When healthy living discussions take place, inevitably someone brings up the person who lived to be 100 years old while smoking cigars and eating junk food.
We also know of people who seem to be healthy and then one day “out of the blue” are struck with disease.
These same people were the ones who also thought they were “fine” all the while refusing to make lifestyle changes because they saw no ill effects of their choices and thus weren’t motivated to change because everything seemed to be fine until one particular day when they started to notice symptoms.
What do all of these people have in common?
In a word: TOLERANCE.
Now, we are not talking about the word tolerance that is good, which is when we are accepting of others who are different from us, or as one dictionary definition puts it:
2
a : sympathy or indulgence for beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one’s own
No, we are talking about the definition a little further down that says:
4
a (1) : the capacity of the body to endure or become less responsive to a substance (as a drug) or a physiological insult especially with repeated use or exposure <developed a tolerance to painkillers>; also : the immunological state marked by unresponsiveness to a specific antigen (2) : relative capacity of an organism to grow or thrive when subjected to an unfavorable environmental factors
Folks, this is very important that you get this and I’ve been wanting to write this post for awhile now.
We have some very unhealthy people masquerading out there as healthy people because their bodies have become less responsive and have learned to endure tolerating substances that are harming their bodies and doing damage but haven’t showed up as symptoms yet. Remember the last portion of the above definition: “relative capacity of an organism to grow or thrive when subjected to an unfavorable environmental factors.”
The only symptoms they may be experiencing in beginning are low energy levels and perhaps some minor rashes, aches and pains, or allergies.
However, the body, in its amazing resiliency, has a very high capacity for abuse and can accommodate a lot. This gives us a false sense of security that all is well as the body heroically maintains homeostasis or a sense of equilibrium at the cost of our vitality, until it is spent in the fight and overwhelmed and breaks down.
This process starts in infancy when we are fed baby formula and foods that the body was never intended to ingest.
What happens? The body, in all its wisdom and glory and delicious vitality rejects it and does something to get it out of the body as fast as possible such as vomiting, having diarrhea or creates a rash to eliminate what it perceives to be a poison.
What do our parents do when this happens? Stop giving us the offending substance? No.
On misguided advice, they are told that this is “normal” and to just continue with the milk or the wheat or the medicine that is given to them and to just ignore the continued reacts and to “ride them out”.
This reaction continues while the body has the vitality and energy to reject these substances until it is worn down and finally starts to build a tolerance to the substance and accommodates it.
THIS IS NOT GOOD. Why? Because the warning bells have been silenced and one gets the idea that all is “fine”.
As the body continues this fight, it is continually weakened by the constant assault until finally its energy reserves to repair the damage have been overwhelmed and the body starts to lose the fight and disease starts showing itself in symptoms. Disease then becomes chronic and our vitality to fight it has been spent in the long-term battle. This may be a long process as the body is designed to live and to thrive and is able to put up a valiant fight.
People who smoke and eat unhealthy foods and live long lives are those with a stronger genetic constitution that most, but they too are not as healthy at the same comparative age as those who have healthy living habits. While they may have longevity, they don’t necessarily have the vitality or robust health that they could have.
While others seem to be getting away with their bad habits with no ill consequences, the truth is, these habits will catch up with them.
In fact, the liver is a critical organ that is vital to the detoxification of many poisons that enter the body and can take a lot of abuse. Notice what the website Web MD has to say about how much abuse this organ can take:
“The liver is remarkably tolerant of disease and injury. Even after 70% of its mass has been destroyed or removed, the organ can still function, albeit with decreased effectiveness. If the conditions that caused the destruction have been removed or corrected, the liver usually can bounce back“
Although function can never be restored to parts of your liver that have turned to scar tissue, you can live a healthy life with the remaining portion if the disease is caught in time. However, there is a point of no return with cirrhosis. As more cells are replaced by scar tissue, fewer healthy cells are left to handle the liver’s many tasks. Eventually, function problems arise and may remain. This is why it’s important to identify the underlying causes as soon as possible and begin taking steps to eliminate them.
Indeed, the body has remarkable ability to rejuvenate when given the chance to heal. Tolerance leads to chronic sub-par health while acute reactions such as a cold and vomiting reject the poisons more quickly, and assuming we continue to avoid those substances, restore the body’s balance much more quickly. In my book Powered by Plants, I go in-depth into the seven developmental stages of disease and what to do to reverse it. I also interview breast cancer and rheumatoid arthritis sufferers and how they reversed these diseases holistically.
The moral of the story? Listen to your body’s signals when they talk to you. Do not ignore nor override them. Do not assume that lack of symptoms equal good health. The person who had their liver 70% destroyed, no doubt felt “fine” a great portion of the time that their liver was being destroyed. We all know of drinkers who “hold their liquor” well. Let’s not delude ourselves into thinking this is good health.
If you have low energy or sub-par health, your body has developed a tolerance to these toxic substances and most likely will go through withdrawal and cleansing reactions when those are stopped much like an alcoholic will.
You will feel miserable temporarily while the body is cleansing and repairing, but the end result will be new-found vitality and health.
This post is not intended to overly scare you as you are definitely in the driver’s seat as to what happens to your body.
It is intended to heighten your awareness of how the body works so that you may be empowered to make wise choices.
We don’t want to be in denial when we are in a position to do something while there’s still time.
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