Indicadores básicos del estado de salud de la población

I ALWAYS TELL MY PATIENTS IF YOU ARE REALLY SERIOUS ABOUT LOSING WEIGHT THEN PLAN ON LOSING ONE POUND A YEAR FOR THE NEXT TWENTY YEARS. They usually just stare at me in disbelief, but I am serious. Lose one pound a year for twenty years and you will only lose those twenty pounds one time instead of what usually happens—the Yo-Yo effect—losing the same twenty pounds again and again.

I also know two other sure-fire methods for losing unwanted weight. One:

go ahead and start being happy right now. Be happy now and accept yourself the way you are right now. That one always works. Two: get divorced. That kind of stress with the insane amount of intense adrenalin and cortisol will surely cause you to lose weight. Method #1 is healthy and natural. Method #2 is unhealthy but also natural.

Otherwise, yes. Qigong will help you lose weight, especially if you learn how to do wall-squatting. Just one hundred wall squats a day for one hundred days—One Gong. That will do it too. But one pound a year for twenty years is a lot easier. Believe me! Or you could also do fifteen years of yoga with a proper

macrobiotic diet. But that’s no fun at all. No more “Chubby-Hubby” ice cream.

9. What about smoking?

IF IT IS NOT GOOD FOR THE BABY IT IS NOT GOOD FOR YOU! We have all by now heard about the health hazards of smoking. I mean, it even says so on the package: Causes Cancer.

Smoking is BAD for you. It will make you sick. It can lead to Cancer, Emphysema, COPD (Chronic Pulmonary Obstruction Disease), and many more illnesses. Smoking is a highly addictive habit that costs us all billions and billions of dollars each year to treat those who suffer from the illnesses associated with

Smoking. Smoking is just stupid—it burns holes in your clothes, in your furniture;

cigarette butts are everywhere, it makes your chest hurt; you cough, get upper respiratory infections, chronic bronchitis; it makes you stink, you get tobacco stuck between your teeth, ashes in your eyes; you annoy other people, your car reeks as you drive down the street; you endanger your family and friends with second hand

smoke. Each year, hundreds of wild fires are started by careless smokers throwing cigarettes from moving cars and trucks, and still, and still we just “keep on

smoking’.”

I know. I used to smoke.

In fact, strange as it sounds, I never really hit my stride as a smoker until I entered nursing school. It seemed then that everybody smoked—all my friends, certainly many of my classmates; everywhere I looked someone was smoking. I started to smoke in earnest out of Self-defense; and to keep my stress down, (and my divorce-related anger too)—smoking helped me concentrate; it also helped me to fret and worry.

Those were the days when nurses still smoked in the hospital—in the nursing conference room!—a thick pall of smoke hovering over the table at each shift

change. Boy how we smoked! Nurses, nurses aides, nursing students, we smoked and hacked and coughed; and smoked some more. I know it sounds ridiculous but even the respiratory therapists smoked! We were, all of us, battle weary healthcare veterans, professionals, fighting on the front line, working in the trenches, and we didn’t give a damn about the dangers. We smoked like gamblers, like psychiatric patients—between pots of coffee.

And when smoking was finally banned in the Hospital, we started smoking outside, every month of the year and in every kind of weather. We would all hang out together on our smoke-breaks; like a club, huddled together like inmates around a big industrial-sized free-standing hospital ashtray.

We all agreed: “We smoked because we were stressed.” It was a very stressful job and we “needed to smoke”; that’s what we said to each other as we sipped from our coffee cups or half-frozen can of Coke. We all had a good time on our smoke breaks. Smoking (and caffeine) kept us hyped up and ready for action (we thought); it helped to keep us on our toes; that good old smoke break. But then suddenly, it became just as fashionable to quit smoking. First my wife stopped, then my friends were stopping; and inevitably, it was my turn.

That was 12 years ago now…

Remember your first cigarette? I do! My next-door neighbor stole a pack of KOOLS from his mom (who later died of lung cancer); menthols, we were 13 and

we thought we were cool, so—we were going to smoke! Now be honest. Does anybody actually enjoy their first Smoke? I think not! I felt so sick, sick and dizzy, so nauseas; I thought, “Why would any body want to do this?” I felt awful.

Terrible!

It took real courage to smoke the next one; and the next one; because we were kool, and we needed to smoke. Soldiers need to smoke. When our GIs hit the beaches they brought rations of cigarettes and chocolate—fast energy, keeps you on your toes, helps you come back alive.

It wasn’t easy to quit. My anger would pop-out when I didn’t want it to. I’d be irritable and edgy; craving a cigarette. I “needed” my cigarette to calm me down and help me concentrate, especially in the car; and after dinner, and with my

morning coffee. But I stuck it out. I didn’t even use “the patch” or “the gum.” Do you want to know how I did it?

I bought little cigars instead; little Clint Eastwood-type German cigars, and when I would crave a smoke in the car, I would pop one into the corner of my mouth and let it hang there. I suppose got a little nicotine from chewing on the thing, but I never lit one; just chewed on it a while, like a cowboy. But what really did it for me was how gross my mouth would feel and taste and afterward, how nasty wet the end of that cigar looked to me after a while. I thought to myself, “Why would any body want to do this?”

It took real courage to do it again. But I stuck with it. And I finally quit my tobacco addiction for good! I don’t even miss them now. Ever! Although

sometimes I still need to take a smoke break, so I go outside for five minutes or so and “air-smoke” instead. It’s still my mental-health break though it is no longer my

“respiratory treatment.”

Smoking makes you stink! And to be honest, most smokers look kind of

“shell-shocked”, sort of “out of it”, and a bit “unconscious”. Try to Become a smoking cessation enthusiast. If you need a new pass-time try Qigong. That’s one addition that is actually good for you.

Stop smoking. Think about it: all those poor bodies, they don’t want to smoke (you do). I sure hope they don’t get sick in the mean time.

If you must smoke, try to cut back to just 5 cigarettes a day. Make them the 5 most important moments of your day, don’t some mindlessly in the car, actually enjoy yourself, make the most out of smoking. Don’t smoke in a hurry, slow down and take your time; make each one last, stay focused on your cigarette. Get the most pleasure you possibly can out of it; make it a sort of meditation.

If you smoke: Take a Break! You probably need it.

If you are already thinking about giving it up: That’s Good! It means you are already thinking about taking better care of yourself. The relaxation techniques in this book can help (I know, they already helped me.)

Nicotine causes vasoconstriction—it squeezes us, wraps us a little harder.

Like that infamous American Icon, “the Marlboro Man” (rugged individualist with fibromyalgia) cigarettes make us tough. I’m sure we have all seen a few long-timers smoking at the coffee shop. Coffee and Cigarettes… Or at a restaurant or in a saloon, their skin always has a distinctive quality— Leathery, Toughened, Craggy, Rugged, Cowboy-like, Arizona-like: Dry and Parched, John Wayne-like (who also died of lung cancer). Toward the end of his life, “The Duke” was quoted as saying something like: “If I had known these little things were gonna to kill me, I’d a quit a long time ago.”

Hear, here!