Ho Xi Ping was in the hospital for the fourth time in one year. He could not believe it. Five years before he was considered the healthiest person in his company of 5,000 workers and probably one of the healthiest persons in his city. He knew this last fact because he won the city marathon for his age group in record time. However, as he lay in the hospital bed he began to think about many events, which had developed over the past five years. Shortly after winning this marathon his wife had been killed in a car accident and then his company had laid off 4000 workers, on of whom was him. All of this had occurred in the space of 6 months. Needless to say he was devastated and depressed. He quit his daily exercises, starting eating a lot more and starting drinking a lot beer. Before this time he had rarely drank beer and if he did it was a very small amount. Why was he in the hospital? He had Diabetes.
This life style caused him to gain over several years 30 or more kilograms.
He did not feel well with all of this weight and the newly diagnosed Diabetes made him feel worse. Despite what the doctors did his Diabetes was very hard to control. He could not understand why. Over the past year he had put on an additional 10 kilograms so that now his weight was well over 100 kilograms. When he walked even a few steps he stared getting short of breath. What was he going to do? He used to be the picture of good health. Now he was the picture of poor health.
During this fourth hospital stay a friend of his came into the hospital and was talking with him. Ho Xi Ping’s friend noticed that he was depressed and began talking with him about this. Ho Xi Ping told him that he had never gotten over the death of his wife and the loss of his job. Plus the drinking made him even more depressed over the years. This was especially so because he spent a lot of his money, which he could have, used on their one daughter. She was now 17 and wanted to go to college next year but Ho Xi Ping had no money to help his daughter because he had drinking too much alcohol.
Ho Xi Ping’s friend suggested that he needed something that money could not buy or drinking alcohol could bring. Ho Xi Ping was almost out of money and drinking alcohol was only a very bad habit. He was ready to listen to his friend. He also wanted to loose weight so he could see if he could control his Diabetes better.
Ho Xi Ping’s friend told him that Jesus Christ could provide meaning in his life and give him the power and strength to overcome his drinking habit. Ho Xi Ping was very interested in knowing more about this Jesus Christ. He had seen his friends life changed over the past several years and his friend told him that this was because he had asked Jesus Christ to come into his life to take control of his life. He told Ho Xi Ping that he had asked Jesus Christ to save him from his sins. He also explained that sins were the wrong doings that all of us do before God.
Ho Xi Ping had learned something that many Diabetics never learn. Loosing weight is the main way to control Diabetes. This is much better than any medicine, including. Why is this? Diabetes responds well to exercise. This is because exercise allows the body to use sugar or glucose much better. How does this happen? Well it happens in several ways. First, it happens in that exercise helps us to loose weight. People who are overweight people do not use their insulin their body makes very well. Why is this? Insulin is the hormone the body makes to help us use sugar or glucose. Sugar or glucose is what the body uses to make energy so we can walk, run, exercise and everything else that requires energy. When we have too little insulin the body’s blood sugar or glucose goes up. This happens because insulin helps the sugar or glucose to move into the inside of our body’s cells. It is inside our cells where energy is made from the sugar or glucose. Thus not having insulin allows the blood sugar to go up because it cannot get into the cell very well. It is this high level of blood sugar, which causes the problems of diabetes.
Fat in the body causes the body to also not allow the body to use sugar or insulin very well. How does this happen? Simply put fat causes the cell’s in the body to not be able to use the insulin hormone very well and then the cell’s of the body cannot use as much sugar or glucose. The result is the same as if the body had no insulin, that is the blood sugar rises and all of the complications of Diabetes develops in the kidneys, eyes, blood vessels and nerves of the legs. The difference though is that when a person is fat, giving the person more insulin will not help them to use the insulin better. In fact in fat people the insulin itself which is extra appears to cause harm.
Thus the great importance of exercise and weight loss. Exercise helps the body’s cells to use insulin better and thus the sugar of the body better. Also with less fat around the insulin and thus the sugar is used much better. The real question is how exercise is enough?
Recent studies show that exercising 20-30 minutes 3 times a week is helpful. This can be riding a bike, walking or running. However, you need to be able to exercise hard enough to get up a sweat. If you know how to take your pulse of your heart in your wrist then here is a good rule of thumb. Take your pulse at rest. Ask a doctor or a nurse friend how to do this. Chinese for centuries have known how to use the pulse to assess many types of illness. Say for example your resting pulse is 75 beats per minute. Then the goal with exercise is to get the pulse up over one and a half times normal for most of the time you are exercising or about 115 beats per minute or more after you finishing exercising, in the case of the person with a resting pulse of 75 beats per minute. Unless you are a very well trained athlete then you should not get your exercise pulse over two times. In the case of the person with a resting heart rate of 75 beats per minute that would not be over 150 beats per minute during the exercise or just after the end of exercise.
This level of exercise will allow you to really challenge your body so that you can use you insulin and blood sugar much better. This will keep your blood sugar down and in much better control. Studies of Diabetes in the 1990’s show that if a person can keep the average blood sugar to normal then they reduce the risk of developing Diabetic complications of eye, kidney and blood vessel disease by up to 60%. This is a major breakthrough in medicine.
What happens if you exercise but yet you do not loose weight? That often happens. This is what happened to Ho Xi Ping. He had gotten out of the hospital, for the fourth time, and started to try to loose weight, but could not. He could not understand why. This is an important point in weight lose. It is much easier to put on weight than take it off. Why is this? When we eat we take in protein (such as meat), carbohydrates (such as bread) and fat. The body only stores fat. However, if we take in extra protein and carbohydrate it is also stored as fat. You may say what difference does this make? It makes a lot of difference. This is because each kilogram of fat has about twice the amount of calories as does protein and carbohydrate. God made fat to be a very efficient storage mechanism. Second, when you go to exercise and loose weight you must remember that you are also use up the calories you ate today in addition to what you ate yesterday. Thus loosing weight is very hard work.
Ho Xi Ping started to exercise up to an hour day and really cut back his calories. He began to loose about two to three kilograms of fat a month. After a year he had lost 25 or more kilograms and felt much better. Moreover his blood sugar was normal without any medicines. He was so happy. However, he said that what really made him happy was his new found joy in Jesus Christ. In fact he says this was the real reason he lost weight.
Ho Xi Ping’s friend shared with him a section written to the people of the city of Rome about 2,000 years ago by a man named Paul and recorded in the Bible. This section of the Bible says, ‘I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us (Romans 8.32).’ This section went on to say, ‘And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose (Romans 8.28)…What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all-how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?
Ho Xi Ping knew that he had suffered, especially when his wife was killed in a car accident. He also knew he had suffered because of his own sin in his life. But he had also learned that his present sufferings were not to be compared with the glory of God to revealed in him through Jesus Christ. He was glad to know that God works all things for good to them that love God and are called according to his purpose. He was so comforted by this. All things, not just some things are worked according to God’s good purposes. What really challenged Ho Xi Ping was the concept that God did not even spare his own son so that we might have eternal life through Jesus Christ. After his wife died and he had his one daughter he could not even think the thought that he would loose his daughter. However, it was this one thought which caused him to release just what God had done when he gave up his only son Jesus Christ so that we might have eternal life. This was an amazing thought. What a great love God must have for mankind. How could Jesus dying on the Cross do this for us? Because when Jesus died on the Cross he took on himself all of the sins or wrong doings of mankind so that man would not have to stand before God and be convicted of wrongdoings.
What a great love God has for us. This great love caused Ho Xi Ping to give his life to Jesus Christ one night just shortly after he had been release from the hospital. His friend had come over to his house to see how he was doing. They talked about his drinking, depression, being overweight and his daughter. His friend said Jesus would give him the power to overcome all of these things. However, he must trust in Jesus and turn his life over to Jesus as his Savior and Lord. Saving him from his sin and allowing Jesus to be Lord of his life. Ho Xi Ping wanted to do just that.
His friend told him this other verse written to the people in Rome. ‘If you profess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your mouth that God has raised him from the dead you will be saved. For it is with the mouth that we profess that Jesus is Lord and it is with the heart that we believe that God has raised Jesus from the dead (Romans 10.9,10). Ho Xi Ping believed this verse and prayed this prayer that night with his friend. He said, ‘Dear Lord, I know that I am a sinner and I know that Jesus died for me on the Cross to take my sin from me. I believe that Jesus after he died was buried and then rose to new life to show that he was Lord over sin and death. ‘ Congratulations, if you have prayed this prayer you are a new believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and will live forever with God in his glory.