened to. We should be able to agree that in matters of especially health, people need good information to make their decisions, and also that it is their decision. We should agree that those in power in both health and science need to be held to account. Again, ignorance is not bliss, it’s death, the death of our health, the death of our society, the death of even the knowledge that we’ve collected. If science cannot be questioned, then it is no longer science, but a cult or religion. Even God himself allows questions, invites them, even.

Not sure how many times I used the word “corrupt” in this review, but, whew, it was a lot. Plague of Corruption showcases how corruption is a plague on almost every aspect and institution supposed to keep us safe. This, I knew, and this we all know on some level, but Mikovits’s story really brings it home with all the connections from her research from the 1980s until now. A good read and thought provoking, giving many aspects to go and research for oneself, if one so chooses, and hopefully many have and do.

Until next time! –Pixie

Dr. Mütter’s Marvels: Book Review

Jul20

After reading a mystery story about a cabinet of curiosities, Dr. Mütter’s Marvels, A True Tale of Intrigue and Innovation at the Dawn of Modern Medicine, was a good next nonfiction read. This book is by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz, and not only is it a fascinating tale, but the book is very artistically designed.

Thomas Dent Mütter was a famous surgeon in Philadelphia, 1811-1859, at a time when surgery and medicine were a free-for-all. One didn’t have to have a medical license to practice, and surgery itself was positively barbaric compared to today. Mutter, who later added the umlaut affectation to his name, was quite a character, brilliant to his students, compassionate to his patients, and a true innovator, especially in the field of plastic surgery. He often worked on the poor unfortunates whose defects and deformities no one else would touch. O’Keefe Aptowicz visited his famous museum in Philadelphia as a child and became so fascinated by him that she ended up researching his life and writing this story.

What an amazing story it was too read! All the infighting between doctors and surgeons and all out in public, the dramatic and bombastic medical lectures, the competition between the University of Philadelphia (America’s first medical school) and Jefferson Medical College, the weirdness of Mütter, who often wore silk suits to surgery, and his colleagues like Charles D. Meigs, the differences in experience from Paris to Philadelphia, the amazing surgeries and cases–this story would make an awesome TV show. Meigs could even be the villain in the piece, but he’s more to be pitied than anything else. Sometimes time passes people by, sometimes people don’t change with the times when really they should.

Doctors and surgeons are not gods; neither is the medical industry infallible. In the early 1800s, perhaps the mistakes made in medicine can be excused somewhat, as everything was just getting started with regulating and licensing and all that, but in many ways doctors and medicine have not changed. Even today there are big controversies and differences of opinions in the field, and as it was then, the doctors that don’t fit the industry narrative are silenced as much as possible. It’s sad that more aren’t willing to let all opinions be heard, but that’s they way it so often is with many things. That Mütter made any change is remarkable, and it seems to me he was blessed by God in this, but also that God had him born at the right time, a time when people were willing to change and to consider change. Near the end of his life, America went through a Civil War over slavery, that’s how much things were changing. Today, it’s tempting to think we’ve figured things out medically, but it wasn’t so long ago that most did not know or did not believe that infection and disease could be transmitted by not washing ones hands. Meigs was one such surgeon and refused to change. How many died by his hand when they didn’t need to? It’s a sobering thought. How many die today at the hands of medical professionals who refuse to looks at standards of care that are doing just the opposite for their patients? Fortunately, there are always some, like Mütter, who are true forward thinkers, people with genuine smarts and common sense.

The most striking aspect to me about Mütter was his compassion for the patients–the time he took to get them used to what would happen in the surgery in a time when the only anesthesia was wine, the quickness with which he performed his cutting and stitching, and his brilliant idea of installing aftercare. He really brought the “care” into medical care. It’s mind boggling now to think that patients were given wine and held down for a surgery or amputation and forced to go through with he surgery no matter what, then dumped into a bumpy carriage to recover at home, all performed in front of hundreds of medical students. Compassionate care is more or less standard in America today, though we still have a long ways to go, too. So, so many people are sick today, especially with things like cancer and chronic illness, that it’s too easy to start treating patients like numbers. That’s what I see with vaccines and COVID, the patients are numbers and everyone wants a part of the staggering amounts of money being thrown in at both things. There are doctors who very clearly disagree with the narrative, who have tried explaining that COVID is fairly easy to treat, that it’s not the worst thing since the Black Plague, and that for most a vaccine isn’t even necessary. A step beyond that, there thankfully are many medical professionals also decrying the hasty use of the COVID experimental vaccines, calling attention to the concerning reactions and side effects. As in Mütter’s day, they are purposefully being drowned out, but not for long, I think, for the truth does will out.

Take anesthesia, a new innovation in Mütter’s time, and something that actually bypassed the need for his brand of surgery preparation, which was to meet for weeks with he patient touching and massaging the area to be cut open, so that they wouldn’t be afraid when the surgery finally happened. Instead of being angry about it, however, Mütter embraced the technology, knowing that if it was better for the patient, it would be better for the surgeons too. He also stressed that for the doctor and surgeon, a surgery should be a last and best step–most all other avenues should be tried first. This is a big way we fail today. Surgeries are recommended today so often as to make them routine. Perhaps this should not be. Perhaps there are other ways and better ways to heal. I think of the experience people have had changing their diet, going on keto or carnivore. Much of their inflammation and distress disappears. The truth is getting out there, little by little, especially as people perhaps now have less money to spend on expensive surgeries, but it’s still only a precious few doctors that really embrace these cheaper means.

This story is a great read and of course whatever one’s experience in the medical field, different aspects will resonate more keenly. What I got out of it, would not be what you get out of it. What a fun trip it would be to go to Philadelphia someday and see Mütter’s museum and all of the curiosities collected there. It is amazing that even today we really don’t know sometimes what causes odd growths and deformities on a person. God’s creation is complex and we have a long way to go.

On Being an Invalid

Mar8

Illness is a stumbling block. Cold, flu, measles, whatever it is, it throws a healthy person off their feet. Some illness is so mild that the people land immediately back on their feet, but sometimes it takes a person a few tumbles and wobbles before, shakily and uncertainly, they rise to the health they previously held. The ones who never recover are either permanent invalids or dead.

After being sick this week and unable to do much else but sit and stare and maybe watch some YouTube, I recalled to mind the strange desire I had as a child to be Colin from The Secret Garden. What would life be like, I wondered, if you weren’t required to do anything but lie about all day? Well, there’s my laziness for you! I didn’t see Colin’s loneliness, poor health from simply not moving much, and what he’d suffered from actual disease. Would I have been as happy as he was to find that he wasn’t crippled after all? Would illness have been so romantic to me had it been a permanent state for myself?  Probably not.

I turn 40 in about a week and have definitely had my share of illness over the years. I began life too early, so early, in fact, that my mother had to be air-lifted to the Twin Cities way back in 1978. Back then being 2+ months premature was a dire state, today, babies are born and thrive even months earlier than that. When I popped out of momma, I was blue and had a heart murmur.  Today, I’m still rather wheezy, but my heart has no murmur and I’m generally healthy except for loads of allergies likely due to being stored in an incubator for the first few months of my life. The biggest thing health wise, I lack, is energy. Is this a troubled spirit thing or a troubled body thing? I don’t know, I just know I seem to get tired a lot, no matter how much I sleep, or how much coffee I drink. As an adult, there’s no way I would happily dream about being confined to my bed for the rest of my days and I am so sorry for the people that have that as their life and I hope they are able to find joy hiding somewhere in their circumstances.

Sometimes illness and disease are parts of characters for stories. What would Moulin Rouge be without Satine’s tuberculosis? It’s both part of her character and part of the plot. What would Unbreakable be without Samuel L. Jackson’s “glass man” to Bruce Willis’s secret superhero? I’d like to write a detective series where the detective was continually dying of something. It wouldn’t be a long series, but the urgency in solving the mysteries would be somewhat unique. Actually, it’s probably already been done somewhere, so if you know of a series like this, add a comment, as I’d like to read it.

So I’m on the mend, tumbling back to my feet, and I think it’s going to be a really great spring. That warm weather energy is hovering and waiting until just the right moment, and then everything will be humming with life, including my writing. Oh, the stories I have to tell! No, not ready to be a permanent invalid, not even close. And thank God for health. Sometimes, in this world, it’s all we really have to keep us going.

The Story of Body Image

May17

It’s getting to be that time of year again: swimsuit season.  And I think to myself, I should really start getting in shape.  Don’t want to scare away all of my nieces and nephews at our family reunion in a month (None of whom are over the age of ten).  Don’t want to scare away the rest of my family either…or the fish.

Am I being too dramatic?  Welcome to modern times where drama seeps into everything, especially our appearance.  The sight of a woman’s natural, hairy legs and/or armpits can send people into conniptions.  To not shave is practically a sin in American society.  Some people don’t feel like themselves without makeup caked on and their hair dyed and coiffed.  And too many of us currently spend our days trying to prevent our bodies from aging by any means necessary: injections, surgeries, exhausting exercise and diet regimens.

I’m saying this not to judge, but to point out, hey, what are we doing with our lives?  Being physically young and healthy is pretty awesome.  At least, I think it must be, but my experience wasn’t exactly that.  My body’s had problems from day one, likely because I was in such a hurry to get into the world already.  Premature, on time, or late, not all babies come into the world in perfect health.  Some of them struggle throughout their childhood with being physically different or unhealthy.  So that begs the question, does our happiness really lie in being perceived–either by ourselves or others–as young and healthy?

For me, trying to work at an ideal of youth or beauty in my physical appearance doesn’t match up with what I actually experienced.  If we think about it, this is probably true for a lot of us.  Are we trying to reach our lost youth where we worried about the latest zit that sprouted on our chin?  Or about being underweight for our age group?  Or overweight?  When our teeth were so crooked we had to wear braces?

Exactly whose fantasy are we trying to get back to?  It’s not a wonder our body image is low when we are trying to attain not our own lost youth and health, but a magazine model’s, or a movie star’s.  Talk about impossible goals.

And that doesn’t even include our quest for the “healthy” perfect diet.  Diet trends probably do address problems that are true for some people.  Some people eat too many carbs and not enough protein.   Some people don’t eat their fruits and veggies.  Some have a genuine allergic reaction to grains and wheats.

How do we go from that to: Everyone everywhere should reduce their carb intake, everyone should buy a super cool really expensive juicer (instead of eating more fruits and vegetables), everyone should eliminate all wheat from their diet.  And the list goes on and on.

Why are we following these diets?  Is it really because we have genuine interest in good health or is it because we want to sound and look smart?  Do we honestly understand the “science” behind these trends?  And what about all the people who smoke, drink, eat what they want, don’t exercise, and live to be 98?

This is one of my favorite quotes from Our Savior Jesus Christ:  “It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.”  (Matthew 15:11, ESV)

Every time I start fixating on my appearance or bemoaning the new aches, pains, and wrinkles that appear as I age, I tell myself to think about this passage.  Eating the correct foods or sticking to the correct exercise regimen might make me physically healthier and my body more pleasing to the eye.  But do they really make me a better person?  Not really.  In fact, sometimes being a health nut has the opposite effect.  We become cultists who nag our fellow human beings on their salt intake, fat intake, their flab or lack thereof, etc.  I once knew a woman who could tell me the exactly amount of calories in whatever I was eating for lunch.  I didn’t think of this as a great gift, but a burden: How could she ever just enjoy eating being so fixated on losing weight?

What comes out of the mouth defiles a person.  What comes out.  What we say, how we say it, how we treat people, how we honor or dishonor God, these are the important things.  If someone comes up with a cure for cancer, are we really going to care how they look in a swimsuit?

And we already know this.  I already know this.  But it’s so easy to forget in this day and age of airbrushing and people who spend almost all of their time looking good.

So, what’s my body image?  It changes by the day, sometimes by the hour, depending on the time of month.  If I think I look good, I act far better than if I think I look like a mutant from the planet Flaffluga.  So how do I attempt to keep a positive body image 24-7?  For me, it’s a matter of faith.  I believe that I was created specifically for two purposes:  To love God, and to love my fellow man.

My Creator loves me just the way I am, even though in this sinful world, my image and my actions will never be perfect.  He doesn’t love my flaws, but loves me despite my flaws.  He loves me so much that He doesn’t want me to live in anger, resentment, and pride, but to live free of all that.  We put so much emphasis on physical appearance, but none of our ideas about the afterlife from any religion talk about physical beauty.  People are judged by what they do, not how they look.

In Christianity, even that is swept aside by the declaration that we can never be good enough to satisfy the law.  Thus, Our Savior Jesus took our place and lived a perfect life to save us.

Back to swimsuits.  I find the less skin I reveal, the better I feel and the more I can focus on having fun and making sure those around me are having a good time too.  And the days I remember God’s love (and it’s so easy to forget), those are the days, those are the times where what comes out of my mouth is sweet, caring, and uplifting.  Those are the days I focus on living, not on looking in the mirror.