John Arts Abundant Living www.johnarts.co.nz

I get to speak to many people who are overweight and feel trapped. They know too well the types of food they shouldn't eat and are bombarded with messages about the danger of being overweight and the promises of weight loss programmes and products. Only people who are overweight know how it really feels.

I like to take a different approach. My emphasis is on helping people become as healthy as possible while they are in the process of losing weight. The biggest misconception is that being skinny means you are healthy. I know of many people who are lean, yet terribly unhealthy. The real question is how to help overweight people become much healthier while in the process of losing weight.

The first thing I do is to focus on food inclusions rather than exclusions. I recently spoke to someone in her 60's who was seriously overweight and admitted having a sweet tooth. She does not need me to rant and rave about the dangers of excess sugar. She already knows that. What I want to do is to focus on making sure each meal is based on healthy food. The best way to change eating habits is one meal at a time. Forget diets; they do not work. More specifically, they may work short term, but be unsustainable longer term or just down right dangerous for your health. I also like to address snacks, as these are often an issue and introduce filling nutritious snacks. The last thing a bigger person needs is to feel hungry.

While we are introducing healthy food, we need to make sure that the basic micro-nutritional requirements are being met to provide better energy and general resistance. We need to ensure the body has enough essential fatty acids, antioxidants, minerals (especially trace minerals) and of course vitamins and other co-factors. Bigger people often suffer from various problems such as hypertension, asthma, diabetes and joint problems. I like to address the specific nutritional needs these create, especially inflammation and circulation. Working on one meal at a time and ensuring a bigger person has all their essential nutrition in place, we can work month-by-month to get real improvements in their health while we steadily work towards dealing with the weight.

John Arts is the founder of Abundant Health. If you have questions or would like a free
health plan phone 07 578 9051 or 0800 423 559 or email [email protected] or for product information visit www.abundant.co.nz
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