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4.0 out of 5 stars
Faith-Building Your Body With 'The Seven Pillars Of Health', April 23, 2007
This review is from: The Seven Pillars of Health (Hardcover)
While God most certainly played a role in my nearly 200-pound weight loss on the Atkins diet in 2004, you are not necessarily required to be a Christian in order for the diet (or ANY diet!) to work. I've been asked questions like "Do you have to be religious to do your diet?" by well-meaning members of the secular media when I bring up the role of my faith in my journey towards better health.
The short answer is "no," but it certainly helps to have the power of the Almighty Creator on your side for those times when you need His divine strength to carry you through the valleys that most certainly come when you try to lose weight. If you've ever gone through a weight loss experience without support, then you know exactly how hard it can be. You need a friend that sticks closer than a brother to be there for you when you need Him the most.
What if you could invest a mere 10-15 minutes a day for less than two months of you life and learn practical Biblical advice about improving your health? Would you be interested in learning more about it? If you are a Christian or desire to do something positive and productive about your weight and health, then of course you would.
That's precisely why prolific Christian author Dr. Don Colbert wrote his bestselling book entitled The Seven Pillars Of Health: The Natural Way To Better Health For Life. This 50-day all-inclusive health manual will empower you with tons of information that can be absorbed and immediately applied into your life to bring about big changes in a short period of time. This could be the miracle you have been praying for.
Dr. Colbert is well-known as the premier "health doctor" within Christian circles. I remember selling many of his other 30-something titles when I was working in Christian bookstores in the mid-to-late 1990s. He is highly-regarded for making complex medical conditions and treatments understandable to the common person as you will quickly find out when you read this book.
The Seven Pillars Of Health are as follows:
1. WATER
2. SLEEP AND REST
3. LIVING FOOD
4. EXERCISE
5. DETOXIFICATION
6. NUTRITIONAL SUPPLEMENTS
7. COPING WITH STRESS
This book reads like a daily devotional journal providing you with a few power-packed pages at a time to soak in the message Dr. Colbert wants to share with you. Each chapter (or "pillar") takes about a week to go through, so you are able to meditate and fully concentrate on one concept at a time. I enjoyed this format because the lessons you learned the first day were then reinforced on the next and the next to complement your health education. More books need to be written this way!
There's some real eye-opening content in this book that you are just gonna have to read to believe. If I didn't already drink upwards of 1-2 gallons of water a day already, then you bet your sweet bippy I'd be guzzling it like it was going out of style after reading the water chapter. I don't think people have any idea just how crucial fresh water is to their health. I'll drink to that!
At the end of each day's journal, you get a nice little wrap-up of the major points in that section with Dr. Colbert's "Building Blocks To A Healthy Life." Consider it your Cliff's Notes version of the content you just read and the take home message he doesn't want you to forget. There's the "Points To Ponder" as well as the practical application under the "Action Step" that allow you to begin using the information in your own life right away.
Another eye-catching feature of this book is the "Dr. Colbert Approved" or "Dr. Colbert Recommended" check marks with straight-up advice for people to follow directly from the good doctor himself. For people who need direction that slaps them in the face, these frequent helpful hints lay it all out clearly and easily for everyone to see. Additionally, there are also extra boxes with essential information to lead you by the hand to making The Seven Pillars Of Health your new way of life.
Although this book isn't as blatantly against the Atkins low-carb diet as other "Bible-based" health programs are, Dr. Colbert does get in a few comments that had me raising my eyebrows just a bit. For example, in the SLEEP AND REST chapter, he mentions low-carb diets as a reason why you can't get a good night's sleep because they allegedly "create a low-blood-sugar reaction, causing you to awaken in the middle of the night."
Um, what in the world are you talking about, Dr. Colbert? I've been eating this way for three years and the only thing that wakes me up in the middle of the night is the porcelain goddess and that beautiful snoring creature on the other side of my bed! Sure, some low-carbers MAY experience hypoglycemic reactions at some point when they are livin' la vida low-carb, but don't paint us all with a broad brush and make it universally true. It clearly is not.
There are some other issues that I disagree with him in The Seven Pillars Of Health (especially regarding saturated fat intake, artificial sweeteners, and meat consumption), but overall there are some redeeming qualities about the book that I cannot overlook either. His shunning of junk carbs, including sugar and white flour, is a major plus as well as the promotion of organic foods and proper supplementation. And the chapter on COPING WITH STRESS alone is worth getting this book!
Scripture verses are sprinkled throughout to back up all the information that Dr. Colbert is providing. You can tell he took calculated steps to ensure that everything he was sharing was grounded in the Word of God. I can appreciate that fine attention to detail to get it right because he is honoring the Lord with the information he is sharing. I especially enjoyed the "appreciation list" and the "day of jubilee" because they pay tribute to God's providential hand in all things, including health.
I wanted to share a brief passage from The Seven Pillars Of Health that sadly illustrates where we are regarding health in the United States and why we need more books like this one and doctors like Don Colbert speaking out with the truth about diet and health:
"A woman walked into my office weighing nearly three hundred pounds. It was the first time I'd seen her. Her back was slightly bent with osteoporosis, and she was suffering from arthritis and shortness of breath so severe that she had to move very slowly. I examined her, performed lab work, a chest X-ray, and an EKG, and I found she had angina, heart disease, high blood pressure, arthritis, type 2 diabetes, and other obesity-related problems. Her cholesterol was even over 300.
'I eat the four basic food groups,' she told me. 'I don't understand why I gained fifty pounds over the past year.'
I asked her what specifically she ate. 'Well, I fast every morning,' she began. 'I miss breakfast. Then for lunch I have my four food groups--a Quarter-Pounder with cheese, lettuce, and tomato on a bun. Sometimes I have a jelly sandwich made with strawberry preserves, too. So I get my fruit.
'For dinner,' she said, "I'm a meat-and-potatoes woman. I get my vegetables from potatoes, and I love T-bone steaks. So that satisfies my meat group requirement. I always include bread for my grains, and I put lots of butter on it to meet my needs for the dairy group. And I like a tall glass of orange juice or grape juice for my fruit group needs.'
I was stunned almost to silence. No wonder she was obese and had a host of medical problems."
WOW! Isn't that amazing! It really makes you wonder how many people are living in American today who think just like this patient that saw Dr. Colbert that they are eating healthy when very clearly they are eating themselves to sickness and even death! That's why it is so vitally important to constantly build on what you have already learned about healthy living and never settle for what everyone else is doing.
If that was working so well, then why is two-thirds of our nation overweight or obese, hmmm? Regardless of how we got there, it's high time we do something about our weight and health as a society before we destroy ourselves physically, economically, and even spiritually. Read The Seven Pillars Of Health to find out how we can break this disturbing trend as soon as possible.
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