Health

Don't worry, I'm still on my environmental kick, but I want to talk about health for a bit. I'm a doctoral student in health promotion and I spend my days studying health, but I don't post much about it. I think that I should though because people generally need to hear it. My family's choice to go without is primarily health driven. With increasing incidence of autism, ADD, cancers, and many other chronic diseases it makes me wonder what the causes are. Most are not really known. Autism, for example, seems to have some links to nutrition and maybe television, but there is little substantial evidence as to a cause. I find that taking a step back from the Jones' (or running wildly in the opposite direction) helps to improve health in numerous ways, especially the stress of trying to keep up with everyone else. I far prefer spending time with my family than at work trying to make an extra buck. I think that is the greatest thing that I can do for the health and well-being of my family.
Fatty asked for some nutritional guidance the other day. You see he has put about $4000 on the line for a little on-line bet with random people. Now he's thinking that he really need to lose the weight and win the bets. First off, I think what he has done on his site is incredible. He has a large group that frequents his blog and many of them are competing to lose weight and increase bicycle performance. From a health promotion perspective, it's nearly impossible to get anyone to make changes in their lifestyle, yet "Fatty" has a large following that are working hard to make serious changes.
So my advice to fatty was to practice intuitive eating. It really makes sense. When you are hungry you eat and when you are no longer hungry you stop eating. Unfortunately most people have detrained their hunger signal and it needs a little help. Most people recognize when that hunger starts, but few recognize when it stops. So what you have to do is take a small helping of food for a meal and eat it. Then you sit and wait 5-10 minutes (this would be a good time to sit and talk to your family). You then ask yourself, "Am I still hungry?" Notice that you didn't ask yourself if you were full, that is a completely different feeling. We get full on Thanksgiving, that is the point when your stomach says to your brain, "if you send anything else down here, we're going to send it right back up." Also notice that you didn't ask yourself if you liked dinner or if you wanted more, or if there is just enough left so that it's not worth saving. The only reason to eat is if you are hungry. Any other food input is simply using your body as a garbage. Consistently using your body as a garbage will also make you feel like garbage.