Our Next Steps: New Strength

By Andre Gilbert

Life has a lot to do with having energy. Our body being able to produce good energy from what we take in on a daily basis is critical to the health of our body, mind, and spirit; they're all linked whether we acknowledge that fact or not. It doesn't matter if you're poor or rich, what color, what race, what culture, or what religion""we all have the same natural body, and it needs natural sources of energy. Author- I've given a bird's eye view of where we are as planet and species because knowing is half the battle. I've also lit up the path in the right direction because doing something about it is the other half. It's better to crawl in the right direction than the run in the wrong. Andre Gilbert has developed a literary contribution that delves into serious issues that distort the emotional and physical health of humanity today. Simply put, the doors are opened into worlds that are seldom addressed and hardly ever resolved. Hippocrates Health Institute, which I have had the privilege to direct since 1980, like Andre, believe that one must make significant change in attitude and lifestyle to become whole happy and well. When using this book as a guide to reformulate and organize your life, the results will be magnificent. Th ere is one thing for sure, few people have been as spot on as Gilbert in his approach to wellbeing. Be well, ""Brian R. Clement, PhD, LN, Directo

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 13, 2019
• ISBN: 9781642997330

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Our Next Steps

New Strength

Andre Gilbert

Copyright © 2019 by Andre Gilbert

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

True Happiness Can Only Be Found Within Yourself

Lifestyle and Happiness

The Food Trap

Negative Factors: Deforming Our World

Alive, Healthy, and Happy

Body Talk

Satisfaction

Natural Advantage

Control

The G Factor

Act of Compassion

Priority and Responsibility

The Individual and Society

Happiness Breakdown

Transition

Suggestions for Starting Out

Off-Subject Suggestions

Foreword

First and foremost, I want to give thanks to God for guiding me through this whole process. I also would like to give thanks to all my family and friends who showed me love through difficult times. They had my back, whether it was little gestures to help or big ones. Thank you and I love you. As you read this book, the goal is for you to take into account the facts given, check out my take on the facts, and come to your own honest conclusion without being swayed by tradition, popularity, or group-think. God speed.

Introduction: From the Outside Looking In

From many years of observing the human race, we have learned that our bodies, like our planet, critically need certain elements to develop and realize their full potential. Also, our bodies can only take a certain amount of abuse before they are permanently damaged or die. Human beings are beautiful and intelligent beings and are perfectly designed for the Earth without all the abuse to either. The human race, however, is now on a serious health decline that affects every part of our lives. There are some critical changes that must be made to revive our health and the world in which we live. These changes will ensure a brighter future for us and our families.

First and most importantly, all human beings must know that they are here for an important reason. God hasn’t made any mistakes. God teaches us through the trials and errors of life. Without faith and energy, the messages go unnoticed, and the process is then repeated until we get the message. The more faith and energy we have, the clearer God’s messages are, and we begin to progress more as a whole.

Next, health must become a high priority for everyone. As we already know, everyone must consume food and water to have the energy to stay alive. What we’ve been discovering is how incredibly important and dangerous what we’re consuming really is. What we consume affects how well our body functions (including mentally) which, in turn, affects how we solve problems that arise and adapt to changes which are constant.

Alcohol is the perfect example. When a human being consumes something as poisonous as alcohol, the effects of the alcohol on that person’s overall health are immediate and obvious. The person affected by alcohol looks differently, feels differently, behaves differently, and makes decisions differently. These changes are so immediate and severe that they become obvious with little observation.

Well, very similar changes take place with everything that a person consumes. The difference with unhealthy food and drink is the effects appear much slower and are a lot less obvious. These changes are so slow, they go unnoticed for months or even years. Most times, these negative changes are wrongly attributed to one’s personality or something else entirely like the stress of everyday life when the human body and mind is well equipped for stress if healthy. These slow changes come as a result of constantly consuming unnatural/modified substances that disturb or change the body’s natural processes to adapt to stress and function properly.

A person’s diet controls all the body’s functions, including hormones and energy production. This is important because of how sensitive our body is to hormones. All unnatural hormone changes (too much or too little) cause great mental and physical confusion. This confusion is dangerous and will cause mood swings, aggression, depression, certain cancers, unnatural accelerated physical growth, unnatural decreased physical growth, increases in impulsive decision making, and premeditated violent aggression.

Energy production is also critical. When our body produces energy efficiently, enjoyable life is possible. The more energy you have, the more alive you will feel. Conversely, if you have low energy you will feel less alive, more vulnerable to stress (reaction to change), and more susceptible to depression.

These unnatural changes caused by poor diet can lead to poor judgment and decisions. This is bad enough for the individual because of the damage and pain it brings to his or her life and loved ones, but the damage on society is minimal. However, if a leader of a country or large entity (company/group) has poor judgment or makes poor decisions, the damage is then multiplied by the number of people that he or she leads, which can be devastating. So all individuals in a leadership position must be required to live an extraordinarily healthy lifestyle (an organic natural diet, regular exercise, proper rest, and alone time to relax and reflect) because their health will impact their decision making, which will impact our world.

The key to the best leadership is supreme health for those in leadership positions. How their lifestyle impacts their decisions is explained more simply in this book. The human species must remember that most of what we will become physically and mentally is created by our diets and lifestyles. Females begin creating our children at the moment of conception. In actuality, both the male and female create a blueprint for their child even before conception by the way they live because any abnormalities or developments we acquire in our genetic makeup may pass on to our children.

Our hospitals must also begin to change; they are confusing at this point and are being run like businesses instead of health facilities. Even doctors are realizing that they’ve put in all those years of hard work in medical school to save lives, only to be given synthetic tools to treat illnesses but in turn cause other illnesses. There are now some special doctors who are delivering the ever-so-important message of prevention and treatment through healthy diet, physical activity, and a more natural approach to what we call medicine.

Some companies employ researchers to sit in laboratories all day and experiment on different creatures in an effort to somehow trick nature. Some of these companies have a total disregard for the fact that the human body is all natural and can only be healed naturally. Most of these companies create poisons that solve one problem while creating others; this is somehow acceptable at this point to the human race.

Due to certain factors like poor diets, pollution, critical injuries, and the age of the individual, synthetic drugs and surgeries are still sometimes necessary. A healthy diet and natural supplementation are, in most cases, our best tools and should be high on the list of options. When it comes to babies and children, the pediatrician’s advice should be followed in conjunction with a healthy diet. A person should not be afraid to tell the doctor that he or she would like to go as natural as possible and maybe the doctor can help. The treatments and cures for the human body’s conditions have all been found in a healthy or natural diet and lifestyle. This approach takes faith, persistence, and patience to see results.

Some of our plants have been known to target specific conditions and thus are natural medicine. The doctors of the future should be more similar to nutritionists or naturalists, and our pharmaceutical companies should be like botanical research facilities. Remember, it took a few people doing the wrong things and a lot of people either following or doing nothing at all to get our world confused about these important issues. Now, it will take a lot of people doing the right things to get our world educated on these serious life issues.

The answers to helping and changing our world will be found in helping and changing our families and ourselves. The change should always start with a healthy, happy, and functioning individual and then move on to the family and beyond. Those of us with the least or in the worst situations will need the most amounts of faith and energy to help ourselves and the ones we love.

An a amazing view of one of the many different types of human cells displaying a world all it’s own.

Amazing at a Glance

The Body: Planet You

The human body is more than meets the eye. We are made of approximately fifty to one hundred trillion cells with about two hundred specialized forms fulfilling very important works in us, each being held together to provide us with form—sort of like pixels form an image.

Cells are the basic functional units of all tissues. What we know about these cells is complicated, and so much more is unknown. To give you a general idea of one cell in the human body, it would be round (they have many shapes), it would have twenty different organelles (the organs of the cell), and those organelles would be performing tasks. The whole process has been described as an automated factory.

I like to think of them as people, our body as a whole being a planet, and all those trillions of cells are working together for the best world (you), given the circumstances you provide.

Here’s a little detail into the cell, its organelles, and the functions they perform. The nucleus is the cell’s control center (the brain of the cell), containing chromatin and most of the cell’s DNA. Nucleoplasm is the fluid within the nucleus in which nucleolus and chromosomes float. The nuclear membrane is a two-layered membrane with pores through which substances enter and leave the nucleus. The nucleolus is the region at the center of the nucleus that plays an important role in ribosome production. The ribosome is the small structure that functions in protein assembly. The vacuole is a sac that stores and transports ingested materials, waste products, and water. The mitochondrion is the site of fat and sugar digestion in the cell and which produces energy. Microtubules are part of the cell’s cytoskeleton, which aids movement of substances through the watery cytoplasm. Cytoplasm is the jellylike fluid in which organelles float. Cytoplasm is primarily water but also contains enzymes and amino acids. The centriole is composed of two cylinders of tubules and is essential to cell reproduction.

The lysosome produces powerful enzymes that aid in digestion and excretion of substances and worn-out organelles. The smooth endoplasmic reticulum is the network of tubes and flat, curved sacs that helps transport materials through the cell, site of calcium storage, and the main location of fat metabolism. The peroxisome makes enzymes that oxidize some toxic chemicals. Rough endoplasmic reticulum are folded membranes extending throughout cell, studded with the ribosome, help transport materials through the cell, and are the site of much protein manufacture. The cytoskeleton is the internal framework of the cell, comprised of microfilaments and hollow microtubules. The Golgi complex is an organelle that processes and packages proteins produced in rough endoplasmic reticulum for release at cell membranes.

Cell membranes enclose contents of the cell, regulating the flow of substances into and out of the cell. The microfilament provides support for the cell, sometimes linked to the cell’s outer membrane. Microvilli are projections found on some cells; and they increase the cell’s surface area, helping absorption of nutrients. Secretory vesicle are sacs that contain various substances, such as enzymes, that are produced by the cell and secreted at the cell membrane. Secretions are released from the cell by exytosis. A vesicle merges with the cell membrane and releases its contents.

Fifty to seventy billion cells die a day in the average adult in a process called apoptosis (programmed cell death). New cells are made as the body makes itself new again with the nutrients we provide. There is a natural balance to apoptosis; damaged cells can become defective in the process of apoptosis. An excessive amount of apoptosis causes diseases and disorders; likewise, an insufficient amount of apoptosis can result in uncontrolled cell proliferation like cancer. Damaging cells with poisons can upset that balance, causing all types of diseases and disorders.

There is a very beautiful and complicated world within us all.

True Happiness Can Only Be Found Within Yourself

Happiness is a mental, physical, and spiritual state of being that is produced by your body for your body. No amount of money, material possessions, or close relationships will ever make a person truly happy unless the body is healthy enough to adapt to the stresses that come along with life. The body is the most amazingly beautiful, efficient, mind-blowing, complicated, yet simple creation. Most importantly, the body is the most advanced piece of artwork you will ever own in your lifetime—ever.

We can either use this beautiful creation of mind, body, and spirit to our advantage by accepting its natural needs or be at a disadvantage by disregarding them. At any given time, there are trillions of things going on in your body. At the same time, it’s simple to keep up with because everything you need for it is here on Earth. Each person has God’s love; oxygen; water; plants (vegetables, fruits, grains, herbs, nuts, seeds, spices, etc.); and a good amount of space for physical activity. The last piece of the puzzle to help you find true happiness is accepting your true nature.

Amazing at a Glance

Headquarters: The Nervous System

The nervous system is a complicated, brilliantly efficient, and extraordinarily amazing system of information communication. The nervous system is broken down into smaller systems, depending on function and location. The main two are the central nervous system (brain, spinal cord) and the peripheral nervous system (all other nerves found in the body). The brain is protected by the skull bone and a thin layer of fluid and tissue called meninges. The spinal cord is protected by meninges and vertebrae (a bone system that runs down our back). The brain is also broken into sections depending on function. The peripheral nervous system breaks down into smaller systems and divisions—the motor division, somatic nervous system, autonomic nervous system, the sympathetic division, the parasympathetic division, and the sensory division.

Inside the amazing world of the nervous system are polyribosomes, ribosomes, nuclei, nucleoli, membranes, microtubules, mitochondria, dendrites, axon, axon hillock, microfilaments, Golgi apparatus, synaptic vesicles, synaptic clefts, axon terminals, myelin sheaths, and synapses all communicating through electrical signals called action potentials and chemical messengers called neurotransmitters. Neurons and glial cells are also part of that massive world.

There are about 100 billion neurons in our nervous system. We’re said to have about one trillion glial cells in our nervous system that physically and nutritionally support neurons and may play a big role in memory. A neuron is a specialized cell that contains and sends information throughout the brain using electrical and chemical signals through connections called synapses. It’s estimated that there is over 160 trillion synapses (connections between neurons used for communication) in the cortex of the human brain. The Cortex accounts for about 40 percent of the brain’s weight and is largely responsible for cognition—playing a big role in memory, language, perception, thought, intelligence, and consciousness. The nervous system can receive and send information to different parts of the body at speeds of 320 feet per second. That means, if information is sent from the top of your body to the bottom, it will get there about 60 times faster than a second.

Our brain, on average, is 2–3 percent of our body weight but uses up 20 percent of our oxygen supply because of its big workload. Our nervous system helps regulate some critical functions of the body without us having to think about it. Some examples of critical functions are regulating your heartbeat, breathing, digestion, and healing from injury, all at the same time. At the same time, the nervous system is also problem solving; thinking; learning; imagining; feeling (emotions); remembering; making decisions; turning light into objects; turning vibrations into complex sound; and recognizing tastes, smells, and touch. If that’s not amazing, then nothing is.

Lifestyle and Happiness

Why can some of us deal with the stress and pressures of life better than others? The answer is lifestyle. Lifestyle is the way you live on a daily basis. Lifestyle is what you eat and drink, how much you are physically active, your level of mental activity, and what types of physical and mental activity you engage in. The amount of good or bad you take in will determine how well your body is functioning. Your energy level and mood will be determined by how well your body is functioning. Your energy level and mood will determine how you perceive and react to changes in your life. Your perception and reaction to changing circumstances will determine your personality.

Your lifestyle has a lot to do with success at work because work can be a changing, therefore, stressful task. When your body gets the nutrition and physical activity it needs, it can function and perform in stressful situations. God made you that way. Your body sends all kinds of signals to help you think straight and make good decisions under pressure, but your body and mind won’t be able to perform at these high levels if it’s too busy just trying to stay alive because of poor food choices, not enough exercise, and poisoning by all types of toxins.

Going back to the idea of You are what you eat, we have been literally frying, roasting, baking, boiling, toasting, barbequing, microwaving, steaming, and grilling the life out of our foods and ourselves. The problem is that humans have such an adaptive nature, people can get used to almost anything. If a person fell asleep one day and experienced the impact overnight of not taking care of him or herself for one year, they would wake up and go straight to the emergency room.

At that point, work, money, car, house, or anything material wouldn’t matter; the most important thing to that person would be feeling better. However, that adaptive nature allows us to destroy ourselves little by little—adjusting to the unnatural conditions we created, unnaturally bringing down our quality of life. It’s not until we slow down and have that what’s happening to me? moment that we realize there has been a big change in our quality of life. How can we expect our bodies to keep us happy when all our amino acids, electrolytes, vitamins, minerals, oxygen, hormones, and blood cells have to pass through high amounts of acid, toxins, intestinal blockages, clogged blood vessels, and other contaminants to keep us feeling good and healthy? It’s impressive that we can even crack a smile with what we put our bodies through.

It’s no secret that we pass on some of what we are to our children in the form of genes (information for creating certain parts of a human being that is passed from parents to their children). It’s no secret that changes in our DNA (the information of genes organized into instructions to create a human being) are not all random and can be changed by outside influences like food, physical activity, mental activity, pollution, lack of sleep, and stress levels. It’s no secret that people from different countries who live different lifestyles from one another look differently, grow differently, age differently, contract different diseases, and behave differently because of these outside influences. That means that a family who has always been thin can become a heavyset or overweight family over time because of these outside influences or vice versa. Those same types of changes can happen to other characteristics as well, mental and physical.

I believe that our diet plays the biggest role in most illnesses including high blood pressure, diabetes, arthritis, cancer, depression, and heart disease. That means that you are responsible for you. It’s as simple as that. If you treat your body badly, it will treat you badly in the form of low energy, depression, skin problems, and weight issues—all problems caused by unhealthy lifestyles. Even as beautiful and efficient as it is, your body will eventually give in to illness from years of abuse. Don’t blame someone or something else, including family, stress, and work, for your own poor lifestyle decisions. Those things will definitely have an impact on your decisions and how you live, but in the end, your decisions are yours; it’s you versus you.

We are the sum of our lifestyles with our DNA playing its role. Different lifestyle conditions affect different people in different percentages. Out of the lifestyle circumstances, beliefs (God), nature (diet), up-bringing, social surroundings, entertainment, and environment; God and nature (diet) has a way of balancing, organizing, and providing understanding to all the rest, so that changes can be made for the greater good in your life and the world in its entirety.

The Food Trap

The way we eat and live now gives me a feeling of being trapped and convinced to eat experimental food-like products. Many of our food products are