Food Addiction Acceptance

         I recently traveled to Houston, Texas to attend the American Association of Diabetes Educators (AADE) conference to present my work, The Side Effects of Exercise as a First line of Defense Against Type 2 Diabetes. During my down time, I took advantage of every single minute to explore the city and experience new places, new foods and meet new people. On my last morning there, I explored the Rice Village district and stumbled upon a used book store. I love used book stores and for some reason I was feeling drawn into this one (or maybe I just needed a break from the oppressive Houston heat lol).
       I wandered in and naturally fell in love with the smell of old books, all the little alcoves and rooms dedicated to a particular subject and the peaceful quiet that is only found in bookstores and libraries. I flitted from room to room, blissfully skimming the shelves, when my eyes fell upon Cravings: How I Conquered Food by Judy Collins. This book has been on my list of must-reads for over a year! My heart swelled with excitement as I reached for it, a feeling of kismet washing over me, this very book was meant for me. I gingerly lifted the book off the shelf, happiness mounting, feeling it's smooth jacket, allowing elation to build as I prepared to read the first few words, when all of a sudden upon opening the book my heart sank, tears swelled up in my eyes, and profound sadness enveloped me.
          What could possibly have happened within a matter of seconds to cause such a drastic change?Well, I opened the book to find a postcard sized, laminated, handwritten note with colorful doodles that read: "Be your own kind of beautiful". One might be delighted to find such a note from a stranger in a book, and on most occasions I would too, but let's put this into the context into which it belongs. This book is about addiction, a life long, full blown addiction that spanned decades. An addiction that caused very real physical and psychological health problems. An addiction that interfered with relationships. An addiction that control her life. There is nothing beautiful about addiction.
        While I understand the person who placed this note in this particular book was most likely trying to instill some body positivity in the potential reader and came from a place of trying to uplift a stranger, this highlights a very big problem in the United States: food addiction is not taken seriously and those suffering from it are being encouraged to love their bodies and themselves just as they are ... even though they are clearly unhealthy, sick with an addiction and perhaps crying out for help. Would anybody think it's ok to place a similar note in a book about beating drug addiction? Is anybody telling drug addicts to be their own kind of beautiful within their addiction? Is anybody telling drugs addicts to keep shooting up even though it is killing them? No, of course not. Yet, when it comes to food, the body, and obesity society is encouraging unhealthy, sick people (especially women, I would argue) to continue on in their food addiction and sickness. That is exactly what this does note does. It encourages a person who picked up this book in order to get help and better understand their addiction to not see themselves as sick. It encourages the potential reader to think the problem is with society and not an addiction within themselves.
        Within the first few pages of this book, I came upon this passage:

"I once was telling a seriously overweight friend that one of our mutual friends had died of alcoholism, literally drinking himself to death. 'Thank God I never got into that!" she said, congratulating herself. She is a bright woman, and yet she was unable to associate her own problem - morbid obesity - with the illness of addiction to alcohol that had killed our friend"

        Somehow the lines between body positivity and food addiction have become blurred, or perhaps the raw truth is that we as a society are not ready to admit that we are a nation of addicts who are literally eating ourselves to death while at the same time being told to embrace our own kind of beautiful as we lead a lesser quality of life, slowly kill ourselves, and lead the next generation down the same path of addiction. Type 2 diabetes is not beautiful, heart disease is not beautiful, depression is not beautiful, early death is not beautiful, not being able to run around with your grandchildren due to morbid obesity is not beautiful. What IS beautiful is loving yourself enough to admit that you are an addict and working towards creating a reasonably healthy (not perfect!) body ... at whatever size and shape that looks like (remember there is no perfect size or weight!).
        If I were to write a note to put in a book like this it would read: You are a beautiful soul who is IMPORTANT to the people around you, they NEED you to be here and be present. This addiction is YOURS to beat, one day at a time. You are WORTHY of a long, healthy life. 

Counting Steps - Exercise or not?

       I am often asked "How many steps per day do I need to take to lose weight?"... and each time my heart silently cries and I scream in my head about how this current obsession with counting steps is in reality a fuzzy feel good, band-aid type quick fix, rather than an actual solution to obesity and obesity related health issues.
       The current culture of counting steps began with the arrival of fitness tracking watches and the studies that followed. One is generally considered to be sedentary if they take less than 5,000 steps per day and highly active if they take more than 12,500 steps per day. Somehow, 10,000 steps per day became the magic number and daily goal to achieve good health and/or lose weight. But what has been left out of the conversation is the quality of steps taken. The truth is that not all steps are equal. In order to discuss the quality of steps, we must first understand the difference between physical activity and exercise.

My training zones chart. 

          Physical activity is any body "movement that is carried out by the skeletal muscles that requires energy", such as turning the page of a book or walking to your car. Exercise is "planned, structured, repetitive and intentional movement intended to improve or maintain physical fitness. Exercise is a subcategory of physical activity". Examples of exercise include a planned brisk walk, swimming, and weight lifting.
        There is significant research proving that all physical activity is good for our overall well-being and health (less sitting, move moving!). However, it is exercise that will help improve our cardiorespiratory fitness, muscular strength fitness, muscular endurance fitness, flexibility fitness, body composition and help prevent disease. Therefore, if one wants to lose weight (change their body composition) and improve their heart health while preventing or reversing disease (cardiorespiratory fitness) it is important to not only increase our physical activity but more importantly to incorporate exercise into our daily lives and make sure that part of the 10,000 steps per day are exercise steps, not just physical activity steps.
        How do we know if the steps we are taking are physical activity steps or exercise steps? Exercise steps are easy to spot - they raise your heart rate into your training zone in a meaningful way for at least 10 minutes at a time. In order to discover your training zones, simply subtract your age from 220 to locate your maximum heart rate, example: 220 - 46 = 174. Therefore, 174 heart beats per minute (BPM) is my maximum heart rate. The chart above breaks down my BPM's into training zones. When my physical activity raises my heart rate to 87 BMPs I am at 50% of my maximum heart rate, or in training zone 1 and this would be considered a low exercise (yoga, slow walking). As the exercise becomes more intense, you'll enter into higher training zones. For example, running raises my heart rate into zones 4 and 5. The higher the zone you are working in, the greater the health benefits.
       Currently exercise recommendations are to achieve a minimum of 150 minutes per week of low to moderate exercise (zones 1 and 2) or 75 minutes per week of vigorous exercise (zones 3 and 4). So, simply make sure that part of your 10,000+ daily steps are exercise steps and then yes, counting steps will help you lose weight!

Obesity makes your world smaller

        I've been saying for a very long time that we need to stop focusing on what the body looks like and instead start focusing on what the body can do. So what does that mean? It means that health can be achieved or not achieved at various sizes. There is no perfect BMI, no perfect number on the scale, no perfect way to look. As we shift the discussion of health and obesity, we should be looking at the totality of an individuals life. First we need to look at the important numbers: A1C, cholesterol, blood pressure, resting heart rate, cardiac risk factor, hormone and vitamin levels, physical activity levels, etc...  and secondly, we need to look at what the individual can or cannot do, or rather their quality of life. Quality of life includes both their physical abilities and their psychological state. Once all of these things are examined, we can get a clearer picture of a person's sate of health.

         This quote from Roxane Gay's book, Hunger, is a great example of how obesity is affecting her quality of life and making her world smaller. There are things she wants to do, but she cannot. Really think about that for a moment. If being obese is stopping her from doing the things she wants to do, then it is unhealthy and that has nothing to do with what her body looks like, but rather what her body simply cannot do ... because it is sick and unhealthy.
      Obesity affects our quality of life in many ways, each one making our world smaller. Over the years, I have spoken with many woman struggling with obesity, these are some of the things I have heard:

July 2019 - A 3 mile hike at King/Benson's reserve in
Rhode Island revealed this amazing view known as
"Spruce Row". Simply breathtaking. 

• "I don't go to the beach anymore because I am uncomfortable and embarrassed. My husband takes our children to the beach and I stay home. I used to love the beach."
• "My friends go to concerts and to see shows at the theater. They always invite me, but I always come up with an excuse as to why I can't go. The real reason I don't go is because I'm afraid I want be able to fit in the seats."
• "At parties, I sneak sweets into the bathroom where I eat them alone."

       When we focus on the important health numbers and what our bodies can do, the bottom line is this: if you are obese but your numbers are within safe ranges and you honestly are physically able to do all the things you want to do, then rock on with your badass self! However, if you are obese and your numbers are not in safe ranges and/or you are physically unable to do the things you want to do, then you are physically and psychologically unhealthy and that needs to change. The good news is that the body is remarkably resilient and when you begin to focus on creating health, you can reverse much of the damage done to the body by obesity, including once again making your world as big and grand as you want it to be. After all, you are important, you are enough most of all you are worthy of a healthy, long, high quality life!