AS FRAIL AS MAHTMA GHANDI; President Museveni’s Radical Weight Loss Program Is Affecting The Way He Is Running The Affairs Of The State

 

AS FRAIL AS MAHTMA GHANDI; President Museveni’s Radical Weight Loss Program Is Affecting The Way He Is Running The Affairs Of The State

president Museveni now resembles Mahtma Ghandi who was also malnourished because of constant fasting

Just around last week president Museveni celebrated his 76^th birthday. When he appeared to make another covid-19 update speech on Sunday, he looked a little jetlagged and much older than the 76 years he clocked.

The television images cast a figure of a man who has done more than eight decades on earth. This deterioration of the Ugandan president is not without reason.

Some conspiracy theorists have tried to claim that president Museveni is actually much older than the age he professes.   

Some of us resist the claim that Museveni is actually older than 80 years because we have followed his growth pattern by looking at his childhood photos and following his school and working history.

When you look at the footages of his swearing in ceremony at the steps of parliament on 29^th January 1986, you really see a man in his mid forties-which makes his claim of being forty-four years in 1986 a correct assertion.

So why has Museveni aged like this?

If you speak to members of the opposition, they will claim political pressure arising from the heat wave of the 2021 elections.

But there is a scientific reason to explain the trend.

Look here; president Museveni himself claims that at one time he had gained 105 kilograms of weight. And when he became health conscious he started a crush program to cut the weight.

Mahtma Ghandi was so frail because of fasting 

And indeed, according to him, he has so far managed to cut the weight as low as 76 kilograms!. This obviously shows that he has lost over 30 kilograms which almost 30% of his body weight!

30 kilograms is a lot of weight to an extent that even if a cow was to lose them, there will be immediate invitations for the vet.

While weight is a taboo in most circles, it must also be known that it’s the one that gives us some degree of respectable appearance.

For instance the facial appearance largely depends on the fat that hangs around the skull. When you shade more than 30% of your body weight, you automatically look much older than your biological age.

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

I once accumulated weight from 75 kilograms and rose to 92 kilograms. So I tried to cut it down and embarked on a regimen that involved exercising a lot, not eating lunch, starving myself of supper , avoiding meat products , etc.

But guess what happened.

Of course the jogging was becoming more enjoyable because I was lighter. I even started playing some football with the lads.

But on the negative aspect of it was that I started getting aching knees and joints because I was not taking meat products that would nourish them with the required nutrients.

I started getting weaker, less effective and sickly. While the scales showed that I was losing some fat, my appearance also suffered a huge setback.

I was becoming unrecognizably older. Most people wondered whether I had escaped from prison.

I could have fought on and maintained the same regimen, but the aching knees and sickly feeling compelled me to rethink my weight loss strategy.

I therefore started eating meat, because I realized that my body needed the cholesterol and fat which I was burning while exercising.

I had stopped eating posho because I had realized it as the number one contributor to my increase in weight.

I had reverted to a diet that glorified greens, and light food. But the net effect was that I had become a walking corpse of some sort and weaker than ever.

I was suffering from memory loss probably because of hunger and lack of the necessary food nutrients.

Once in a while I painfully breached my eating discipline and ate some meat and posho and felt very vigorously stronger again.

That’s the time I realized that a balance was needed between controlling weight by adopting measures that don’t hurt my health much further.

So I started eating my meat and my face regained its looks.

The biggest Lesson I leanrt was that not everybody is designed for a small frame of a body. We are naturally born different.

Some of us are born with genes that easily convert food into immediate body mass.

What you need to do in such a situation is to work out that body mass rather than starve the body of the nutrients it needs. Losing 10% of your body weight is understandably safer.

As stated earlier ,President Museveni lost 30% of his body mass, which puts his overall health in jeopardy.

The mistake of starving the body of the food that has the nutritional value it needs to re-energize and renew itself is suicidal.

 When someone wants to cut weight the first thing s/he does is to cut out meat and fat. Yet the body needs those fats to regenerate itself and to boost the body hormones.

President Museveni revealed that he cut his weight by eating a lot of vegetables, less meat or no meat at all etc.

Having lost 30 kilograms already, he has already done well and needs to balance by eating the crucial food nutrients, even if they bring on some weight in the process. Then he can cut it out by exercising regularly. 

REPERCUSSIONS

If he doesn’t eat, then his health will suffer terrible setbacks. The body is like a car. It thrives on what we feed it.

The popular saying that ‘you are what you eat’ is more than accurate. We are indeed what we eat.

If the NRM chairman feeds as well as he should, he will regain his youthful looks again. I have seen people much older than Museveni looking much younger than he is.

I recently saw former super minister in president Obote’s government Chris Rwakasis claim that he is much older than Museveni. But he has just made 80 years of age.

But Rwakasis looks superbly younger than museveni even when he is at 80 years probably because he has maintained a much bigger weight that fits with his body. Former Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda maintained an averagely good body frame because he never attempted to cut it down.

The way forward

It’s not a given that a bigger person is unhealthy

 You can maintain better health by exercising on a bigger body frame. 

President Museveni can look much better with a body frame of around 86 kilograms. Anything less than that will make him look older, weak and less healthy, suffer memory loss etc.. 

By the way museveni now resembles Indian nationalists Mahtma Ghandi who was so frail because of constant fasting. 

Somebody should advise president Museveni not to overindulge in weight loss because its affecting the way he is running the state.

The author Fred Daka Kamwada is a social critic and a blogger

kamwadafred@gmail.com

 

 

 

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