Porkchop on a Mission ….

Porkchop on a Mission ….

Well here we are again for those 135 people who like us on facebook! For the rest of the masses let me introduce myself…I am Angela Collingwood writing under my auspicious code name Porkchop! I currently work for Integrated Chinese Medicine Holdings Ltd. here in Hong Kong for the past 12 years and I simply love it. Suffice it to say I have a learned a little thing or two about Chinese Medicine in that time. I won’t bore you here with science and definitions so you can visit our website www.shen-nong.com for that. I am the lucky recipient of a blog all my own. Now my friends who will be forced to subscribe to this are now groaning because I will need to explain to them what an RSS feed is and how they must write in an occasional comment or two to make me look popular and keep me employed!

Why Porkchop ??? Yes… well the Chinese have a wonderful way of being BRUTALLY honest unlike Westerners who like to sugar coat and ignore or deny certain obvious facts! I myself am of the deny variety. Anyway I digress…. I have been known in the office under a few nick names… Wei Sic mau (pronounced why sick meow) translated as fat cat and of course fondly Porkchop. As you may have guessed I am not of the skinny variety and 5 years later still trying to shed that additional 30lbs of baby weight that I swear is just poor genetics!

This brings us to this moment in time and my quest for an interesting human experiment. Everyone is looking at healthy lifestyle these days but yet we are in epidemic proportions of obesity as defined by the National institute of Health in the United States. This does not only apply to Westerners as Asians countries are not exempt from this epidemic with the introduction of fast food chains. Why we care about this, is that diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, various cancers, respiratory disorders in sleep, gallbladder disease and osteoarthritis which are linked to obesity will simply bankrupt our health care system worldwide if it progresses unchecked and kill us quicker but we don’t seem to care about that part as much as the losing money part. Our generation will not live as long as our parents generation for the first time in history because of our obesity. Because obesity doesn’t seem as dire as say a heart attack….. we deny this will happen to us or don’t attribute it to obesity and a poor lifestyle. Therefore, obesity is a sly killer that creeps up and lands a fatal blow in one stroke, literally and figuratively!. Most of us including me are still ignoring this alarming news. Ironic as this as serious as SARS where we all moved to action within weeks to search for a cure b/c it was so fatal. In reality, obesity is a far bigger killer.

So what will it take to achieve a healthy lifestyle??? We all know that eating healthy and exercising are important. Blah, Blah Blah! Nothing new so why aren’t I doing it? I believe it goes deeper psychologically then that. Society still hasn’t come around and demanded it as a right entitled to by all human beings. It doesn’t take precedence over my many jobs or deadlines and quite frankly society is ok with that. Therefore being healthy is a recreational activity to be done on my own time. But what would happen if you weren’t allowed to go to work until you exercised 30 minutes a day? Or what would happen if bonuses were based on how healthy you remained and the health care costs you saved your company? What if I got cash back for eating vegetables! An interesting tactic to employ for my children! Maybe I’ll start a vegetable/ IPAD exchange program.

What the heck does this have to do with Chinese medicine? Well the yin yang principle upon which it is largely based is about creating balance in all aspects of life and the universe. I am about to set out on an epic journey to see if a little Chinese medicine and philosophy can go the distance and help me mind shift into that state of zen…. ( Friends don’t laugh!)….

Home » Porkchop on a Mission ….
Porkchop on a Mission ….
Published by rose On January 11, 2012 2 Responses
Porkchop on a Mission ….

Well here we are again for those 135 people who like us on facebook! For the rest of the masses let me introduce myself…I am Angela Collingwood writing under my auspicious code name Porkchop! I currently work for Integrated Chinese Medicine Holdings Ltd. here in Hong Kong for the past 12 years and I simply love it. Suffice it to say I have a learned a little thing or two about Chinese Medicine in that time. I won’t bore you here with science and definitions so you can visit our website www.shen-nong.com for that. I am the lucky recipient of a blog all my own. Now my friends who will be forced to subscribe to this are now groaning because I will need to explain to them what an RSS feed is and how they must write in an occasional comment or two to make me look popular and keep me employed!

Why Porkchop ??? Yes… well the Chinese have a wonderful way of being BRUTALLY honest unlike Westerners who like to sugar coat and ignore or deny certain obvious facts! I myself am of the deny variety. Anyway I digress…. I have been known in the office under a few nick names… Wei Sic mau (pronounced why sick meow) translated as fat cat and of course fondly Porkchop. As you may have guessed I am not of the skinny variety and 5 years later still trying to shed that additional 30lbs of baby weight that I swear is just poor genetics!

This brings us to this moment in time and my quest for an interesting human experiment. Everyone is looking at healthy lifestyle these days but yet we are in epidemic proportions of obesity as defined by the National institute of Health in the United States. This does not only apply to Westerners as Asians countries are not exempt from this epidemic with the introduction of fast food chains. Why we care about this, is that diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, various cancers, respiratory disorders in sleep, gallbladder disease and osteoarthritis which are linked to obesity will simply bankrupt our health care system worldwide if it progresses unchecked and kill us quicker but we don’t seem to care about that part as much as the losing money part. Our generation will not live as long as our parents generation for the first time in history because of our obesity. Because obesity doesn’t seem as dire as say a heart attack….. we deny this will happen to us or don’t attribute it to obesity and a poor lifestyle. Therefore, obesity is a sly killer that creeps up and lands a fatal blow in one stroke, literally and figuratively!. Most of us including me are still ignoring this alarming news. Ironic as this as serious as SARS where we all moved to action within weeks to search for a cure b/c it was so fatal. In reality, obesity is a far bigger killer.

So what will it take to achieve a healthy lifestyle??? We all know that eating healthy and exercising are important. Blah, Blah Blah! Nothing new so why aren’t I doing it? I believe it goes deeper psychologically then that. Society still hasn’t come around and demanded it as a right entitled to by all human beings. It doesn’t take precedence over my many jobs or deadlines and quite frankly society is ok with that. Therefore being healthy is a recreational activity to be done on my own time. But what would happen if you weren’t allowed to go to work until you exercised 30 minutes a day? Or what would happen if bonuses were based on how healthy you remained and the health care costs you saved your company? What if I got cash back for eating vegetables! An interesting tactic to employ for my children! Maybe I’ll start a vegetable/ IPAD exchange program.

What the heck does this have to do with Chinese medicine? Well the yin yang principle upon which it is largely based is about creating balance in all aspects of life and the universe. I am about to set out on an epic journey to see if a little Chinese medicine and philosophy can go the distance and help me mind shift into that state of zen…. ( Friends don’t laugh!)….

OK I am off for a run and dragging the skinny porkchop with me….