The Plagues of Prosperity | Benjamin Bikman

What I shared on Facebook - I've struggled with weighing more than I'd like for a long time now. I remember starting my first diet in 6th grade. Even when I weighed what I would like to weigh now, I struggled. I wished like many people, that I could just eat what I want and weigh what I want, like some people that I observed seemed to do. Last fall several members of my family and I began an attempt to lose some weight with the Loseit app. Things seemed to work fairly well for a month or so and then the holidays hit and you can probably imagine what that did to the diet. Again I wondered, like maybe some of you, how do some people seem free to eat the celebratory foods without weight issues but others don't? At the beginning of the year, I thought I would summon up the energy to renew my pledge to Loseit. But I couldn't do it. The idea of being hungry for the many, many weeks I would need to lose all the weight I need to was just too depressing. Also although tracking every calorie for a month or so didn't seem like a big deal, I just couldn't shake the thought that God didn't intend for me to count calories for the rest of my life. For heaven sakes, most of mankind hasn't and doesn't even know what a calorie is! There just has to be a better way I thought. One day when I was hoping and praying for this better way, my son Taylor came home from a day at BYU and told us about a lecture that he had had in one of his classes that day by Ben Bikman, a professor at BYU. Ben Bikman talked about Insulin resistance, keto diets and a man who had fasted for over a year and lost about 280 pounds. It all sounded very interesting to me and I've been on a facinating journey to learn more and more ever since. I've lost some weight the past couple of months and I've got a lot more to lose but more important is that I'm healthier. My aches and pains are not as great as they were and whereas I know I was heading towards Type 2 diabetes, now I know how to change directions and avoid that disease. I thought I'd start to share some of the videos and books I've watched and listened to the past couple of months in case anyone is interested. It sure is information that I wish I had understood a long time ago. There has been so much confusion about nutrition in my lifetime but there is new and old research coming to light that clarifies the truth. But there are many challenges to getting the information out there. And yet it's vital not only to our health but our economy. The costs of treating chronic diseases is overwhelming us so to avoid that we must practice prevention. And with that I hope you enjoy the first thing I listened to - a BYU Devotional/Forum Speech given by Ben Bikman and I'll include the link.