We are born with miraculously integrated bodies and minds. Our lungs draw in vital oxygen, essential for producing energy. Our hearts ceaselessly pump blood through vast networks of vessels to all of our tissues and organs. Raw materials are transformed into fuel by our digestive systems. Our muscles and bones propel us through the world, allowing us first to stand, then walk, then play and work.

Each day our brains take in a barrage of new information, filtering it, selectively storing it, and adapting their way of working accordingly. At the end of each day, we recharge and reset our systems by sleeping. All of us come equipped with a self-contained set of tools that, properly used, may allow us to live 100 years, or maybe even longer.

Beginning early in our lives, though, our genes, our environment, our culture, and our own free will conspire to test this marvelous organism—sometimes to the breaking point. There are people who maintain their health and live long, fruitful lives, sustaining minimal wear and tear. But others—perhaps most of us—push our bodies to the limit. Instead of eating the way our bodies were designed to eat, we indulge in foods filled with sugars and other refined carbohydrates, trans fats, and unhealthy food additives. Instead of walking to nearby destinations, we drive our cars. We sit most of the day. Some of us smoke. Some of us drink too much. Many of us allow negative feelings and stress to rule our thoughts. Not many of us get adequate sleep. The wrong choices trap us in a lifestyle that actually endangers our lives.

The effects of these poor choices compromise every system that keeps us well, and the damage is not pretty. After years of a diet high in refined carbohydrates, arteries become narrow and clogged with plaque, raising the risk of cardiovascular disease and heart attack. We find ourselves on the unhealthy path to metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, osteoarthritis, and cancer. Eating too much of the wrong foods and getting too little exercise allows fat to build up around our organs and beneath our skin. Smoking fills our lungs with toxins, damaging our health in myriad ways. Not getting enough sleep worsens our memories and disrupts an important hormone cycle that prevents us from overeating. And too much stress compromises our body's natural immune system, the very tool that would help us combat much of the other damage.

Return to the Path of Good Health

Fortunately, we have the ability to choose.

That’s where our series of HealthJournals on Wellness come in. Our Wellness series will show you how to completely change your lifestyle to a healthy and sustainable one that will restore your vitality and reverse chronic medical conditions. It will provide you with innumerable health benefits. It will lessen dangerous abdominal fat, lower chronic inflammation, and reduce the threat of other chronic diseases. Your risk of getting heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and autoimmune diseases will be greatly reduced. You will be likely to live longer, too. What’s more, your systems and organs will be provided with all the nutrients they require, so that your hunger will be satisfied, and your body brought into homeostatic balance.

This wellness information is based on real science that refutes current mainstream medical notions of what we should be eating. In this series, we explain the most natural way to eat—so that fat melts away and the body’s hormonal systems rebalance themselves. In doing so, we turn popular notions of a “healthy diet” on their head. Moreover, we give you all the leading science on other aspects of wellness in your life—including how to break your bad habits, the benefits of sleep, how to de-stress, and the real benefits of exercising.

It’s rarely too late to make changes that can reverse damage to your abused organs and tissues. Even people who are sensitive to carbohydrates, and therefore genetically predisposed to putting on weight, can get back on the path to good health. By eating the right foods, exercising, modifying your negative habits, quitting smoking, sleeping well, and celebrating life, you can reverse many chronic conditions—and increase your enjoyment of life immeasurably.

We hope that you will continue to explore the miracle that is your body, knowing that the good choices you are making will enable you to enjoy a life full of activity and fulfillment. You have the power to keep your body and mind healthy, strong, and alive. You can live longer and live better.

To life!

Wellness and Smoking – Restore Your Health and Prevent Deadly Disease

Quitting smoking is vital for your lungs, your heart, and the 60,000 miles of blood vessels in your body—in fact, it’s important for every one of your body’s organs and systems. When you quit, you can regain your energy and stamina, prevent deadly diseases, and allow your body to function at its best again. Being overweight and smoking is a deadly combination. Smokers tend to have dangerous visceral fat (fat stored inside the abdominal cavity) in excess and are more likely to have serious cardiovascular and respiratory ills. Smokers also age faster. Quit now.

Most smokers—more than 70 percent—do not want to keep smoking. They simply feel powerless against their habit. Nicotine is highly addictive, which makes quitting cigarettes difficult. But it is possible. While there are now 45 million smokers, there are 47 million successful quitters! Clearly, there is reason for hope.

There are many reasons to quit. Smoking harms every process in your body: your breathing, your heartbeat, your ability to reproduce, heal, and see. Nearly 450,000 Americans die from smoking-related illnesses each year. That's more than all the deaths from HIV/AIDS, illegal drug use, alcohol use, motor vehicle injuries, suicides, and murders combined.

If you don’t smoke, never start. But if you do, quit now. Don’t let your health and life expectancy go up in smoke!

Here are some cons as well as the false pros of smoking:

Smoking Cons

Death

Of the estimated 2.4 million Americans who die every year, as many as 443,000 die of smoking-related illnesses.

Increased visceral fat storage

Smoking increases the amount of visceral fat surrounding your organs. Elevated levels of visceral fat have been associated with an increased risk of obesity-related diseases, including cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes.

Tissue damage

Chemicals in cigarettes cause serious damage to tissues of the mouth, esophagus (the tube that connects your mouth and stomach), and lungs. This damage can lead to emphysema and cancer.

Blood vessel damage

Smoking increases blood pressure and risk of atherosclerosis (hardening and blockage of blood vessels).

Decrease or loss of smell and taste

The nicotine in cigarettes impairs your sense of taste and smell.

Blood-clot risk

Smoking increases your risk of developing blood clots and risk of stroke or heart attack.

Lower lung volume

Smoking decreases your lung capacity, affecting your stamina and your ability to exercise.

Financial strain

Smoking is expensive and can have a significant negative effect on your finances.

Smoking False Pros

Burning calories

Nicotine increases your metabolism. Smokers expend up to 200 additional calories per day. However, you burn far more calories when you kick the habit and get active.

Pleasure

Nicotine stimulates the pleasure centers of your brain, giving you feelings of satisfaction and well-being—but when it wears off, you become irritable and edgy.

One reason that quitting is so hard is that smoking is pleasurable to smokers. They feel alert, focused, and fully engaged once they have had the day's first smoke. Nicotine addiction is strong, especially in those who started smoking as teens. The withdrawal symptoms of quitting, which includes irritability, anxiety, headache, cramps, nausea, and depression don’t make quitting any easier. The behavioral cues that signal smokers to light up are also better established in long-time smokers. Those who quit must overcome nicotine's powerful grip and sometimes change their daily routines in order to succeed.

As if all of this weren’t hard enough to overcome, some quitters are afraid to quit for fear of putting on weight. When quitting, some people try to compensate for losing the physical and psychological highs of smoking by overeating. Nicotine suppresses the appetite, so you may experience more intense feelings of hunger when you quit. Nicotine also speeds up your metabolism so you burn more calories. Some ex-smokers who used cigarettes to deal with depression or boredom turn to food instead.

However, smokers who see smoking as a form of weight control should be aware of research done at Harvard Medical School. The Harvard researchers found that current smokers actually have larger midsections and waist-to-hip ratios than former smokers or individuals who have never smoked. In fact, among smokers, waist-to-hip ratio increased as the number of cigarettes they smoked increased.

Apparently, smoking triggers a reaction inside your body that diverts fat from places like the thighs and hips and causes an unhealthy buildup around your midsection. As you recall, a large belly or waist-to-hip ratio is an indicator of higher amounts of visceral fat. Visceral fat surrounds your vital organs and is related to metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular diseases, and diabetes. Insulin resistance, which leads to the development of type 2 diabetes, may be directly increased by smoking.

In the long run, gaining a few pounds is a better alternative to the host of complications and diseases that are caused by smoking and the increase in visceral fat that comes with it.

IMAGE: Nicotine gum (left image), an adhesive topical patch that can be applied to skin once a day (middle image), and a nicotine inhaler that releases nicotine vapor from a cartridge inside the device (right image) are all tools that can help you quit

Here are some tools and techniques that can make the process of quitting that much easier:

Use Nicotine Replacements

Using over-the-counter nicotine gum, adhesive nicotine patches, or prescription nasal sprays when you would previously have had a cigarette can alleviate your nicotine craving without the damaging effects of smoke. The nicotine increases metabolism and suppresses the appetite, just as it does when you smoke.

Talk to Your Doctor

Your doctor may recommend medical treatment options. “In the medical profession, we know that many approaches to quitting will work,” says Steven Schroeder, MD, Director of the Smoking Cessation Leadership Center at the University of California, San Francisco. A family physician may help motivate you to quit. Doctors can also recommend effective drug therapies and help you deal with the side effects of quitting, including the tendency to overeat and gain weight.

Consider Counseling

In one-on-one therapy or a smoke cessation group, quitters discuss obstacles and share coping strategies. Talking about the challenges of quitting with other quitters can be reassuring and inspiring. It has been found that social support can increase your odds of success by up to 50%.

Your health will improve, hour by hour and day by day, after you quit smoking. Although some of the damage from a long-held smoking habit will never be undone, quitters do experience dramatic improvements in their cardiovascular and respiratory health. Their risk of developing an untold number of diseases drops with every smoke-free day. Here is a look at the approximate recovery milestones for someone who quits smoking:

12 Hours

Carbon monoxide levels in your blood drop to normal. Carbon monoxide can inhibit your blood’s ability to carry the right amount of oxygen to your body’s tissues and vital organs.

24 Hours

Anxieties peak in intensity. Due to withdrawal symptoms of nicotine, you may feel anxious and feel like you need to smoke again.

48 Hours

Senses of smell and taste begin to return to normal sharpness. Any anxiety, anger, or irritability related to quitting peaks.

72 hours

The entire body will test 100% nicotine-free!

10 Days

The average ex-user has fewer than two crave episodes per day, each less than 3 minutes.

2-4 Weeks

Cessation-related anger, anxiety, difficulty concentrating, impatience, insomnia, restlessness, and depression have ended.

2 Weeks to 3 Months After Quitting

Your heart attack risk begins to drop and your lung function begins to improve.

1 to 9 Months After Quitting

Your coughing and shortness of breath decrease.

1 Year

Your added risk of coronary heart disease is half that of a smoker’s.

5 Years

Your stroke risk is reduced to that of a nonsmoker’s 5–15 years after quitting.

10 Years

Lung cancer death rate is about half the rate for smokers. Your risk of cancers of the mouth, throat, esophagus, bladder, kidney, and pancreas decreases.

13 Years

Risk of smoking-induced tooth loss has declined to that of someone who has never smoked.

15 Years

Your risk of coronary heart disease is back to that of a nonsmoker’s.

Once quitters can savor the feeling of freedom from both cigarettes and cravings, they report quality of life improvements they hadn't expected. They can taste their food, and it tastes good! Their clothes, homes, cars and belongings don't smell of smoke. They breathe deeply. They run after their pets or children without having a coughing fit. They feel optimistic and independent. Although they may still occasionally crave a cigarette, the joys of not smoking compel them to stay the course.