The 1st Middle East Vegetarian (MEVEG) Congress, Part 7 of a Multi-part Series

“It was about 35 years ago, and I had not exercised. I didn’t pay attention to my diet at all. And this doctor came into our hospital, and he explained about resting heart rate. And he said that if your resting heart rate is 72, that’s normal. That’s like average. But average is not healthy. Your resting heart rate, if it’s below 60, it is as good as 20% of the population. And if it is below 50, it’s as good as 1% of the population. And he said it’s very easy if you run or walk aerobically for 30 minutes every other day. You could skip one day, don’t skip two. In a few months, you can get your resting heart rate below 60. And I have now kept my resting heart rate below 50 for over 40 years.

LEAN, L-E-A-N: Lifestyle, Exercise, Attitude, Nutrition? It’s a great little word to kind of keep in mind when you talk about being healthy. It’s a balanced approach.

You know. And I love berries, nuts of all kinds, vegetables. But I always like to keep these five, we call it ‘dumb foods’ or empty calories in mind. Things like the saturated fats, coconut oil, palm oil is particularly high, and of course the additives that they put in all our food. You have to know. We have a very well-known broadcaster in USA who’s going blind because he was addicted to diet cokes. And aspartame has a side effect of causing blindness. Not many people know that, those kinds of things. And then the ‘three whites,’ I call them - white flour, white sugar, white salt. You know. In the US, consumption is 5000 milligrams of salt per day versus a body need of about 2500. And, of course, salt attracts fluids. It causes, overweightness, and it causes hypertension, that kind of thing.”

“Just, probably six months ago, I picked up this book, ‘Tribal Leadership.’ And I want to talk about LEAN in the context of different conversations or different cultures. And knowing something about the language and conversations and the way people act, helps you as leaders to influence and help people make changes that are positive and affirmative. I’m just going to explain briefly these five cultures or conversations.”