You're a kook if you're healthy

You hear about social pressure to be thin and negative prejudice towards those carrying extra weight.  It's true, but I'm going to talk about something that is also true, but never discussed.

You're an idiot, an out and out kook, a fool actually, if you do anything healthy.

If you do unhealthy things, you're cool, you're accepted, you're supported.

Of course this doesn't apply to everyone.  There are plenty of cases where healthy choices are a supported and a shared positive experience.

Quite often I'll have weight loss clients and athletes alike confess that one of their largest challenges in adopting a healthy lifestyle comes from their family and friends who admonish, tease, and even alienate them for making healthy choices.

It seems like for many living unhealthy or least making unhealthy choices very frequently is part of living life to its fullest.  Eating healthy or exercising interferes with time that could be better spent overeating or being inactive. If you make healthy choices, others may feel that you're losing it, or perhaps being a killjoy and interfering with how satisfied they feel when they make unhealthy choices.

When you're packing away your second serving of deliciousness you don't need some health freak cramping your style by eating broccoli.  "Idiot.  What kind of idiot eats broccoli?  I can't enjoy my meal anymore because I have to witness this fool eating little tree's."

People have told me that they're not welcome anymore at family dinners unless they eat what everyone else is eating, which happens to be high fat, high sugar, high sodium, high calorie food.  You know.. the stuff that kills you slow.  To top it off they're expected to fill their plates and go back for seconds or thirds.


If you don't go back for seconds something is wrong with you.  You're depriving your self, which is just silly.
Silly you for not overeating!  Don't you know any better?  Don't you know how to enjoy life?


I have men and woman who lose weight healthily be told by their friends and family that they look ill, gaunt, and too skinny, and that they need to eat more.  In reality they are more healthy and fit than ever; cholesterol has dropped, blood sugar levels are normal, blood pressure decreases, risk of disease is decreased, they're stronger, more flexible, more rested, and feel better than ever.


It may be that with 70% of men and 60% of woman in Canada being overweight that we're accustom to seeing our friends and family being overweight.  Overweight is normal, statistically. So when we see someone with 5-15% body fat we think they look weird compared to the more average 25 - 35% body fat.  This is a little strange because if we're watching sports and looking at athletic bodies, those athlete's bodies appearance is accepted, expected, perhaps even revered. But when our friends and family's body appearance starts shifting towards the athletic look, for some reason this is spoken of disparagingly.

It's interesting, if not perplexing to live with the contradiction of social pressure to lose weight and look lean as well as pressure to not lose weight, not be lean, and avoid being a kook.

People have told me they've been brought to tears when they're deluged with negative comments regarding their attempt to include healthy choices in their life.  Others while not brought to tears become very frustrated because it seems so counter productive to be the recipient of put-downs for being healthy but showered with accolades when engaging unhealthy practices.  They've told me they can't understand why wanting to improve their health get's them the cold shoulder, but being unhealthy is encouraged. Somethings not right with that.

Some have told me that their friends and family have expressed that they don't want to be pressured to part of, or be exposed to healthy lifestyle changes, and the message is; "keep it to yourself, weirdo!"

I'm then told that friends and family have no compunction when it comes to openly applying pressure to eat unhealthy or to be inactive. "Eat, eat! You don't eat enough! That working out stuff is stupid.  Why don't you do something enjoyable?" It does seem somewhat hypocritical to openly pressure people to eat unhealthy but then protest when someone else eats healthy because apparently the mere act of eating healthy is exactly like telling someone how to live and rubbing it in their face.  People feel torn between wanting feel good about being healthy and fit, and sacrificing their health to keep the peace with friends and family. 

I've heard it said that friends and family can feel that get-togethers can't be enjoyed unless everyone is overeating.  They feel that healthy eating jeopardizes the social experience and no enjoyment can be had. Could it be that this perception is somehow mistaken?  Food is such a great catalyst for human socializing.  Great food set's the tone for great times had by all.  Enter healthy food and it's like the music is cut off.

Many feel very strongly that eating healthy kills social gatherings.  Too bad, because it's really about the people.  At least I thought it was.  I've been to great get-togethers with great tasting healthy food served, which made it all the better because not only do you enjoy the food and company, but you don't feel bloated or lethargic afterwards.  So maybe it's all about perception..

To justify their health oppressing behavior, those oppressed have told me they've been told that being healthy is overblown anyway, that is actually stupid to lose weight, exercise, or make healthy eating choices.  It's just a dumb fad, it's annoying, only freaks do it, get a real life, and on and on.

Really?

Yes.  Really.  This really does happen and if you're a recipient of this you know it all too well.

I don't really know how to overcome this.  What I've seen happen in successful situations is family and friends either got over it and became accepting and supporting, or they eventually started to adopt the same healthy habits and started feeling better themselves.

I'm not sure who is expressing an intelligent decision making process better, the person downing a bag of potato chips and a few beers in utter bliss, or the person enjoying the flavor bliss of a blueberry - banana fruit smoothie after an exhilarating workout.  Arguments can be made for both for sure, and some may make room for both.  Whatever the case, when it comes to friends and family, maybe being supporting of healthy changes is better than being negative.

Eating less of anything causes weight loss

Tired of diets that don't work? Try the newest diet proven by science! You'll loose pounds and inches, look and feel better in a matter of hours!

A group of highly specialized researchers seeking to unlock the secrets of fat loss have made an exciting discovery and for the first time they're ready share the secrets with the world.

And if you buy now, you'll lose double the weight for half the price!

A study published in the January 2012 issue of the American Journal of Nutrition (1) compared 4 weight loss diets for the affects on fat and muscle.

The diets:

• 25% and 15% protein
• 40% and 20% fat
• Combined with 4 different carbohydrate amounts (35% to 65%)

The total calories of each diet were identical.  Does it matter what you eat to lose fat?  Or do you simply need to eat less?

At six months study subjects had lost an average of 4.2 kg (9.3 lbs.) of fat and 2.1 kg (4.6 lbs.) of lean muscle mass.  Using DEXA, a special kind of X-Ray, researchers wanted to see if the diets had an influence on where fat mass was lost; subcutaneous (under the skin), or visceral fat (fat in and around internal organs).

There was no difference between diets for where fat loss occurred although woman in this study lost slightly more visceral fat than men.

At 2 years participants had regained 40% of their initial weight loss, which was equal amongst the four diets.  The regain of weight was through the study subjects not staying within the total calories prescribed and gradually returning to overeating.

Conclusions?

No matter what you eat less of, if you have a caloric deficit you will lose weight.  No matter what you eat more of, if you eat more calories than you burn off, you will gain fat. Fat loss and gain is solely determined by calories in - calories out.  Doesn't matter if you're a meat eater, vegetarian, vegan, or breathairian; if you overeat you gain fat, if you have a caloric deficit, you'll lose fat.

In case you're really curious, "breatharians" believe that food and water are not needed to stay alive, and as the quaint same suggests, you can get everything you want at Alice's Restaurant so long as you order air, with a side order of light. Reports of breatharians dying from starvation are not exaggerated.

Humanity is capable of believing some questionable ideas, like breatharianism, and that something other than overeating causes body fat gain, or that a special combination of foods is required to lose weight.

However studies like this one have shown for decades that the singular cause of fat gain is eating too much, and the singular cause of fat loss is eating less.

Other studies (2,3,4) have shown that loss of lean muscle can be reduced or halted by including strength training and/ or cardio training while reducing calories to lose weight.

Another study demonstrated that long term success was better for fat loss when moderate reductions in calories were combined with regular exercise compared to a large decrease in calories without exercise (6).

What about hormonal changes and metabolism?  Aren't these the real culprits behind overeating?  Haven't you written about hormones and appetite before?

Yes, go here Live Healthy: Fat Loss Pill With Leptin- A New Reality?

And here  Live Healthy: Anyone Can Lose Fat

Or use the "search this blog" bar at the top of this page type in "weight loss"

Hormones, implicated for sure, but the sole cause of weight gain, even without overeating?  It can't be. Only overeating causes weight gain.  We have to introduce the extra calories to the body to be stored as fat.  No extra calories means nothing extra to store. The disconnect is that while it is definitely true that changes in hormones that regulate hunger cause us to feel hungry when we're not actually hungry, many have been lead to believe that the hormonal changes alone cause weight gain. Under these conditions of increased ghrelin and leptin most people don't contemplate what they are eating or why, they simply follow their hunger stimulus and.. eat more food, but rationalize that they are not overeating and that it must be their hormones or metabolism causing weight gain.

So whatever our motivation to eat more may be; habitual, hormonal changes, addiction, in the end these variables influence us to choose to eat more.  So yes, simply eating less without addressing the underlying motivation or physiological variables that drive us to overeat is asking for the standard failure in weight loss.

The two most important steps in losing weight are the combination of eating less and exercising more, along with making the emotional and psychological changes necessary to change how we perceive reward from eating and exercise.

BTW.. my whimsical line at the begging of this article, "look and feel better in a matter of hours".. is true, I just didn't say how many hours..  Turns out to be, according to research, at least 90 minutes each week of moderate to vigorous exercise. Get started with working up to 10,000 to 12,000 steps per day (buy a pedometer or download a pedometer app to your smartphone).

Eat less, exercise more; get healthy and feel great.  It's all about feeling good.


1) Effects of 4 weight-loss diets differing in fat, protein, and carbohydrate on fat mass, lean mass, visceral adipose tissue, and hepatic fat: results from the POUNDS LOST trial

2) Moderate exercise attenuates t... [J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2009] - PubMed - NCBI

3) A systematic review of the separate and combined ef... [Nutr Rev. 2010] - PubMed - NCBI

4) Changes in fat-free mass during significan... [Int J Obes (Lond). 2007] - PubMed - NCBI

6) Effect of dietary adherence with or ... [J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2009] - PubMed - NCBI

Anyone Can Lose Fat

Is it difficult to walk passed that popular dessert mecca that serves decadent death by chocolate?  Can we exercise enough inner determination to cull our passion for imbibing 12 ounces of succulent satisfaction at the local steak house? 

How about grandma telling us, "There are starving people in China, eat! Eat!"  Can't stifle grandma.  Or maybe we can, maybe grandma needs a challenge; "Gramma, how does me overeating help starving people in China?  And why do you have to make enough food for twenty people when we're only serving five? Do you think that might have something to do with our weight issues?"  Grannies extra servings go straight to our hearts.

You're running your finger down the menu at the local 5 star sit down and 90% of the meal choices are over 1000 calories, and every one of those calories has a telepathic connection to your salivary glands that are starting to make you drool and quiver for the mouth orgy you're about to go down on.

Are you really going to trade that for a dry, limp stick of celery?

Allow me to introduce you to the excuse many us know as well as that old high school best friend who even though there may be a continent of real-estate between you, each time you get together it's like old times, like you've never been apart.

"Healthy food is like cardboard" That's the excuse.  Feeling comfortable now?  Your friend is back.  It's ok not to choose healthy food.  I understand you want to feel rewarded, and that's what you deserve.  No.. no, settle down, I'm not going to feed you salad, I'm your friend. 

I'm going to feed you your favorite meal and you're going sit back with your waist almost uncomfortably tight, which is  easily resolved by a flick of the finger undoing the belt.. ahhh.. ease into the soft warm leather chair, talk about old times, laugh about the time you did that silly thing..

Nice hey?  That's how comfortable we are with overeating.

Conversely we perceive healthy eating as a steel bench at a bus stop in the rain.  And the bus is late. And you're wearing linen. 

But what if that's all wrong?  What if living healthy provides a feeling of energy and freedom previously unknown? 

Well, it does.  Don't let the nay-sayers divert you from your desire to lose weight and get healthy. 


Obesity is not about genetics. That excuse is denial based "my overeating is not to blame" escapism that appeals to those who can't face the reality that they chronically overeat, or at least have yet to come to realize that they can succeed at permeant weight loss if only they permanently changed their lifestyle.

No person, no matter what their genetics, will become overweight if they do not overeat.

Every person, no matter their cultural or genetic make up, or physical activity, will gain fat if they eat too much.

Human genetics are not changing every year resulting in greater weight gain annually around the world.

What is happening is people are eating more and are less physically active.  This results in more calories consumed than expended, which equals fat gain.

It really is this simple.

The complicated part is how we become entrained to overeat through socialization, habits, and the overall ubiquitous celebration of overeating. 

Research has shown that overeating, a lack of sleep, and eating high concentrations of fat, sugar, and salt trigger hormonal responses that cause us to feel more hungry than usual and to require more food to feel satiated.  This adds significant challenge to changing eating habits as one will feel hungry but wont actually be physically hungry, as in requiring more energy from food.  The person will only perceive hunger prompted by altered hunger stimulating hormone levels.

Part of the answer is to learn how hunger works.  Part of the answer is self discipline. 

The answer is not about finding a drug or a new diet.  The desire to "discover" the solution to fat loss is quite possibly a desperately naive avoidance of personal responsibility, or at worst a Machiavellian scheme to empty wallets. 

Why do most weight loss attempts fail in the long term? Is it because most people are genetically non-responsive to healthy living (diet and exercise)?  No.  It's because those who fail do not change their physical habits or emotional connection to food.  It's because those who fail ultimately return to their previous overeating habits.

Losing weight is possible.  You don't have to go ballistic to do it either. 

Eat less.  Exercise more.  Change your emotional connection to food so you're in love with healthy food instead of crap food.  Maybe show a little love for yourself, for your health. Expect to make plenty of mistakes.  Don't put a time limit on it, just keep at it.

It's not your genetics that keep you overweight, it's your overeating.

Complex Emotional States and Perceptions Drive Healthy-Unhealthy Choices

If you're sad you're more likely to choose unhealthy foods compared to when feeling happy (1) ; that is unless of course you're feeling happy about the present or past.  If you're feeling happy about the present or past you're more likely to make the unhealthy choice, compared to having positive hopeful feelings about your future, in which case you're more likely to make a healthy choice. (2)

If only it were that simple.  If food is advertised as being organic or some other health inspiring description we're more likely to believe the positive suggestion and perceive we can and should, eat more of the food, regardless of whether it is factually healthy or not. (3) In fact you may actually perceive being more hungry later after having consumed food you were told was healthy, but if you freely choose to eat healthy you will feel satisfied and not feel more hungry later. (4)

Clenching your fists, grit your teeth, and flex your muscles!  A new study suggests doing so may stimulate a more potent burst of will power allowing one to overcome a food temptation or cope with an unpleasant situation. (5)

Umm.. can't I just eat and not worry about all this academic mumbo-jumbo? Of course!  Err.. if you're emotionally calibrated and aware of how your emotions drive food decisions, otherwise you may blindly eat, and eat, and eat..

Obviously if we eat too much we'll gain fat.  Clearly if we keep this up we put ourselves at significant risk of becoming unhealthy.  Common sense right?

So.. why is our population becoming more overweight every year?  Where is the application of this common sense?

Researchers are showing that despite the obvious negative effects of overeating most people feel compelled to overeat most of the time.  We have to move beyond talking about the latest diet and exercise scheme and become more aware of our habits, our social norms (overeating is celebrated), environmental cues, and how our emotions and sense of reward, risk, and harm affect our healthy, or unhealthy decisions.

Let's stop being eating automatons and start feeling good about mindful, healthy choices.



(1) Food-mood Connection: The Sad Are Twice As Likely To Eat Comfort Food

(2) https://www.jcr-admin.org/pressreleases/041711162837_Winterichrelease.pdf

(3) Health halo effect: Don't judge a food by its organic label

(4) JSTOR: The Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 37, No. 3 (October 2010), pp. 357-367

(5) JSTOR: The Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 37, No. 6 (April 2011), pp. 1046-1064

How To Create And Maintain Motivation

Nothing motivates like success.

A sense of reward allows us to perceive whether or not we have succeeded.

Great.  So how do you feel rewarded and achieve success?  Seems like the old chicken and egg conundrum.

• Set a long term goal that is interesting to you and is difficult to achieve, but not too difficult.

• Allow yourself to feel reward from making small steps towards the big goal.  Once you get a taste of success it tends to snowball and motivates you continue succeeding. 

• Make the primary goal and the steps along the way something you can measure.  "I want to feel better", is legitimate, but is too subjective to quantify and compare progress.  

• Make sure you celebrate your success in a healthy way.  A common error is using junk food or overeating as a treat or reward for achieving our fitness or health goals.  Doing this continues hold healthy choices as not rewarding, and unhealthy choices as the real reason you are exercising.  It doesn't take long to start making shortcuts to the unhealthy reward and sabotage progress.

• Expect to have set backs and work on perceiving setbacks as part of the process. Look at setbacks as incentive re-establish your reward connection with your healthy goals.  It can take more than 20 weeks to start feeling like your new habits are natural instead of forced.

• Learn how to make new reward associations with the new habits, and disassociate reward with the old habits

• Bring in the calvary.  It's true the main source of motivation has to be self inspired, but it helps to have the support of others.  Let your friends and family know what you are doing, and tell them about your successes and when you trip up.  They'll be there to celebrate with you and help you through the sticking points.  No back up available? You can definitely succeed on your own.  Become your own best advocate and keep setting the bar higher until you reach your goal, then maintain your success. 

If you're waiting for someone else to motivate you, there isn't a very good chance you're going to feel motivated any time soon.

Damn!  Now what?

We'll each have something fitness or health related that motivates us, but might have some trouble making the transition from contemplating doing something that will reward us, to actually doing it.

To overcome this create a moderate goal that isn't unrealistic; losing 20 pounds in a week, entering and IronMan next month, or too easy, "I vow to get off the couch today"!

Here's an example:

Goal:  Lose 20 pounds and reduce blood pressure.

Set realistic time frame: the most successful long term weight loss results occur when weight loss is between 1 and 4 pounds per month.  Losing 20 pounds over 20 to 40 weeks is realistic.

Losing 1 to 2 pounds every month or so will keep you motivated because this success is very achievable.

It's true that safe weight loss can easily be 4 lbs per month, but it's also true that maintaining that rate of loss has a much higher chance of failure, and after not achieving the short term goal 3 or 4 times often results in feelings of defeat, and many give up.

If reducing blood pressure through weight loss is your goal, talk to your doctor about it.  You can work with your doctor to set up future check ups to monitor blood pressure and weight changes, and your doctor can help ensure you're doing it safely.  Adding the doc also adds a person that you'll feel accountable to, which can help maintain motivation.

The goals that are the most motivating are individualized and originate within you. Is there something about your health or fitness that you find yourself wanting for?  Whatever that is, that's a good place to start.  Goals like losing weight to look better at the beach can be used as short term motivation to get you started, but unless you attach a long term feeling of continued reward to that you'll most likely pack on the pounds again in the winter.

Getting fit fast doesn't work, even for pro athletes.  Recent research shows that 51% of hamstring injuries experienced by NFL players occur during a 7 week preseason training period. For triathletes, 68% of preseason injuries are from training too much.

This is where realistic goal setting becomes very important. Hammering hard without preparation will leave you feeling sore and burnt out, and no, these are not signs you're doing it right.  Too hard too soon does provide short term results, but over the long term injury is the most likely outcome.

Taking it easy to start an and making steady gains over six months will make you more fit than starting off with a boot-camp style of training that pushes you too hard too soon.

"But summer is only a couple months away, I don't have time."

Probably the most common concern I hear regarding amping up exercise in anticipation of summer.

The challenge is we'll often put ourselves in this position annually, and kick ourselves each spring for not keeping it up over the winter.

Better to think of making a long term sustainable fitness level that is built over time rather than trying to squeeze it all into a few weeks or months.  Start now and build gradually and you'll still be more fit for July and August.  Continue with those gains by giving yourself ongoing challenges to improve and by next summer you'll be far more fit and feeling much better.

Neuroplasticity

Think of neuroplasticity as a fancy scientific term for, "it's all in your head".  Our brain holds our sense of reward, risk, and harm, and yes, we use our brains to generate our own motivation or allow ourselves to feel a lack of motivation.  Research has shown that we can change our habits from good to bad or bad to good and that whichever we do, that's what we get good at doing and that's where we tend to stay... if we do nothing about it.

I used to crave cigarettes.  Now the thought of a cigarette disgusts me, and this feeling is elevated when I see a cigarette, or worse, smell one.   So what happened?  I used to be addicted.  The scent of cigarette smoke used to make me want to light up.

Neuroplasticity happend.

Instead of my brain making automated reward associations with smoking, my brain now associates smoking with risk and harm.

The same thing can happen with exercise and nutrition habits, but we have to give it time, and need to practice being self aware; that is, being able to comprehend and interpret how we feel and how we are responding to those thoughts.  Some refer to this process as an expression of "emotional intelligence"

When I was quitting smoking I would often think, "Just one.  One will be OK, I've done really well so far one won't hurt.. this will be the last one."

That's the automated behaviour developed over time to support smoking. What did I do?

I recognized that I should expect to have these thoughts, and these thoughts are driven by established habit, but that these thoughts are not really justification to light up.  I had to tell myself there is no reward with smoking and that ultimately I will feel better if I don't give in.

Ultimately this is how we maintain our motivation to change; we have to change not just our actions, but our thoughts and feelings that are attached to those actions.

If we continue to see exercise as arduous and an ends to a means but not necessarily enjoyable or rewarding, it won't be long before we are replacing exercise with other actions that we feel are more rewarding.

How about good old "will power"?  Think of will power as a sort of temporary booster switch you can flick on to a get short term burst of motivation.  It works, but it runs out of power quickly.  If we try to rely on will power alone we'll literally burn out mentally.  Ongoing motivation comes from an internal drive and natural reward association with our goals. We have to practice our new habits and teach our brains to automate reward associations with the new habits.  Imagine not having to work at feeling motivated to exercise or eat healthy.. That's what happens when living healthy becomes a habit.

 The best thing?  Everyone can succeed.