thank hashem, and my mother, i'm healthier than a race horse!
how do i know?
recently the company i work for, in an effort to put down our healthcare costs worked out a deal that if we get health screenings, we can get a big discount to our weekly healthcare costs.
i appreciated it greatly. after they give you these tests you get a one on one sesion with a nutritionist. the woman told me that thank hashem i am very healthy.
how am i so healthy? its from god. and possibly the way that mu mother trained me to eat, and possibly the fact that i use citibike daily.
then it occured to me why dont i teach others to do like o do?
here is my weight loss program, mostly designed by my mom, based on jewish concepts and ideals
step one
designate one day a week to eat things you enjoy, because you enjoy them.
in Judaism we call this shabbos. while eating to your hearts content does not in any way capture the essence of shabbos, on shabbos there is a command to enjoy it. the rabbis learned that this means to enjoy by eating meat and drinking wine, or whatever is considered a delicacy. make sure you have one day a week to enjoy, or you will give up on the rest of the program.
shabbos teaches us that this world was created by god, and that you have to take a break from the stress once a week.
note! make sure its the same day every week, because if you make your shabbos of one week on Saturday and the proceeding sunday your shabbos foe the next week, well you haven't really accomplished much.
step two
eat healthy the rest of the week
my mom always made us oatmeal in the winter and cereal in the summer, some days. she always mixes it up to this day, sometimes buckwheat pancakes, or bagels with lox and a salad. always some form of carb high in fiber, and some salad
for dinner, she had a rule; you can eat your french fries (etc) once you eat something green! i live with the motto "a salad a day, keeps anything that makes you uncomfortable except "suits" away". okay i just made that one up, but i do try to have a salad a day.
step three
find something to do for exercise at least twice a week that is fun!
it must be fun, i repeat, it must be fun.
if its not fun you will give up unless you are very angry and have something to prove. i bike thank hashem. it is fun zipping through the city with an orange helmet, and seeing all thats happening while getting fresh air and feeling like my own effort is making me go almost ad fast as cars. if you like swimming, join a sports club. if its rock climbing you prefer, i know in nyc there is Brooklyn boulders. if you like intense sword fighting and cosplaying, join NY Jedi. or learn decelerated kung fu and join a tai chi group, there are some in the morning at the manhattan entrance to the manhattan bridge( then you can defeat all those evil guys who move in slow motion). if you look you will find.
it says in the torah "nothing stands in the way of will power" i hear that phrase over and over throughout my high school/beis-medrash years and it annoyed me to my core. "its not true" i would scream! its not true because there are things i really want and i don't get them no matter hard i try, trying harder or smarter. for instance, if i want to fly without wings, or external propulsion can i? if you really want to…
an this past year i realized it is true. but it comes with a catch. the catch is sort of common sense which is why nobody mentions it.
i guess hashem wanted me to learn the hard way.
you can do anything you want to that fits into the laws of what god established as reality, but you cant do everything.
so pick one thing, focus on that, daven to hashem, and you will succeed
