The Paradox of Greatness: Optimal Nutrition for Life's Journey

By Lloyd Bridges MD

"The Paradox of Greatness: Optimal Nutrition For Life's Journey" is a manifesto that explores the elements that lead to a significant and fulfilling life. Author Lloyd Bridges spotlights the importance of physical health and intentional living. The foods we choose to fuel our bodies are noted as particularly influential. A balanced and nutritious diet, detailed thoroughly in the book, is a necessary condition for achieving greatness. A life can be mapped onto one of two roads: the path of health and fulfillment, or the path of disease and deficiency – this is the paradox of greatness.

Poor dietary habits lead to vitamin and mineral deficiencies, malnutrition, and obesity. Society has lost its way when it comes to nutrition, and its led to the disastrous rise of chronic illness. With the population shifting from rural to urban living, we've seen massive growth in cities and municipalities. With this shift, the burden of chronic illness is escalating the cost of health care. We're facing a public health crisis of food.

We can reach our potential and live a healthy lifestyle by transforming our diet and changing our approach to nutrition, exercise, and lifestyle. The choices we make toward a lifestyle of optimal nutrition versus chronic and debilitating disease become habits that automatically define who we are, whom we identify with, and try to emulate.

So, how do you change your life for the better? This book was written to offer the blueprint for you to achieve a healthier and more fulfilling life. The time to start living at your greatest potential and refusing to succumb to chronic disease is now!

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Nov 6, 2021
• ISBN: 9781667809687

Book preview

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The Paradox of Greatness

The Paradox of Greatness:

Optimal Nutrition for Life’s Journey

By Lloyd L. Bridges, MD

Series: Optimal Health and Wellness

© 2021 by Lloyd L. Bridges, MD

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Table of Contents

Health versus Disease: A Choice of Greatness!

Optimal Nutrition: The Fuel for Greatness

A Healthy Gut: The Channel for Greatness

The Healing Power of Macronutrients: The Complement to Greatness

The Mediterranean Secret: The Greatest Supplement of the Ages

Nutritional Pitfalls: The Entanglement Of Greatness

The Potassium-Sodium Connection: The Action Potential for Greatness

Vulnerable Yet Chosen: The Paradox of Greatness

The Benefit of The Grind: A Life of Greatness

Acknowledgments

Endnotes

Introduction

Health versus Disease: A Choice of Greatness!

We all have a measure of control over what we choose to eat. Formal dinners, family cookouts, weekly meal preparations, and even the drive-throughs of our favorite fast-food restaurants—we are constantly making decisions about food. By choosing wholesome foods, we invest in lifelong health. Some food groups (e.g., fruits, oils, vegetables, and whole grains) may serve as a preventive measure against illness. Some even exhibit anticancer properties.

We can choose a lifestyle that is enhanced by healthy eating habits, motivated by our passion, inspired by our purpose, and energized by our quest for a life filled with greatness. To live a life of greatness is to transcend mediocrity, complacency, and widespread cynicism as we usher in a brighter future.

The pursuit of optimal health is a worldwide struggle against the prevalence of¹ chronic disease. Practices such as healthy eating habits (which include monounsaturated fats), increased physical activity, health screenings, and overall health promotion are fiercely opposed by processed foods, saturated fats, food additives, sedentary lifestyles, chronic illnesses, and diseases. The choices that lead to wellness versus the choices that lead to disease are clearly defined. Nevertheless, the battle for optimal health and nutrition is ongoing. Like belligerent instigators, several insidious forces provoke this battle.

Forces that certainly influence whether a community’s nutritional needs can be met are food production and distribution. Climate change impacts the quality and quantity of provisions. Some farmers are government subsidized to refrain from growing certain plants. Mainstream grocery stores are reluctant to invest in low-income, marginalized communities, fearing crime, employee theft, and shoplifting.

Vitamin and mineral deficiencies link malnutrition and obesity to chronic disease and decreased quality of life. It is therefore unsurprising that the exploding global population threatens communal nutritional trends. The shift from rural to urban living leads to massive growth in cities and communities, which mounts the burden of chronic diet-related diseases and health-care costs.

State and local governments are struggling to provide basic health and human services to their citizens. We are amid a growing health-care crisis, made apparent in the face of a growing pandemic. Health-care systems are overwhelmed by a multitude of factors. Homelessness rates soar as gentrification, in the guise of revitalization, deteriorates an already-upheaved economy. Our criminal justice system too often promotes exclusion and conformity over inclusion and diversity. An expanding educational divide separates communities. Family socioeconomic characteristics remain among the strongest predictors of student achievement. As a result, minorities continue to underperform in standardized testing during the early, formative grade-school years.

Our lack of health screening, preventative care, and health promotion results in continued debilitating illnesses which neutralize our life journey and prevent us from reaching the greatness for which we are destined. Discussed above are just a few variables in the epic battle for optimal health, wellness, and greatness. And yet, a rose continues to rise from the concrete.

Young leaders in the arts and sciences, mathematics, religion, business, finance, and athletics are being equipped to seize the mantle. They are learning about their past, about generosity, and about forging a new narrative toward a brighter future. The majority of the youth today are uniting and challenging old stereotypes and cultural norms. They demand change.

Indeed, there is still beauty amid the ashes. Joy and hope pour from each heart; a garment of praise and gratitude is revealed. The resiliency of the human spirit remains on full display. It is within our power to better ourselves and our world using health and nutrition.

A healthy lifestyle transforms the individual. It involves the food we consume, the exercise we exert, the self-reflection we perform, and the restorative peace we achieve by living each day