As people approach middle age they are often asked to make drastic changes in their lifestyle for the sake of their health.

Essentially, they are asked to limit things they enjoy, such as eating rich foods, and start doing things that are not enjoyable, such as exercise. In return, the doctors say, they might be able to keep more or less the same life they already have.

To be perfectly blunt, this doesn't seem like a particularly, well, appetizing trade. Perhaps an early death would be preferable to living life in such a self-denying way to the point that life isn't particularly enjoyable.

This is something I've thought about for a long time, and then my friend Sue, also on here, admitted she had the same problem. So I thought I would share what I've experienced in making an effort to improve my diet.

To eat healthier, one of the things you're supposed to do is eat healthier food. The bottom line is that this food should be more fresh and less processed.

This food is somewhat more difficult to prepare than eating out or pushing a frozen dinner into the microwave.

But it does taste better. A lot better. And it is easy to customize for your personal desires. Want it bland or want it spicy? Entirely up to you.

I've found that cooking high-quality Chinese food only takes about 15 minutes a meal, and those 15 minutes give me time to think and meditate about my day. They also ensure that at least one thing I do during the day goes well, however bad the rest of it went. This is an interesting point of stability that seems to have significantly improved my life and mood.

So perhaps I have found a better path, and it's something worth sharing.

Have you folks found anything appealing in the constant desire to lose weight and become more healthy?

D

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Please tell us how you cook it. We want recipes, or at least instructions.

thanks -- Sue

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Watch out for a new community discussing this - I will have it up in the next couple of days.

(I'm very busy with new features right now so I wanted you to know that you are not forgotten!)

Enjoy!

D

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I understand the need to make drastic changes. Just a month ago, I had two disks in my back removed, man that is an eye opener. Thankfully all went well, but changes are required, such as weight loss, exercise and now I have to be careful of what I do so as not to cause anymore problems to myself. But, I hope that all the changes do help to improve my overall quality of life. The nice thing is that for the first time in about 4-5 years I have no back pain!!

Now just to deal with the pesky weightloss issue!!!!!!!!

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You should check out my cooking community:

http://amazing.com/communities/show/1894

I'm down from 260 to 234 pounds by cooking for myself. Although it's not the quickest way to lose weight, it seems to be staying off even one year from when I started doing it, which is apparently pretty rare when using any kind of diet.

D

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