Last weekend I had to go to an event across the province and decided to listen to podcasts as I drove. It had been a while since I listened to Maintenance Phase, which is all about debunking wellness and weight loss fads.
What a delightful way couple of days that turned out to be. I got caught up on trying to define ultra-processed food, the statistics behind blue dot communities (where lots of people live past 100), the wacky claims around seed oils and so much more.
Some of the influencer nonsense is spreading to Canada, as I discovered at a trendy shop in Toronto. I spotted a large display of tortilla chips made of organic Canadian corn, containing no seed oils, but fried (handcrafted) instead in grain-fed beef tallow. And as a bonus, it uses sea salt instead of salt containing iodine (iodine deficiency is the main cause of goitre).
A bag of tortilla chips that is clearly working to be perceived as Canadian and healthy.
I can’t be all smug though. My way of coping on long drives is to ingest caffeine and snack on something crunchy. By the end of the weekend, I had consumed many cups of coffee, two bags of potato chips and a Diet Coke. I had the worst case of heartburn in years, and was still feeling dodgy two days later.
Dear readers, we at FIt is a Feminist Issue are constantly vigilant, keeping watch for encroaching messaging that suggests that we need to do some ridiculous cockamamie thing in order to maintain our health, fitness, sanity, and good humor as we run, jump. cycle, swim, climb, paddle, and dance our way through the life trajectory.
Here’s the latest insult that Samantha encountered recently. She put out an APBB (all-points-bloggers-bulletin) our our bloggers FB page, and I quickly responded. Take a deep breath, then take a quick look:
A breakfast menu page with the insulting and deeply flawed headline “55+ Menu”. I know, I know. Take another deep breath– I’m handling it. It’ll be okay.
You may find yourself intuitively troubled, but not yet able to articulate exactly what is wrong with this picture. Again, don’t worry. Here goes…
On the one hand, the actual listed portions work for me personally (a 3-egg omelette is always more than I want in one sitting). Also, 2 slices of French toasts sounds fine. But I’m not now, nor have I ever been a hearty breakfast eater. Even when cycling or paddling in the morning (yes, I have documentation for these admittedly rare events), I tend to eat a little lighter before activity, and then eat energy bars or blocks during activity. One’s mileage varies.
(Parenthetical note: when ordering two slices of French toast, I’d love an egg on the side, but not an egg*. I have no idea what an egg* is, so am rightly suspicious. More research is needed here).
On the other hand, I strongly resent:
1) the idea that 55+ folks have to worry 1a) about calories; and 1b) about calories more than 54- folks. There’s data to suggest the opposite, namely that as people age, their metabolisms manage body weight differently. In particular, more body weight presents fewer risks to health and mortality in older people than in younger people.
2) the idea that 2a) 55+ people should avoid egg yolks for “health” reasons, or 2b) any folks at all (55+- )should avoid egg yolks for “health” reasons. I just wrote a blog post with the latest in egg-news, including the results of a July 2025 study showing that eating 2 eggs a day in fact reduces LDL cholesterol more than eating a high saturated fat diet, with or without an egg.
3) the suggestion that so-called Fit Fare reflects current– or any– research on 3a) nutritional needs for humans 55+-, or 3b) specialized nutritional needs for folks 55+. I looked around online and didn’t find anything, or at least anything positive to say about chain menus that offer lower-calorie variations on their usually-extremely-high-sodium menu items.
Past marketing research does show that casual-dining chains benefit financially from offering both packaged low-calorie food combos and so-called “healthier” combos. But it doesn’t mean that such combos are a) actually healthier, or b) what I want.
So, readers, when it’s breakfast time, my advice is eat what you want. You’ve got loads of options, no matter whether you are 55+ or 55-.
A montage of unsplash-provided breakfast from around the world. Enjoy…
Hey readers– what DO You eat for breakfast? I’d love to hear your ideas, as it’s fun to switch thiings up every once in a while.
I’d love to move my serious riding season to the fall but that can’t happen until I retire. It’s dark very early weekdays in the autumn here and most of the big bike rides I train for are in the summer months.
So I’ve been riding in the heat and trying to get used to it. See here and here.
This weekend we tried the first tip in the article mentioned above–getting acclimated. We rode Saturday and Sunday in heat alert conditions, but we didn’t ride very far (45 km one day and 33 km the next).
It’s also known as heat training. From NPR: “Heat training is not just for competitive athletes. It’s recommended for people in the military and those who work outdoors in hot weather. It could even be useful for generally healthy members of the public, O’Connor says. “People should not be afraid of the heat,” he says. “We can develop and add an adaptive response to help us succeed in the heat. But it’s got to be controlled.” Done right, heat training could help people stay a bit more comfortable in the long, intense stretches of heat marking the extraordinarily hot summer of 2024 and future heat waves expected more frequently due to climate change.”
We also wore lots of sunscreen, and Sarah wore her sunsleeves. I didn’t wear mine, but only because I can’t bear putting them on when I’m already sweaty. That’s tip number 2 from the Bicycling article.
We took it easy and didn’t push it too much.
We also put our water bottles in the freezer so they’d be cool to start and we both took one bottle of water and one bottle of Skratch (rehydration formula with sodium.)
After our rides, we sat in the shade in the backyard and finished our water and Skratch.
In the end, I think we thought our approach was a success. We’re going to keep building distances and sticking to the tips above.
Close-up of a hand grasping a freshly glazed donut oozing with icing, ready to satisfy a sweet tooth craving
A year ago today, I posted a blog here about the jarring effect of seeing a very thin Brie Larson, playing the lead role in Lessons in Chemistry, preparing food that she never seemed to eat. I was not alone in trying to puzzle through the strange effect that her appearance had in relation to the show’s rich stylization of food. FIFI stats tell me that at least 5489 readers clicked the link to open that post in 2024.
The nerve that the blog touched, perhaps, is the nerve hit, repeatedly, by the horrible lessons served every day to North American women for dinner and dessert. “You should be perfectly thin. If you are perfectly thin, we will adore and praise you.” But also, “You must not be imperfectly thin. If you are imperfectly thin, scaring us with intimations of death and disease, we will shame and shun you.” Putting food near the perfectly thin celebrity reminds us of what she eats, or maybe doesn’t eat, to look the way she does. We see the food, we see the body, and the red flags appear. The imperfectly thin body, we fear, serves as the star’s understudy. It’s like the optical illusion that has us looking at a duck—no, wait, a rabbit! The mind is not quite sure what it’s perceiving. Should we clap or hold the applause?
The trouble with making all of this explicit is that drawing attention to the problem may look like blaming the victim. I see the jutting collarbones and hear the rumours and turn away out of respect for the privacy of the woman whose life is so mercilessly mined for entertainment and exploitation. She may be naturally tiny or she may be suffering. It’s none of my business. Except it is, insofar as her body elicits a visceral response, reminding me of my own vexed relation to the story it tells, or doesn’t tell.
I started thinking about Brie Larson again because I’ve been thinking, lately, about elite women runners and the price they may pay to achieve their goals. Last year, I wished them all happy holiday eating in my post. But it’s becoming increasingly difficult, for me, to ignore the problem of disordered eating and running excellence. In some ways, it’s even harder to have this conversation than it is to talk about Hollywood celebrities. There might be a world in which actors could all gain weight and continue to play characters in movies, but could women marathoners carry any weight and still be competitive? And, if we want to respect both their professionalism and their boundaries, should we not simply agree that they are born lean, mean, running machines and move on? Only, reports concerning college women athletes suggest that it’s probably not just all good nutrition and good genes, all of the time. The idea that a decade after graduation, North American runners have grown out of whatever food-related issues they might have had as young women—well, I wonder. (A brave post by Kelowna runner Christy Lovig addresses this subject head on.)
Recently, I wrote here about a marathon that went sideways. One of the stranger thoughts I had, in the final excruciating hour of that race, was that donuts were to blame for my lack-lustre performance. In the cacophony of nasty voices that I had to listen to, one was louder than the rest: “Too many donuts.” To be clear, this was not a reflection on whether my nutrition plan might have failed me—that more protein and fewer simple carbs might have made for more muscle and less fat. No, this was a moral judgement: “You are a bad person because you eat donuts and now you are being punished for it.”
I feel lucky in not having had to struggle with disordered eating since brushing up against it as a teen. But like most women I know, I carry an internal critic quick to judge and shame my appearance and the appetite that has me relishing donuts whenever I can get my hands on a good one. Most of the time, I ignore her. But when I’m sad or vulnerable, there she is, observing that I want too much, whatever that “too much” might be—wanting to run a marathon or to eat a second piece of pie. I had better prove it’s all worth it–by running a BQ every time I take on the 26.2 distance, for instance–or make myself small.
So, this holiday season, I wish everyone enjoyment of their favourite festive food. But I also wish for honest conversation, at the family table, about the damaging lessons we learned as girls about appetite; about the casual comments made by friends and family that reinforce these lessons, decades later; about the runners, including me, who work to maintain the illusions of control and self-discipline that our culture values so highly, at such great cost.
Alison Conway lives and works in Kelowna, British Columbia, on the traditional and unceded territory of the Syilx Okanagan people.
“The effects of dietary restriction on metabolism and lifespan didn’t always change in lockstep. To the authors’ surprise, the mice that lost the most weight on a calorie-limited diet tended to die younger than did animals that lost relatively modest amounts.
This suggests that processes beyond simple metabolic regulation drive how the body responds to limited-calorie regimes. What mattered most for lengthening lifespan were traits related to immune health and red-blood-cell function. Also key was overall resilience, presumably encoded in the animals’ genes, to the stress of reduced food intake.”
“Shame is everywhere, and for women, it’s a constant, uninvited guest. Join host Gabe Howard and writer Melissa Petro as they explore how shame functions as a tool to keep women in line—dictating what they can be, how they should look, and who they’re allowed to become.
Melissa reveals the hidden forces at play that make women feel “not good enough,” no matter what they do. She introduces “shame resilience,” a powerful strategy to transform how we see ourselves by embracing our feelings and challenging the stories we’ve been told. If you’re tired of walking the impossible line between “too much” and “not enough,” this episode is for you.
Discover how to break free from the labels, live more authentically, and reclaim your power in a world that constantly tries to diminish it. Tune in and start rewriting your own narrative today.”
Watch
Join us for a free, live Q&A with ultra-endurance cyclist and Adventure Cycling board member, Lael Wilcox as she shares stories from her recent world-record breaking journey around the globe.
When: Monday, October 21, at noon MDT Register here Cost: Free! Lael Wilcox is an ultra-endurance cycling legend. She just set the women’s record for the fastest ride around the world and has set records on many ultra endurance routes over the last ten years. Lael will chat about planning and riding her record-setting trip, the experiences and people she encountered along the way, and the routes she relied on during her ride. Don’t miss this chance to hear firsthand about her adventures and learn how she’s supporting our mission to bring others the joy of traveling on two wheels.
1.Who here used to sell Girl Scout cookies? Anyone? Anyone? I did.
2.Who here has looked forward to Girl Scout cookie season (especially the thin mints)? No need to be shy– feel free to step on up. I’m already there.
3.Who here wants to transmit their admittedly-hard-to-get-rid-of feelings of body policing and food restriction on a bunch of little girls, otherwise excited to do some business with the public for the very first time? No one? Good. Not me, either!
If you answered yes to 2. and no to 3, you’re in good company. And, the Girls Scouts are happy to help you out with some tips. Here they are (copied from their Insta page)
Honestly, this advice is good for virtually any situation, and virtually any person.
Who here loves the fact that little girls selling cookies can help the rest of us remember that sometimes (actually, all the time), a cookie is just a cookie? ME!
Oh yeah, we all want in on this.
But you’re not limited in what else a cookie can be: it can be a thin mint, lemon, toffee, or whatever you can dream up and whip up (and buy up from your local troop). Here’s their list for this year:
The 2024 Girl Scout Cookie Lineup
If you want to read about one mother’s experiences with body- and diet-conscious messaging during her daughter’s first cookie sales, read here. If you want to find out where and how to buy Girl Scout Cookies during the season, check it out here.
Or, you could decide to bake or buy or borrow some other cookies to enjoy at your leisure. It’s up to you. Enjoy…
For the past two weeks, I’ve been teaching fallacies in my critical thinking class. You know, those bad argument forms with latin names like post hoc ergo propter hoc and tu quoque. Philosophers ’round the world teach them so students can see more clearly how much bad reasoning is swirling around them, why it’s bad, and how not to fall prey to it. Not bad work if you can get it.
On Tuesday, while discussing the appeal to authority fallacy, I pulled up a slide with examples of cases where someone endorses a claim who is portrayed as an authority, but who, in reality, isn’t one. Enter Oprah.
Oprah giving a speech about WW, the rebranded name of Weight Watchers, in which she was financially invested.
As I tell my students, Oprah isn’t a nutrition authority– she’s not a nutritionist or dietician. That’s sufficient to illustrate the fallacy. But what I don’t say (because I’m teaching logic, not feminism or socio-cultural analysis) is that Oprah kind of IS an authority on weight loss (and weight gain), inasmuch as she’s done it dozens of times, all in public view. We’ve written about her a few times on the blog. You might check them out.
And there’s my post from 2017 featuring fallacies, Oprah and the risks of celebrity meal plans and cookbooks. Take a look below and let us know what you think. Is WW on your radar screen? Is Oprah? What are you seeing and thinking? Let us know.
I shared the info Bixi shared with me after biking around the city recently and complained about the calorie counting.
Why on earth do they share calorie information?
Friends chimed in and we had an interesting conversation. Why do I care about calorie info? Can’t I just ignore it? What’s my objection?
Nicole wondered if it motivates some people to bike maybe it’s not such a bad thing, as long as they don’t obsess about it. While they are thinking about calories, they are still getting the bigger benefit of movement, after all.
I’m still not a fan. Why? I think this covers the main points.
First, I hate calorie counts because they’re part of the association of exercise with weight loss which I really hate. I’ve had a go at this topic many times here on the blog but probably the best version is here.
Second, there’s no way it’s accurate. Thanks Miles for that point.
Third, some people find it triggering. If there are people that the calorie info attracts, there will also be people with a history of disordered eating who avoid Bixi for its calorie counting talk. Thanks Audra for this reminder.
Also, it might just completely miss the mark. As my friend Daniel, the only Montrealer in on the conversation pointed out, people use Bixi because it’s convenient.
“For the most part, Bixi has just become a vital part of Montreal’s public transport infrastructure. There are tons of trips for which Bixi just is the most efficient choice…I think a lot of people have adopted them just to have that extra degree of flex in their public transport palette.”
I think it might be cool to share info on the effect of your bike ride on your carbon footprint. How much less carbon did you use biking instead of driving? Yes, it’s not always doing to be accurate but likely not less so than calorie counts. It might not be motivational for everyone but at least it won’t put anyone off.
