Be Wary of False Claims…Advice for Sifting Through the Social Media Garbage!

Given the topic that we have chosen to write about, Jess and I have scoured social media in the hopes of finding a community with which we can grow.  Our search yielded some really great folks out there, preaching the message of sustainable lifestyle changes to improve body and mind.  We also ran into many people and pages that claim to provide information on natural remedies and health, that in reality are touting information that is either just plain wrong or dangerous.

Stories show up in my Facebook newsfeed every day indicating the best way to lose weight is by drinking lemon water, or that you can cure cancer with cinnamon and honey.  Even from “reputable” sources, we see stories that claim to find “One thing” that is making us fat, unhappy and unhealthy. 

The problem with these claims is that despite what we would like to believe, that we can change one thing or begin doing one thing to transform or heal ourselves, the problems facing those who yearn to achieve good health and fitness are far more complex than any one thing we are eating or doing.  Society is in the midst of an obesity epidemic not because of one act or one ingredient, it is a combination of government policy, social engineering, personal accountability and corporate practices.  Government policies dating back to the post World War II era set the table for our eventual over-consumption of food.  Companies that were at the forefront of the fast food explosion have practiced social engineering through advertising and addictive ingredients for decades and as a culture we have deemed it appropriate to feed our children food that we took no part in preparing for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  It is because of institutional changes and character changes in American society that we find ourselves sick and overweight.  As a result of this complexity there is no one answer to societies or even one person’s fight with obesity.

Furthermore, the more dangerous of these claims could convince a person who is scared and forlorn after hearing that they have an upcoming battle with a dangerous and deadly disease to turn their back on our medical experts in favor of sipping tea to cure their disease.  Here is the problem, to group all cancers under one umbrella and say “this cures cancer” is incredibly unenlightened.  Cancer is a very dynamic and diverse category of disease.  There is no one cure for all cancers, and as a matter of fact chemotherapy only works because it works to destroy all cells with a commonality such as rapid division.  Thus, the drugs kill all cells with a tendency to divide very rapidly including many cancers, bone marrow cells, hair follicle cells, cells in the stomach lining, etc.  Many who are undergoing treatment feel so desperately ill as a result of the drugs indiscriminate killing of both cancerous and healthy cells. 

The medical establishment understands that treatment of cancers with chemo is not ideal and often causes prolonged lives to suffer a dramatic reduction in quality of life for the patient.  So there is ongoing research to find more targeted commonalities between cancerous cells and to find compounds with which we can fight them.  But, to claim that something as simple as honey and cinnamon or lemon cures cancer is to ignore that fact that there are over 200 types of known cancer all exhibiting either slightly different or very different pathologies. 

In order to shed the weight we needed Jess and I worked diligently to identify credible information and to differentiate it from the garbage that so many so called “health experts” are pushing. 

Some tips on how to differentiate between good info and not so good info would be to do most of your research into healthy lifestyles and weight loss through a resource like Google Scholar, where everything that is published is peer reviewed.  Other good resources for healthy living include Websites for the AHA (American Heart Association) and the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (www.eatright.org)

Good information will lead to good results.  Inform yourself and succeed!!!

Happy Running!!!

Rob and Jess

Putting Out Fires...The Millennial Health Movement!!!

When I find myself waxing philosophical with a member of a prior generation, that of my parents or beyond, the conversation turns towards generational differences and most notably the focus begins to take shape around the poor and useless condition of the generation that includes millennials like myself. 

As a generation we are often described as entitled, lazy, mooching tech addicts with unrealistic career expectations and an abysmal work ethic.  It only seems right to be described this way by the prior generation because going back hundreds of years this seems to be the signature rhetoric when the baton of leadership is passed from the older to the younger. 

However, there is a need to take stock and evaluate these remarks and the true impact that these two vastly different groups have had or will have on the future of health and our society.  And a perfect way to begin this assessment is to invoke the true words of Billy Joel in his song “We didn’t Start the Fire”.  This is a perfect anthem of a new generation, especially pertaining to the health and fitness of our nation. 

In the early 1970’s the USDA began a campaign that was unofficially known as the “Cheap Food” campaign.  This movement encouraged farmers to overproduce commodity crops like corn, soy, rice and cotton in order to drive the price down and take the lion’s share of the global market.  Well this policy worked well with that regards and in many periphery countries it is cheaper to purchase US based commodity products than those that are grown locally.  The domestic side effect is that these high calorie foods became so cheap that we began making everything with them.  We use these crops to feed our food animals, which has been shown to cause a higher instance of salmonella in meat products.  They are used to create additives like hydrogenated soy bean and corn oils, aspartame, high fructose corn syrup and maltodextrin.  All of which are used as either flavor or texture additives that we have come to learn our bodies are extremely mal adjusted to consuming resulting in chronic disease and obesity.

Beyond this, the choices of our parents’ generation to alter the traditional nuclear family brought about a revolution in meals cooked outside the home.  A famous Kentucky Fried Chicken ad from the seventies attempted to tie their food to the women’s movement by declaring “Women’s Liberation…Don’t Worry About It, We’ve got you covered…We’ll Do the Cooking!”  Ever since these fateful words were placed on large billboards the traditional family meal has become one that is mobile, to-go, wrapped in greasy paper and on average 200-300 calories higher per meal than traditional home cooked meals.

This is not meant to infer that the world’s health crisis is solely a result of the choices made by our immediate predecessors, but to illustrate that usually the problems of one generation are resulted from steps taken by those who came before. 

There is a real reason we seem to have a sense of entitlement, come across as lazy or aloof and have a shortened life expectancy when compared to our parents and grandparents.  This is how we were raised.  And now is our opportunity to correct the course and move toward a culture of health and wellness.  Crop subsidies meant to keep the “Cheap Food” policy alive are no longer needed and a movement to subsidize crops that include healthy, whole fruits and vegetables is long overdue.  We have the power to make choices with our dollars that force real change within corporate giants like McDonald’s, who are scrambling with ever increasing urgency to change their face to mirror chains like Chipotle to attract millennials who have shunned the fast food giants of old. 

Take the opportunity you have to educate yourself about healthy lifestyles and the obstacles to reaching your potential.  Education is a tool through which you can change who you are inside and out and these changes will be mimicked by the next generation.  All we have to do is teach them what we know and we can put out the fire that’s been burning “since the worlds been turnin!!”

Happy Running!!!

Rob and Jess

It is SO Expensive to Get Fit and Healthy, Diet Pills and Shakes and Memberships, OH MY!!!

We live in an age of ultra-consumerism.  It is a well-documented fact that each day the average American is subjected to close to 5,000 advertisements.  A significant section of these ads tend to be directed towards those looking to make a healthy change in their life.  Ads for nutritional supplements, shake mixes, diet pills, fad diets and gym memberships represent just a few of the types of health and fitness based advertisements we are subjected to each day.  No wonder the commonly held perception that it is too expensive to live healthily persists.

The problem with many of the products and services that are sold to us through popular media is that many of them make claims that could never be substantiated by science.  Often times diet pill retailers over promise and under deliver on results.  Fad diets are usually debunked and shown to cause more health problems than they correct.  Gym memberships trap you for a contracted length of time, so whether you use the facility or not you are forking over your hard earned money for as long as two years.  As for shake mixes and nutritional supplements, some of them deliver on the nutritional promises they make while others fall flat.  Even for the products that deliver on their promises they are often too expensive to keep purchasing for a long term.    

Given the inundating nature of advertising in our society it can seem impossible to see a path to health and wellness when the horizon is clouded with misleading billboards and electronic marquees.  However, the path does exist and it does not require an expensive gym membership or hundreds of dollars per month in pills, shakes and supplements.  The way forward becomes clear through the acumen of information.  Many people ask me what my most valuable advice would be to someone just beginning a journey to wellness and consistently my responses include; learn to cook your own food in your own kitchen and become informed about nutrition and the social forces that drive us to keep living in the fast food lane.  

Recipes and home workouts are easy to come by online, all it takes is a quick search.  And for those who are concerned with the additional food cost in eating a healthful diet, this concern becomes much easier to manage once you realize that the good, whole foods you are eating (costly as they may be) are much less expensive than your blood pressure medication, insulin shots, Metformin, or allergy medicine. 

Running, cycling, tennis, cross-fit and simple walks are all great examples of activities that are free or nearly free that you can become engaged in that will propel your physical activity and the more you learn about cooking and nutrition the less you have to rely on “Shake-ology”, supplements, and claims of “eat all you want and still lose weight”.

Make the decision to begin and each day make the decision to continue.  Once the decision is made you will find a way via becoming knowledgeable to accomplish your goals. 

Happy Running!!

Rob and Jess