[funchy]

Originally Posted by Michelle

For years I've struggled with about 30 extra pounds....Diet and exercise are not the answers to health and well-being people believe them to be.

But the flaw in your logic is that being a few pounds overweight was against your good "health and well being". Could it be your body type is just such that your healthy weight is slightly above the weight charts?

Healthy food does not automatically mean weight loss. And I've seen some thin people survive on absolute garbage food. But is the thin person really healthy? One of my friends was thin because she was mentally ill and running on massive worry/upset, her body tended to burn off some extra calories. Another woman I knew was thin because she was anorexic and it ended up killing her at a young age. I am overweight but my bp and cholesterol are "ideal" and I don't need medications. (I admittedly don't eat 100% healthy, but my point is that a little body fat isn't a curse)

Healthy eating is something everyone should be doing, no matter our weight.

Eating healthful foods and wanting to give your body some daily exercise come as a natural response to being ready and internally in that place. And while the body certainly benefits from certain natural foods and a bit of movement those aren't the building block of health.

No, you still need basic nutrition. You could've been the happiest pirate sailing the high seas, but happy or not, most of them had scurvy from lack of vitamin C. A really optimistic & content young man in victorian England might feel happy with what the has, but if his job was to work in the mines through all daylight hours, he's sure to get rickets from lack of Vit D. The basic rules of nutrition apply to everyone.

There is nothing healthy about a body builder who eats right, works out every day but has decades of unexpressed anger or pain to work out which expresses itself through high blood pressure for which he needs to pop 5 pills a day. Good grief.

But most body builders also eat a high meat diet, which is strongly linked to high blood pressure. Salt intake is also a risk factor, which people overdo and not realize.

Everything done lovingly, succeeds.

I'm not sure I agree with that. The path to hell is paved with good intentions. People can mean well but really harm or kill them self or another.

For example, look at some of the extremist religions. The parents deny their kids basic things such as blood transfusions because the parents "love" the child and believe it'll earn the child a better place in heaven. What it ends up doing is killing, should Junior get in a car accident and lose a lot of blood.

While I don't disagree mental/spiritual health is very important to overall wellness, what we need is BALANCE.

a committment to gradually surrendering upon path of least resistance - the natural flow of life - can't help but lead to health and well-being.

I don't know. To some people, the path of least resistance is apathy and sloth. These are the people who don't want to try doing anything for fear of failing, claiming they just want to 'go with the flow'. Simply existing without taking an active role in one's own health and happiness seems like it could fail.

You seem to be saying if one has a great outlook, health will follow. But I believe other factors are at work on our health, and the surest way to ruin my happy day is for someone to tell me I'm dying of cancer or my heart is failing. All the meditation in the world won't save me then.

Balance your physical needs with your emotional/spiritual ones. All are important!