The Health Blog

Many people are unknowingly stress seekers. Take this quick quiz to see if you have stress-seeking tendencies. Check off the items that apply. Do you . . .

( ) Speak rapidly, rushing your speech?

( ) Interrupt other people when they speak?

( ) Wolf down your meals?

( ) Detest “wasting time”?

( ) Become impatient if others are too slow?

( ) Never seem to catch up?

( ) Schedule more things than you have time for?

( ) Drive too fast, even if you’re not late?

( ) Shun intimate relationships because they take time from your career, or because they seem like a waste of time and energy?

( ) Always want to win, even playing with your child?

( ) Leave very little time for rest, relaxation and enjoyment?

The more items you checked, the more likely it is that you’re a stress seeker. Even checking only one item can suggest trouble. Your mind is probably filled with “hurry” and “more” and “better” and “harder” and “out of my way” and “can’t you speed up?” and “why are you holding me back?” Your biochemical assembly lines are working overtime to manufacture enough of the high-voltage chemicals required to keep your mind and body racing at full speed. And your heart, thymus, adrenal glands and other parts of your body may be already suffering the consequences.

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How Much?

How much should you consume at each meal? It’s best to eat small portions of a variety of foods. Eat slowly; when you eat rapidly your stomach fills up before your brain gets the signal to turn off your appetite. Eat until you feel almost full, then stop. A short time later your brain will get the message, and you’ll feel comfortable. Never eat until you feel stuffed. The Super Food diet is more concerned with your “doctor within” and your immune system than with weight loss. If you wish to lose weight, eat more vegetables and less grains and beans.

Give It Time

The Super Food diet is based on something that many of us are unfamiliar with—the natural taste of food. We’re so accustomed to fat, sugar and artificial flavors and textures we often turn up our noses at real, unadulterated food. I remember how hard it was, many years ago, to persuade my young children that apple juice was really brown in color, not yellowish.

Give your taste buds a little time to get used to food’s natural flavors. At first you may miss the salt, gravies, sugar, sauces, oils and butter that we habitually pour all over our food. But soon you’ll realize just how good fresh foods taste all by themselves.

Healthy Lunches at Work

Relatively few people consistently eat lunch at home. “How can I eat a decent lunch at the office?” many patients ask. Good, healthy lunches can be brought from home. Many of my patients who are executives, bankers, accountants and businesspeople, carry their vegetables and other foods right in their briefcases. Bringing food to work is also less expensive than eating out all the time. Healthy and economical—what a deal! But if you must eat out, order lightly steamed vegetables, served without rich sauces or other foods prepared in the ways I have described.

Having mastered the Immune For life philosophy of eating, and its daily applications, it’s time to turn to the exercises that will benefit your “doctor within.” In the next chapter you’ll learn how brisk walking, as well as other exercises, help to make your “doctor within” as strong as it can be.

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“I know what red peppers are, but what are beet greens, collards and kale?” That’s the typical reaction to my suggestion that people start eating these overlooked Super Foods. You’ll find beet greens, collards and kale in the vegetable section of your market. They’re the foods you walk right by, hardly noticing, as you head for the more familiar spinach and lettuce.

In addition to large amounts of beta carotene and potassium, beet greens, collards and kale contain good supplies of vitamin C. Sweet red peppers are great sources of vitamin C and beta carotene.

There is no doubt that the immune systems suffers if it doesn’t get enough vitamin C. Patients with low levels of vitamin C in their blood (hypoascorbemia) not only suffer from retarded wound healing, they are able to mount only weak defenses against invading microbes. The ability of the immune system to fight back depends on sufficient amounts of this important vitamin.

I like to dice up these Super Foods, rich in beta carotene and vitamin C, and add them to my daily salad.

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“Big” diseases such as AIDS are grabbing the headlines. But as a physician, an internist and a cardiologist, I can tell you that the diseases you read about, terrible though they may be, are only the tip of the iceberg. The number-one killer in this country is heart disease: 50 percent °f us will fall prey to heart conditions. Cancer will claim another 20 percent. About 36 million of us are suffering from arthritis; another 10 million have diabetes, which is the leading cause of new cases of blindness, about five thousand per year. An additional 20 thousand people a year have toes, feet or legs amputated because of diabetes. Add to that the innumerable colds and flus, the general aches and pains, the fatigue and weariness, the listleness and unhappiness I see so much of.

Martha R. is a 42-year-old mother of three who came to my office and announced, “I haven’t been healthy in ten years. They ought to make a TV show about me, ‘What’s My Disease?’ On the average I have four colds a year, the flu twice, six to eight asthma attacks, migraines twice a month. I have to drag myself out of bed every morning, my life is boring and nothing makes me laugh. Oh, and my last doctor said I also have hypoglycemia.”

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