HealthEvolution

We do, however, know much more about how energy behaves than we do about what it actually is.  Energy is the constant evolving force that causes change.  Many of the websites and textbooks out there define energy as “the ability to do work”, but this definition is lacking.  Energy is the core of physical matter and it’s what makes things happen, it’s what makes things change condition.  Whether things change shape, volume, chemical composition, pressure, temperature, or density, it’s all a reaction of energy.   Without energy, nothing would ever change.  Nothing would ever happen. 

I found an interesting little article about energy at http://www.ftexploring.com/me/everything.html

Well, it’s interesting…because of all the reading I’ve done on the subject, I felt I had a solid understanding of energy and thought that this would be an easy little thing to explore in a blog for a few days.  Ha, boy was I wrong…turns out the subject is infinitely more complicated that I expected and by searching online for “energy” I got TONS of complex mathematical and physics-based explanations.  It was overwhelming and way too complex for what I’m trying to introduce here.  After reading through pages and pages of information, not really able to find a clear definition or summary, I finally realized why I was having such a hard time finding this information online. 

It’s because no one even really knows what energy IS.  It’s true – there’s no real definition of energy as a tangible substance.  We cannot measure energy directly (partially because it’s in a constant state of change) and so we only know how to measure its manifestation in different forms.  But what is this mysterious “stuff” of which every single thing in the entire universe is made?  Yes, EVERYTHING…an ice cube, a plastic cup, a human, the ocean, an idea, and a table, when broken down to their smallest components are all composed of exactly the same thing!

I’m going to start a series of posts about the basic properties of energy.  In order to explain the law of attraction as related to health I need to provide readers with a brief, but detailed understanding of energy: what it is, how it functions, how it is manipulated/controlled, and how it is transferred between forms.  Most people have an idea of energy in its more tangible forms like electricity, sound, light, heat, nuclear reactions, or calories, but they don’t really understand its natural fluidity and the fact that it exists in other immeasurable forms and that we are essentially saturated in an unending ocean of it.  Energy is what drives our ever-changing universe.  The transfer of energy into different forms is what allows us to do things like type on a computer, ride a bike, eat, breathe, and think.  In actuality, every single thing and person that we interact with on earth is about the exchange of energy.  Our human brains are actually the most complex electrical circuits on earth and they have the power to absorb and produce vast amounts of energy - same with our bodies.  But what IS energy?  Our human senses are only designed to detect energy in certain forms (through our sensory organs, right?)  So we can perceive energy in the forms of sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch.  But, there are many, many other forms of energy which we do not have the physical ability to detect.  Often, because we can’t “see” or “feel” these type of energy, it’s difficult for us to acknowledge that they even exist. 

People who do talk about the physical energies are usually portrayed as new-age, touchy-feely hipsters or just plain crazy, but the understanding I have, and what I’m trying to portray here, is that this is actually hardcore science.  If you can understand the science behind it, then the touchy-feely part that applies later will be much more valid.  You may think that energy like this doesn’t really affect you, but it does – it’s all around us, all the time, and our interaction with it dictates our physical circumstances.  By increasing their awareness of it, people will naturally begin to detect, and also produce types of energy that they didn’t previously know about, thereby gaining more control over their circumstances and their futures.  I know, I know, this sounds ridiculous at first, but let’s back up a little.  In order for me to explain this in detail, and relate it to health and weight loss, I need to establish a basic understanding of energy on a scientific level. 

No wonder all these doctors and scientists, researchers and nutritionists can’t really help anyone lose weight.  Don’t get me wrong, there are some of these workers who are exceptional and are really able to create change for their clients, but most of them simply have a fundamental misunderstanding about the real issues fueling weight gain and obesity.  I often have this feeling whenever I’m reading the most current obesity research or findings about some new treatment, so many of the research and new trendy cures are focused on the wrong things - at first glance, you’d think that people are gaining weight because they’re eating too much - so they must have some overwhelming sense of hunger that’s making them behave this way.   So it makes sense (kind of) that if you could stop the hunger, people would eat less, thereby they would lose weight.  This, however, is a theoretical and surface-fix kind of solution.  It does not even begin to take into account the extreme emotional complexity that accompanies weight gain and loss, and most people don’t understand that anyone who’s significantly overweight is not simply eating in response to some overarching sense of hunger.  There’s a lot more to it.  A lot.  Often times, people are feeding themselves food in response to other stimuli - usually emotion-based, and ironically not at all based in physical hunger.  They feel hungry, but it’s not because their physical appetite is telling them to eat more, it’s because their emotional pleasure center wants to be stimulated, satisfied, indulged.  It’s just like any other drug. 

The inspiration for this particular blog comes from an article on Yahoo’s homepage titled, “Scientists try to stop hunger with retooled foods”, in which I learned that researchers are now trying to create foods that slow down the digestive system and create a feeling of fullness to trick the body into eating less.  It’s not the first time we’ve heard about these kinds of treatments for weight loss and most new products, whether in the form of meal replacement shakes, pills, or lap band surgeries all claim to eliminate this physical sense of hunger that they believe must be fueling all this overeating.  The funny part to me is the particular foods that these researchers have chosen to enhance.  Foods like bread, yogurt, nuts.  It’s amazing to me that if marketers and advertisers tell people to eat these new, special, enhanced, appetite-supressing miracle foods, people will eat them and maybe lose a little weight.  The ironic part is that they don’t even need the superfoods in the first place!  If people would stop eating fast food and pizza every day and simply eat more foods like bread, yogurt, and nuts in general (and in essentially any form) they’d lose weight anyway.  It’s all about what you believe, though.  And people tend to believe what they’ve been told.