"You’re not going to get in shape in an hour. It’s going to take eight, 12, 16 weeks to get in shape," says Walter Thompson, a professor in the department of kinesiology and health at Georgia State University. "If you haven’t been doing this for 10, 20, 40, 50 years, you’re not going to cure that in an hour session."
This is at the heart of Americans' struggle with fitness and health, I think. We look at where we are now and imagine where we want to be in a month or six months or a year, and we forget that the sum total of our life experience is reflected in our present physical state. In order to turn back the clock, we have to heal our injuries, cut out the indulgences of our adulthood, and restore the activities of our youth. And of course, if our entire life has been inactive, we have to learn entirely new ways of being in order to make our later years healthier.
It's rarely the case that a single big nutrition or activity change will "cure" all our physical ills. Going vegetarian, for example, or taking up running may have health benefits but probably won't, in and of themselves, take care of all of a person's physical issues.
A flurry of news articles over the past few days have pointed to some interesting new obesity research. Having bacterial overgrowth in the digestive tract can, apparently, contribute to weight gain by interfering with the body's appetite signaling process, as well as the ability of the digestive tract to actually transfer nutrients into the bloodstream. Eating too much processed, packed-in-plastic, or pesticide-laden food can, apparently, contribute to weight gain by interfering with the body's natural hormones. Certain medications can, apparently, contribute to weight gain by disrupting appetite, mood, nutrient absorption, kidney function, and much else.
I really don't want to harp on this issue. I'm just bothered by all that these news stories leave out.
The main thing that they leave out is the big picture of the studies they cite. The three factors listed above, for example, may be very well substantiated, but they leave unanswered a serious question: do these things contribute to weight gain in the absence of increased calorie consumption? If so ... how?
Because I just don't believe you can gain weight (fat or muscle or bone, real tissue weight) if your calorie intake is not greater than your calorie burn. Cells don't multiply without energy. You may retain water - which can look like excess tissue - but that's almost always transitory, unless it's caused by a chronic condition and/or a semi-permanent regime of certain medications.
No matter how much bacterial crud you have in your colon, no matter how big a proportion of your food is packaged crap, no matter what meds you're on, if you don't eat more calories than it takes to sustain your living tissue, you won't gain weight. You may not be healthy, and you almost certainly won't feel very good, but you won't gain weight. Nearly every top nutritionist quoted in the world news agrees on this, but somehow these people are never asked to quote for the articles finding obesity factors besides overeating.
Anyway, I guess if I have a point it's this. If you are seeking a solution to your weight gain, by all means consult a doctor to:
- Find out if you have intestinal bacterial overgrowth. If you do, find out what natural - meaning sustainable - ways of treating it are open to you. They might try to sell you a lot of antibiotics, but I'll bet it's as simple as eating more fiber, more fermented foods, more unsugared yogurt.
- Find out if you have high blood levels of BPA (Bisphenol-A), which leaches from plastic food packaging and disrupts the endocrine system. If you do, get the plastic out of your house - or at least out of your microwave and away from your beverages.
- Find out if the medications you take are known to disrupt appetite or mood, or to otherwise contribute to weight gain, and find out if there's something else you can do to address your conditions.
I wrote recently that no-one is destined to be fat, and since this has been so much in the news I've returned to the subject. I believe the best nutrition to be that which is closest to nature, or to what the average person could produce given the time and skill. That means foods that come wrapped in plastic, or foods containing ingredients created in labs, are not on my preferred list.
Start small. Use up the chips/crackers/cookies in the house, and don't buy any more. If you want snack foods, learn how to make them at home from real ingredients. Stop buying beverages packaged in plastic. Don't heat up dinner in a plastic container - I don't care if it says "microwave safe." All that means is the container won't melt. This is why we have Pyrex.
It's not going to happen in a day, and that's okay. Let it take as long as it takes. It's okay to make one little change, get used to it, and then make one more little change. I've said this before, too.
Take your time. Love your body. It's the only one you've got.
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