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Monthly Archives: March 2017

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Reject False Fitness, Embrace Health & Happiness

I came of age in the 1980s.  One of the biggest health concerns for teen girls in that decade was eating disorders.  There was a high correlation between eating disorders and females in aesthetic-based industries – models, actresses, musicians, dancers, figure skaters and gymnasts – and it seeped into mainstream America as media elevated them and girls wanted to emulate them.  We, as responsible citizens, began having conversations about promoting healthy body images and pushing back against leaders in these industries who placed pressure on females to conform to an unhealthy, underweight body type.

I wish I could say we’ve learned our lesson and are healthier for it nearly 40 years later.  But, the reality is there has only been more added to the already toxic stew.  Ironically, the fitness industry can be added to the list of bad guys promoting unhealthy body images.  Fitness is supposed to be about health on the inside but it’s often bastardized into being about body-perfect on the outside.  We’re still telling women they should look like Barbie as we did in the 80s, except now we’re supposed to look like Barbie with visible biceps and sculpted abs.  Don’t believe me?  It took me five minutes to find these top headlines on the most popular fitness sites:

  • “Sculpt Your Legs with This 20-Minute Bodyweight Leg Workout” (Fitness Magazine)
  • “The Sexy Legs, Arms and Abs Workout from Jeanette Jenkins” (Fitness Magazine)
  • “How Dakota Johnson Toned Her Legs for Steamy ‘Fifty Shades Darker’ Scenes” (Yahoo Fitness)
  • “Elle Fanning Shows Off Her Toned Abs After Gym Workout” (Yahoo Fitness)
  • “37 Essential Butt-Lifting Moves” (POPSUGAR Fitness)
  • “Get Faster While Burning Belly Fat with this Treadmill Interval Workout” (POPSUGAR Fitness)

Each of these stories is accompanied by photographic “proof” – many of which are likely doctored to exaggerate desired features – of how every woman’s butt, abs, waist, arms or legs should look.  And, as each title suggests, achieving these aesthetic goals is supposed to be the purpose of working out and the measure of whether or not one is fit.

Add to this the reality that social media allows anyone who wants to be a minor celebrity and, voila, we have body-shaming and skinny-bragging all disguised as fitness being hurled in tweets, Facebook posts, snaps, YouTube videos and Instagram pics for thousands of the most vulnerable in our society to absorb.  Can’t exercise or starve your body into conformity?  Then plastic surgery becomes the accepted alternative.  Here’s proof women are taking these messages to heart:

In the 80s, the message was skinny equaled beautiful.  That lie, instead of being erased, has been extended to include more meaningless, yet psychologically damaging, parameters.  In the 90s, the message was a skinny waist and large bust equaled beautiful.  Fast forward to 2017, and the requirements are: skinny waist, large breasts, visibly toned abs with a flat belly, high butt, thigh-gap and toned arms and back.  The message is: if you’re missing any of these aspects, you aren’t fit and you definitely aren’t beautiful.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

Jessica Brown Findlay

In my small corner of the fitness world, I try to remind my readers of this fact.  And I promote others in my industry who fight the good fight with me.  Skip over those skin-deep, skewed articles like the ones I cited above and read these truth-telling fitness stories instead:

  • “Downton Abbey’ Star Opens Up about Eating Disorder” Jessica Brown Findlay, suffering privately from an eating disorder since the age of 14, has decided to make her struggle public, believing it’ll serve the dual purpose of helping herself and others.  She says she’s finally learned that she’s, “…not going to be a better actor if I’m a dress size smaller.”
  • “Lies the Fitness Industry Tells Plus-Size Women” Author of the upcoming book Big Fit Girl, Louise Green says, “Plus size women feel fitness isn’t for them.  And it creates this myth that fitness isn’t approachable because we can’t see ourselves.”

  • Cassie Ho

    “If Social Media is Toxic for You, Do These 4 Things” Cassie Ho, creator of Blogilates, tells us, “Sometimes I’ll find myself seeing pictures of other people and start to question my own body and worth. Like I always tell you, comparison is the thief of joy.”

  • Kelli at FitnessBlender

    “Fitness Doesn’t Have to Be Complicated” Kelli of FitnessBlender reminds us, “Fitness looks different on everyone! Remember your body is constantly changing and try not to tear yourself apart as it does so.”

Fitness doesn’t have a body shape, number on the scale or dress size.  Fitness is a way of life and you can’t see it by looking at someone any more than you can taste, hear, touch or smell it.  Until we all understand and accept this, many of us will continue to chase an unhealthy, unachievable, unsustainable lie.  You and I can’t stop others from believing the lie.  But we can stop believing it ourselves.  Start with you – reject the lie, embrace true fitness.

 

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Are You Trading Gluten for Mercury & Arsenic?

Gluten free (GF) is the food fad that just won’t die.  Perhaps more studies like this one printed in the publication Epidemiology, which shows people on a GF diet have higher levels of mercury and arsenic in their bodies, will finally help put the final nail in the coffin of this misguided phenomenon.

First, let me begin with a few important disclaimers.  There is a significant number of people who have Celiac disease – approximately one to two million Americans – for whom GF isn’t a dietary preference but, rather, a life-saving necessity.  Less clear is the number of people who have clinical gluten sensitivity, defined by acute gastrointestinal discomfort that appears to be linked to the ingestion of gluten, the protein found in wheat, bulgur, barley and rye.  Part of the reason the numbers of the gluten sensitive are difficult to define is because people often self-diagnose or avoid ingesting gluten for long periods of time before being tested.  (The gluten sensitivity test results are known to be inconclusive after gluten has already been eliminated from the diet.)  For those who have been clinically diagnosed with gluten sensitivity, GF is the best way to avoid uncomfortable symptoms and have a better quality of life.  An even smaller number of individuals are allergic to gluten.  Most of these people have the allergy as children and grow out of it in adulthood.  But the small number doesn’t make this allergy any less serious.  So, for those suffering from Celiac and clinical gluten allergy or sensitivity, a GF diet is no fad.

But it’s estimated that a million people follow a GF diet despite not having been diagnosed with Celiac or a sensitivity.  The reasons run the gamut.  Some believe they’re sensitive to gluten but haven’t been to a doctor to diagnose it, others believe gluten is unhealthy, and some follow GF as a weight loss strategy.

Dieticians and nutritionists have been working hard to get the word out to the general population that avoiding gluten if you don’t have to provides no benefits and may actually be detrimental.  GF doesn’t facilitate weight loss.  In fact, people who avoid gluten after diagnosis of Celiac or a sensitivity tend to gain weight as their gastrointestinal systems begin to function normally.  And, contrary to the belief that gluten is unhealthy, there are vital nutrients in wheat products – B vitamins, in particular – that are difficult to get any other way.

But now, a new study is showing that those on a GF diet have higher levels of arsenic (twice as much) and mercury (70% more) in their urine and blood, respectively, compared to those who consume gluten in their diets.  Scientists believe that the toxic metals are found in higher amounts in GF products because rice flour – a cheap and abundant flour – is a common substitute for wheat flour.  Rice grains are more absorbent than other grains and will extract higher amounts of chemical substances from soil, water and fertilizers.

This is bothersome news for those dealing with Celiac and gluten allergy or sensitivity.  The best way to avoid additional exposure to these toxins is to use non-rice flours at home and avoid purchasing GF products that use rice flour as a substitute for wheat.

For everyone else who’s GF, even though the study acknowledges that the higher levels of arsenic and mercury aren’t yet at the point of causing harm, one should be asking herself, would she rather trade gluten for arsenic and mercury?

 

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Tell the Members-Only Fitness Divas to Take a Hike

What if there was such a thing as a Members Only designer shoe industry?  The only way to acquire a pair of beautiful Christian Loubutin sandals or trendy Stuart Weitzman boots is if you’re a part of the club.  Imagine you’ve received a once-in-a-lifetime pass to shop at a designer shoe store.  You walk in, dazzled by the displays and envious of the specially trained sales staff who have access to it all.  You’ve saved every extra penny for months, given up morning lattes and lunch with friends so you could afford to splurge on the most amazing pair of shoes you’ll ever own.  You’ve finally made it, you’re on the inside.

But, wait!  You now learn that all the shoes in the store, every last pair of them, come in size 6 only.  Size 6?  This can’t be!  You’re a size 8, the most common female shoe size in America.  Who in the world wears a six?  But, alas, that’s the dirty little secret in this absurd world of Members Only designer shoes.  The good news is the designer shoe industry doesn’t actually operate this way.  Sadly, the diet and exercise industry, in many ways, does.

Ever since the 1970s, when the average weight of Americans began to creep up, there has been an all-out panic in the fitness and health industries to identify the culprits and reverse the trend.  Oddly, the most obvious explanations were summarily ignored.  Namely, we were becoming more and more sedentary at work and at home as technological advances made obsolete many kinds of manual labor.  At the same time, these same technical advances made getting an abundance of foods to our plates easier, faster and cheaper.  Bottom line: We were moving less and eating more.

Instead, some leading experts went looking for hidden monsters in the closet to explain the increasing numbers of overweight and obese.  This lead to a string of incorrect assumptions about the causes.  Fats were the first to be blamed, leading to an over-consumption of carbohydrates, grains and sugars in particular, which made the obesity rates worse and introduced a growing rate of adult-onset diabetes and other metabolic diseases.  Other food culprits were and continue to be fingered along the way, leading to similar results.  All this to say that extreme dietary reactions are the name of the game in finding one’s way to fitness according to many of the experts.

The recommendations for exercise have been similarly extreme in nature.  Does it really make sense to tell an obese, sedentary individual that she can’t consider herself fit until she’s working out really hard for at least an hour a day six days a week?  Not only doesn’t it make sense, it’s incorrect and unfair.

I know from reading my industry publications that many experts bristle at the word moderation.  I fail to understand why.  Isn’t it true that the further one gets from a moderate position, the closer she gets to an extreme one?  Those who are mostly sedentary and consuming calories far in excess of what their bodies need are living in an extreme.  It makes sense to me that we should be helping them find their way to a moderate and balanced diet and exercise plan.  Why would it make sense to steer them to the other extreme, where exercise is proscribed at the highest amounts of frequency, duration and intensity and where wide swaths of foods are forbidden and calorie consumption is highly restricted?

It’s been a long time coming but science is telling us a few important things when it comes to diet and exercise:

  • Replacing natural fats, proteins and carbohydrates with highly processed fake ones is making us less healthy.
  • Losing large amounts of body weight through calorie restriction over long periods of time almost always backfires.
  • The percentage of active adults who’ve adhered to regular exercise for more than a year stays small and relatively flat.  For the rest, a majority of the population, many try to adopt exercise programs but fail to reach adherence over and over again.
  • It’s healthier, in terms of mortality rate, to be overweight and active than to be normal weight and sedentary.

Basically, science is proving that the extreme solutions promoted to fight the obesity epidemic not only don’t work but may actually be detrimental.  Some of us in the fitness industry are paying attention and making moderation our mantras.  There needs to be more of us.  I’m convinced we’ll get there.  Rising fitness stars like Kelli at FitnessBlender are gathering followers each day.  Here’s a vlog by Kelli as she makes her case.

Too many in the industry practice a one-size-fits all, extreme prescription with their clients.  It’s as absurd as my Members Only designer shoe scenario.  It’s high time we inject some science-backed common sense and realistic expectations into the fitness equation.  We’re not all going to be svelte specimens who appear in the front row at every fad fitness class subsisting on a raw vegan diet.  How balanced and content can their lives really be anyway?

Take the pressure off.  Tell those Members Only, body-shaming, diet-and-exercise divas you’re not interested in their club of extremes.  You’ve found a completely different way to true fitness and you’re happier for it.

Interested in a moderate, common sense approach to fitness?  Check out my Small Steps program.

 

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Fit Tip of the Month: Choosing Healthy Foods

If you’re following my Small Steps series, you know this month’s task is to manipulate our environments to make healthy food and exercise choices easier and unhealthy choices harder.

Reading a food labelThis week, I’m honing in on the first suggestion of the task: purge your life of junk foods and stock up on accessible, high quality foods.  It seems simple but I understand when one’s in a grocery aisle, rushed and exhausted, studying nutrition labels can be mystifying, if not daunting.  It’d be great if we all could make every item from scratch and eat only whole, fresh foods.  But, most of us can’t do that.  Often, we need to purchase processed foods – it’s a fact of life.  Yet, not all processed foods are equal.

 

What is Processed Food?

Technically, homemade bread is processed food.  Even using 100% whole grain flour doesn’t change this.  Mixing ingredients and baking it transforms it into something else.  There’s nothing unhealthy about this type of processed food.  If you’re reading an ingredient list on packaged food and could realistically duplicate that product in your kitchen, it’s probably a good choice.

What should be off-limits is what I call highly processed foods.  Highly processed foods are packaged goods made up a (long) list of mostly unrecognizable, industrially-made ingredients you couldn’t possibly duplicate in your kitchen.  They’re a poor choice.

In other words, low-processed foods are made up of mostly low-processed or whole ingredients.  While highly processed foods are made up of highly processed ingredients.  The most common highly processed ingredients in packaged foods are flours, sweeteners and fats.

Low Processed vs Highly Processed Ingredients

Flour: The most common flour used in packaged foods is wheat.  Think all purpose flour in your pantry.  But, nearly any grain and many legumes (beans) can be made into flour.  Enriched wheat flour is stripped down wheat with nutrients added back in.  An important component that’s removed in the processing of non-whole flours is fiber, which is why whole grains are better than processed grains.

  • Good Choices: Ingredient lists that use the term “100% Whole” for most or all of the grains in the product are good choices.  Besides wheat, other good choices in their whole forms are oats, barley, brown rice, triticale, rye, corn and buckwheat.  Seeds such as flax, chia and sesame are also healthy ingredients.
  • Okay Choices: It’s not the end of the world to have non-whole grains in your food.  It should be expected in baked items where a more delicate texture is desired such as cakes, cookies and muffins.  These are treats and are fine for an occasional splurge if consumed within proper portions.  An item with a mix of whole and non-whole grains, can be an acceptable choice in moderation.
  • Poor Choices: If the item isn’t considered dessert food and consists of only non-whole grains, particularly if they’re the main ingredients, pass it by.  I also stay away from products that use legume flours such as soy and chickpea.  Legume flours are more processed than grain flours.  Legumes should be consumed in their whole forms.

Sweeteners: Unlike flours, sweeteners rarely have nutritional value.  But, they do serve a purpose in the palatability of foods.  Take care to keep added sweeteners to a minimum but I don’t subscribe to the notion they should be eliminated altogether.  When comparing two similar food items with added sweeteners, I prefer the item with the most protein and fiber and the least processed sweeteners.

  • Lower-Processed Sweeteners: Raw honey, 100% real maple syrup, molasses, raw sugar
  • Moderately Processed Sweeteners: Brown sugar, honey, cane/table sugar, raw nectars/syrups
  • Highly Processed Sweeteners: High fructose corn syrup, artificial sweeteners, non-raw syrups

Fats: Fats are a necessary macronutrient but not all fats are created equal.  There’s growing clinical evidence that saturated fats aren’t as unhealthy for the heart as once believed.  Simultaneously, there’s growing clinical evidence that highly-processed plant-based polyunsaturated fats may be harmful.  Polyunsaturated fats are found in abundance in highly processed, industrial oils – oils you won’t find at your local grocer.  Yet, they’re rampant in processed foods.

  • Healthy Saturated & Monounsaturated Fats: Butter from grass-fed cows, extra virgin coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil
  • Acceptable Saturated & Monounsaturated Fats: All other dairy butter, coconut oil, olive oil, palm oil, avocado oil, canola oil
  • Highly Processed/Polyunsaturated Fats: Soybean oil, corn oil, sunflower oil, safflower oil and all hydrogenated oils, no matter their source.

Other considerations: Processed foods can contain other additives such as preservatives to extend shelf life, plant-extracted gums and lecithins as thickeners and emulsifiers, and artificial colors for aesthetics.  It’s a matter of personal preference how much weight you give these ingredients when comparing products.

Making the Decision

When deciding which product to get, make note of the grains, sweeteners and fats in it.  Anything from the most processed category should get a strike.  Select the item with the least amount of strikes.  If they’re equal in strikes, select the product with the most protein or fiber.  This can be assessed quickly with a simple scan of the nutrition label.  For a practical example, see the cracker comparison below.

Now you’re armed with all the information you need to replace your purged junk food with healthier choices.  Happy shopping!

Cracker Comparison

Consider these three cracker options:

Back to Nature Grahams

Back to Nature Grahams

These graham crackers have mostly non-whole grains, three types of sweeteners and industrial grade oil.  Not in the picture is the less than 1g of fiber per serving.  Not the best choice.

Nabisco Wheat Thins

Nabisco Wheat Thins

Whole grain flour and 3g of fiber (not pictured) is a plus.  Two types of sweeteners isn’t too bad.  Soybean oil is a strike.  But the color is extracted from plants, not dyes, and the preservative is added to the packaging as opposed to the food product.  All in all, not a bad choice for mass produced crackers.

Carr's Whole Wheat Crackers

Carr’s Whole Wheat Crackers

The best of the bunch with whole grain, small amount of table sugar and palm oil.  And it has more than twice the fiber per serving compared to the graham crackers.

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