Good morning,
I would like to share with you an informative and entertaining article by my friend Elizabeth Karaman about the trials of therapy, extreme work-outs, and macrobiotics. This article will be published by Amberwaves later this summer. Enjoy!
Below is a PDF of the article that you may want to share.
Acupuncture With A Fork – 6-8-14
ACUPUNCTURE WITH A FORK
Elizabeth Karaman
Reprinted from Amberwaves, Summer 2014
My best friend, a shrink, has a patient she calls grouchy girl due to her reactions to suggestions made to her during their sessions. Every range of emotion is expressed, from sullen anger to stomping on the floor while raging against her plight in life and her (imagined) beleaguered state. After her visit, grouchy girl feels compelled to work out her perceived unhappy existence at a gym where she pedals away on a bike in a frenzy. Or alternatively she attends a boot-camp session taught by a former navy seal. Despite her tremendous effort to silence her angry inner voice, she is still left emotionally frustrated. Her volatility gets temporarily anesthetized, but still ripples throughout her being.
Extreme workouts are the latest trend for burning body fat and for emulsifying a jagged brain chemistry. High-Intensity Training is the name of this current workout craze to be found at selected gyms throughout the country. It’s no longer enough to lift some weights and follow that with a thirty-minute aerobic session. All of a sudden, this routine is shunned—it seems the extreme workout people believe it’s no longer adequate to remove all the body fat found on most Americans now. Speed running or intense cycling for short bursts of time are what’s required, they say. I guess none of these athletic connoisseurs have ever seen the star macrobiotic counselor Denny Waxman or the vegan doctor John McDougall, both of whom possess trim bodies despite their supposedly no-no diet of 80 percent carbohydrates, ten percent protein, and 10 percent fat. They do exercise, but moderately, and their diet is currently reviled by the paleo-enthusiasts and the gluten-free mavens.
At a gym, a lot of these people pay more than $100.00 an hour to get as sleek as a jaguar, but unfortunately for them, their jungle physiques have yet to be attained. Instead, they acquire a lot of muscle and stamina on top of their fat stomachs filled with big pharma’s medications to lower stubbornly high cholesterol levels, off-the-charts high blood pressure, and borderline elevated glucose. These rigid people wouldn’t dare eat a single kernel of any wholegrain food. Instead they eat bison or buffalo meat, along with the standard beef, chicken, fish staples, combined with salads loaded with olive oil. Protein is the key component of their supposedly healthy regimen. What they’re not being told is that places like MD Anderson Cancer Centers and the Salk Institute, among others, have learned that animal protein fuels the growth of cancer cells, in addition to contributing enough plaque to the cardiovascular system to cause a heart attack.
Accompanying 100-mile runs, double-spinning classes, and boot camps, body detox centers have arrived to provide the latest choice of purges.
Take your pick:
- Drink enough saltwater to induce vomiting—this supposedly cleanses the contents of the stomach;
- Drink water with epsom salts to induce diarrhea and further rid the body of toxins.
But wait, that’s not enough…
- Also offered are extended juice fasts, colonics, and wheat-grass rectal infusions.
- If more cleansing is in order, chelation therapy, ozone therapy, or bloodletting can be offered to satisfy the most fastidious customers.
In the 1970s, I visited China where I saw skinny yet muscular Chinese slurp down a bowl of noodles and then scamper up a palm tree as if it were a flight of stairs. Their diet contained tons of white rice along with a lot of Chinese vegetables and condiment-size portions of animal protein. They all had low body fat, tons of hair, clear skin, and flat stomachs. I was told that many of the men fathered children at an age when most men in America were reaching for Cialis to get their hydraulic system to work.
During the mid-eighties, my husband and I ran so low on money while vacationing in Florida that we were forced to forego such treats as ice cream, exotic, costly tropical fruits, expensive cheeses, and any animal food from land or sea in order to save enough money to get home. Instead we dined on the basic components of a macrobiotic diet. In my kitchen there, I still had brown rice, tofu, seaweed, lentils, cabbage, and collard greens—our splurge was on a bakery loaf of bread and rolled oats. In one week, my husband lost eight pounds and I lost five, but we gained an inner calm and natural energy. All this for a few dollars, compared to the thousands it would have cost to join a gym or go to a detox spa.
Basically, macrobiotics is nothing more than acupuncture with a fork, which manages to balance the body without employing extreme measures. Give it a try. You may be pleasantly surprised and like what you find.
I LOVE this article Denny! BRAVO!
Really well written-delightful- I love the title! So many misconceptions about macrobiotics- When we became interested in macrobiotics circa 1971 10% animal protein per day was fine. A small percentage of animal foods has always been part of traditional eating throughout the world. There was no talk about vegetarianism or veganism. Really, the term ‘diet’ is problematic- I understood macrobiotics to be a system one could use to select whole foods as one’s basic sustenance . (plant and animal sources) Using personal criteria: activity, age, geography, cultural inheritance, gender, season, etc, one could make sound choices. Can anyone suggest another system other than macrobiotics which makes as much sense and has as much flexibility?
Best Regards
Thank you for your comments. Many people practicing macrobiotics are moving toward a more vegan approach for many reasons. Macrobiotic practice is definitely the most comprehensive and practical approach to life.
What would you say are the reasons for this macrobiotic move toward the vegan model?
From what I have read, animal rights issues are front and center with many people- I hear about the barbarism of eating flesh and wearing leather.
This is troubling for me as many people I know and love eat some animal foods and wear leather and I don’t look at them as lesser beings as a result.
How not to be judgmental can be very, very difficult.
Thank you for responding!
Daphne, I think it is just a matter of personal choice. My comment about people moving towards more vegan was just an observation.
Of course- I agree that it is a personal choice and should not
be attached to accusation. As a long experienced teacher I see your observations as very noteworthy!
Thank you, Denny.