Category: eating

diets · eating · holidays

Eat! Don’t Eat! Holiday Magazine Mixed Messages

Tracy I7 Comments

xmas-dessertFor over a month now Canadian magazines like Canadian Living and Chatelaine, similar to Women’s Day in the US, have featured holiday recipes–from baking to appetizers to Christmas dinner and Boxing Day brunch (that’s the day after Christmas, for those who live south of the Canada-US border)–these recipes don’t skimp on sugar, fat, chocolate.  See Chatelaine’s “Nine candy recipes to sweeten up the holidays” and Canadian Living’s “Seven easy and impressive trifle recipes.”

And then there are the magazines, sometimes the very same magazines, that tell us how to navigate the holiday parties and buffet tables, the lunches and the dinners and the cocktail hours and the potlucks, the special treats left out at the office, free for all takers.

These articles prime us to deal with the excessive amounts of food available through the holidays. And they’re usually put in terms of survival, like “Survive the Holidays without Gaining Weight” and, on the Chatelaine website, “The Twelve Days of Fitness.”

“The Twelve Days of Fitness” is a program designed to help us “beat the bulge” through the holidays:

Get ready to beat the holiday bulge! Together with celebrity trainer Ramona Braganza, we’ve designed a 12-day pre-holiday workout challenge to get you through the indulgent festive season and kick-start your fitness routine for the New Year. With Ramona’s 3-2-1 Method, you’ll get a full-body workout that combines three minutes of cardio, six minutes of circuit exercises and a one minute core exercise — for a total of just 10 minutes a day. Plus, every day Ramona will share a fitness or nutrition tip in an exclusive video (the same tips she gives to her star clients Jessica Alba, Halle Berry, Anne Hathaway and Scarlett Johansson). Get ready to follow along with our handy workout chart, below, and feel your best for the holidays.

Anyway, I don’t know about you, but to me these mixed messages — about indulgence on the one hand and keeping things in check on the other hand — are just annoying.

First of all, the whole idea of decadence and indulgence is irritating. As I’ve said before in my post on “Why Food Is Beyond Good and Evil,” if we don’t demonize certain foods they’re not as attractive.  But these foods are always set up as temptations that must be resisted.

I’m a big fan of intuitive eating, which encourages people to be mindful and pay attention to their hunger when eating. I find that if I am able to pay attention, I can pretty much eat what I want at holiday parties. The only thing I need to be aware of is the quantity.

For me, one of the worst feelings I can have is the feeling of having eaten too much. I’m not talking about the regret of it all. No, I mean literally the physical feeling of having put more food into my tummy than it can comfortably accommodate.

The idea that you can counterbalance day after day of mindless eating beyond comfort by doing a few workouts is also misleading. It just doesn’t work that way.  You can work out all you like, but eating more than feels comfortable is still bound to cause…well…discomfort.

My own approach to holiday eating is still a bit haphazard. As I said before, if I pay attention, then I can eat what I like and stop when I’ve had enough.  If I don’t pay attention, that’s less likely to happen.  I’m probably going to switch to auto-pilot and go beyond my comfort zone.

But I certainly don’t approach particular foods with the “I shouldn’t” attitude. And I like to think of the holidays as another one of those occasions, like vacations or illness or travel or being too busy at work, that can throw me off of my routine.

Rather than clinging to a workout schedule in order to “undo” what I did at a party or a dinner the day before, I like to stick as closely to my regular schedule of swimming, biking, and running as possible because it grounds me and makes me feel good. Sometimes, it’s the only part of my routine that I can keep in place.

The more grounded I feel, the more likely I am to take care of myself at all of the different events.  Stopping eating before I need to undo my belt is one way of taking care of myself.

But back to the mixed messages we see in the media at this time of year.  I think it’s worse for women. “Eat!” and  “Don’t Eat!” are just another version of the double bind that feminists have called our attention to for decades.

No different from “be sexy but not too sexy” and “be assertive but not aggressive” and “be career-oriented but not at the expense of your children,” the magazines encourage us to cook elaborate, high calorie foods, mostly for other people. We are either not to eat them, or, if we do, we are supposed to “reverse the damage” through exercise.

I understand that all of the festivities can be stressful and that tables full of food can overwhelm people. Of course, there’s a very good chance that mindfulness will elude us at times. But it’s a much more self-nuturing to approach the season with confidence that we can look after ourselves and slow down enough to make conscious choices about how best to do that.

Instead of getting caught up in the whole “eat” and “don’t eat” narratives, why not try instead just to “pay attention”?

pay-attention

 

 

body image · diets · eating · Uncategorized

Keep your eyes on your own plate

Sam B2 Comments

Here’s a useful thought for the holidays as we get together with friends and family over food and drinks: other peoples’ food choices aren’t your business. Unless people ask your advice, keep your food judgements to yourself. I mean best yet, don’t make them, but if you make them, no need to share.

You just can’t assume you know what choices people are making or why they’re making them. It’s wrong to assume everyone is trying to “be good” over the holidays.

A parent I’m friends with on Facebook talked about teaching her children the “keep your eyes on your own plate” rule. That’s an important lesson for adults too.

Ragen Chastain has a broader principle, not just about food, but about other people’s life choices generally. She dubs it the “underpants rule.” You’re the boss of your own underpants and that includes what goes on your plate.

Here Pesky Chloe on Facebook illustrates the rule:

 

 

eating · health

Vitamin D: What’s a reasonable person to do?

Sam B13 Comments

I often blog about topics where I’ve done some research and thought I’d save you the time. On topics such as exercise non-responders (Or, are you a non responder?), intermittent fasting and women’s health (Intermittent fasting and why it might not work), and athletes and pain tolerance (Are athletes masochists?) I’m far from an expert in the field but I’ve read enough to have some conclusions to share.

But on some topics, I’m perplexed. I’ve read a fair bit but I’m still not sure what to think or do about Vitamin D.  Let’s start with the question that many of us in the northern hemisphere worry about, are you getting enough Vitamin D?

Some reports suggest nearly half the world’s population suffers from vitamin D deficiency, which is unsettling news given that a lack of vitamin D has been associated with a host of serious conditions: cancer, heart disease, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, tuberculosis and even depression, not to mention brittle bones and the common cold.

But it’s not clear that supplements help. See the Limits of Vitamin D Supplements.

A large review of studies has found that vitamin D supplements have little or no benefit beyond the low levels required for bone health.

The meta-analysis, published in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, combined data from 290 observational studies and 172 random trials. All the studies used blood levels of vitamin D to measure outcomes. Dosages varied, but most trials used 800 units or more.

The observational studies generally found an association of lower vitamin D levels with increases in cardiovascular disease, lipid concentrations, glucose levels, weight gain, infectious disease and mood disorders. But random trials showed little or no effect of vitamin D supplements on any of these problems. The authors conclude that low vitamin D levels are almost surely an effect of these diseases, and not a cause.

Current guidelines recommend supplements for anyone with a blood level under 30 nanograms per milliliter, but the lead author, Dr. Philippe Autier, said that only at levels of 10 or less would there be a risk to skeletal health. Less than 10 percent of Americans, he estimates, fall into this category. Dr. Autier is a researcher at the International Prevention Research Institute in Lyon, France.

“Unfortunately, there is probably no benefit to expect from vitamin D supplementation in normally healthy people,” he said.

See also, from Precision Nutrition, Vitamin D supplements: Are yours helping or hurting you?

Almost every expert recommends it. And everyone’s taking it. But what if we’ve been using it wrong? What if our vitamin D supplements aren’t really helping us at all?
If your car’s oil light went on once a week…and every time you checked the oil, it was running low…what would you do?
Shrug? Top up the oil tank (again)? Do your best to forget about it?
Or would you try to figure out the cause? Why that oil light kept coming on? Why your oil was running low?
If you’re smart, you take your car to the mechanic. Where you learn that low oil is just a symptom. There, the mechanic looks for the real problem.
Why, then, don’t we take the same approach with our health? With our supplements?
Why’s that vitamin D low?
Research over the last few years has indicated that a large percent of the world’s population is low in vitamin D. However, the response to this is kinda strange.
Healthcare practitioners typically test a patient’s vitamin D levels and notice that they’re low.
Then s/he prescribes a vitamin D supplement.
The patient comes in again a few months later and vitamin D is still low.
So the doctor increases the supplement.
Interestingly, very few professionals ever ask: Why is this person’s “vitamin D tank” leaking in the first place?

In case you thought indoor tanning in the winter was a reasonable response, think again. The Canadian Cancer Society says, “Using tanning beds may increase vitamin D production, depending on the type of bulbs used (only UVB radiation can stimulate vitamin D production). But tanning beds are not a safe way to get vitamin D. There are safer ways to get vitamin D.”  Read more: http://www.cancer.ca/en/cancer-information/cancer-101/what-is-a-risk-factor/sun-and-uvr-exposure/indoor-tanning/?region=bc#ixzz3Kby7OdJm

The International Skin Cancer Foundation puts in in stronger terms.

No … no… no! A tanning bed will never provide you with the vitamin D that you need, nor is it safer than tanning outdoors. Not understanding the facts can literally mean the difference between life and death. Both ultraviolet A (UVA) and ultraviolet B (UVB) radiation cause cell damage that can lead to skin cancer. When you lie in an indoor tanning bed, you are exposed primarily to UVA, which penetrates deep into the surface of the skin, damaging the cells beneath and prematurely aging your skin. But it is UVB (the sun burning rays) — not UVA — which helps the skin make vitamin D, so you are increasing your risk of skin cancer without receiving any benefit!

As for the claim that tanning beds emit a controlled dose of UV radiation, a “controlled dose” of UV radiation from a tanning bed is a dangerous dose: frequent tanners using high-pressure sunlamps may receive as much as 12 times the annual UVA dose compared to the dose they receive from sun exposure.

It’s estimated that 10 minutes in a tanning bed matches the cancer-causing effects of 10 minutes in the Mediterranean summer sun. This may be one reason that indoor tanners are 74 percent more likely to develop melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, than those who have never tanned indoors, and that people who use tanning beds are 2.5 times more likely to develop squamous cell carcinoma and 1.5 times more likely to develop basal cell carcinoma, the two most common skin cancers. In addition to increasing your risk of skin cancer and accelerating signs of skin aging like wrinkles and brown spots, UV radiation also weakens the immune system — which further increases your risk for skin cancer. While there is no question that vitamin D is essential for strong bones and a healthy immune system, current evidence does not support its role in the prevention of breast cancer, colorectal cancer, heart disease and stroke. Adults should obtain their recommended daily dose of 600 IU (international units) of vitamin D safely, from foods such as oily fish and fortified dairy products and cereals. Another easy way to ensure you are getting enough vitamin D is to take supplements. I strongly advise against exposure to artificial UV radiation (tanning beds), since the health risks — including skin cancer and premature skin aging — are significant and potentially life-threatening.

But should we test everyone for vitamin D deficiency?

There are problems with making vitamin D tests a standard part of preventive medicine, a federal panel said. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force said Monday there’s not enough evidence of benefits or harms to recommend vitamin D testing for all. And even though some studies have associated low levels of vitamin D with a long list of ills, including a higher risk of fractures, falls, heart disease, colorectal cancer, diabetes, depression, thinking problems and death, scientists who evaluated studies for the USPSTF say there is no direct evidence that universal screening would reduce those risks. “The effect of vitamin D levels on health outcomes is difficult to evaluate,” the recommendation statement says.

So what do I do for now? I get outside in the sun when it appears. Walking my dog helps. And I do take a Vitamin D pill in the lowest sun months. Given the above I’m not sure it’s doing me any good but it’s a low enough dose that it’s not doing me any harm either.

What do you do about Vitamin D in the winter? Why? (And although I’m a professor and this is exam season, I don’t mean that question in an exam like way! I’m curious about what decisions others make when it’s not clear what the facts are.)

diets · eating · food · Uncategorized · weight loss

Vegan for Weight Loss? Not Necessarily but Don’t Let That Discourage You!

Tracy I5 Comments

Everyday Pad Thai. Photo credit: Vanessa Reese. http://www.theppk.com/2013/09/everyday-pad-thai/
Everyday Pad Thai. Photo credit: Vanessa Reese. http://www.theppk.com/2013/09/everyday-pad-thai/

It’s making the rounds again–the idea that a vegan or at least vegetarian diet is the best way to lose weight.  According to this article:

Overweight and obese adults who wanted to lose weight were randomly assigned to one of five low-fat and low-glycemic index diets: vegan (no animal products), vegetarian (dairy products included), pesco-vegetarian (dairy products and seafood included), semi-vegetarian (all food included, but red meat no more than once a week and poultry no more than five times a week), or omnivorous (no restrictions on food type and frequency).

Participants were told they could eat small amounts of nuts and nut butters, avocados, seeds, and olives in their diets but were encouraged to focus on lower-fat food options. The dieters were not given goals for limiting the number of calories they ate. As the researchers put it, “participants were free to eat until they were satisfied.”

After six months, those in the vegan group had lost the most weight, an average of 7.5 pounds. The vegetarian group was not far behind, with an average loss of 6.3 pounds. Those in the other groups lost only half as much weight (an average of 3.2 pounds for the pesco-vegetarian and semi-vegetarian groups and 3.1 pounds for the omnivores). There was no significant difference in reported activity level among the five groups.

I’ve blogged before about why this kind of thing bugs me.  First of all, any diet that restricts whole food groups for the purposes of losing weight is really just a fad diet that’s not likely to stick.

Not only that, and probably related, dieting to lose weight is for the vast majority of those who do it, doomed from the outset. It’s really hard to keep off all the lost weight.  We’ve had lots to say about that on this blog and are basically anti-diet in our approach.  See here and here and here and here for example.

Don’t get me wrong. There are all sorts of good reasons to be vegan or follow a plant-based diet.  Lots of athletes do well on a diet that’s free of animal products.  Like Rich Roll, an ultra-triathlete, and Scott Jurek, an ultra-runner.

I’m vegan, but I can’t say it helped me lose weight or perform better athletically. I continue with my vegan lifestyle (which goes beyond the diet) anyway because my motivation is ethical not based on health or weight loss or performance.

I don’t mind if people are convinced by articles like the one I quoted above to try this approach to eating. But I hate to make its virtues dependent on losing weight or improving athletic performance.

Not everyone is going to respond the same way to every approach to eating. For some people, there may be dramatic weight loss on this kind of diet. But for others, there may be none, or even weight gain.  Especially after they learn how to cook and realize that for every amazing non-vegan food out there that tempts us, there is an equally delicious vegan alternative!

So yes, try eating a plant-based diet.  It’s a perfectly legitimate and morally worthwhile way to satisfy your nutritional needs and keep your palate happy at the same time.  But it’s not a miracle diet.

Here’s a link to a recipe for “Everyday Pad Thai” from one of my favourite vegan blogs, Post Punk Kitchen by Isa Chandra Moskowitz.

eating

Fast Times: Reflections on Food Experiments

Tracy I4 Comments

no-sugar-wooden-brooch2_originalSince January, I’ve been participating in an on-line nutrition coaching program focused more on acquiring solid nutritional habits than following strict rules.  No dieting. No fads. Or so they keep claiming.

Enter the introduction a couple of months ago of “food experiments.” Every Thursday, they challenged us to experiment with different ways of eating.

The first week of food experimenting was no experiment for me at all: plant-based eating.  My team’s forum and Facebook group lit up with panicked posts about “what will I eat?”  As a vegan, I jumped in with reassurances about how easy it is to eat a plant-based diet.

The day *after* the experiment with plant-based eating, just about everyone said they didn’t love it.

The second week: Paleo.

Whats-the-Paleo-Diet-3

I don’t know about you, but I’m totally skeptical about the whole idea behind paleo. I get that some people swear by this way of eating. But the principle behind it–that this is the way our cave-dwelling ancestors ate and therefore we should eat this way too–just makes me want to laugh.

It has FAD written all over it.  There’s a whole list of what you can and what you can’t eat.  You can eat meat and fish because that’s what the hunters of the paleolithic period ate. You can go for seeds and nuts, but not peanuts because they’re legumes, and you’re not allowed to eat legumes (because the cave people didn’t eat them so they must be bad for us). You can eat fruit and veggies, even watercress, arugula and romaine. And healthy oils like avocado and olive oil. Right. Because no doubt our paleo ancestors enjoyed cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil drizzled on mixed greens all the time.

Take out legumes and dairy, neither of which are on the paleo plan, and you’ve pretty much dispensed with all vegan lean proteins.

Confession: I skipped paleo day because I just thought, “Why?”  Why do I need to know what it feels like to folow a way of eating that I do not believe in and will never adopt?

After that, we had a low-carb day, a sugar-free day, and all of this built up to the 24 hour fasting experiment.  Sugar-free and fasting were my two favourites.

I’m always slightly tempted to go sugar-free anyway because for me it’s the easiest fix.  Cut out refined sugar (not fresh fruit) and that takes care of lots of the poor nutritional choices that I make by habit.  So I enjoyed the sugar-free day quite a bit.  It made me realize how much I’ve been reaching for dried fruit here, adding a touch of sugar to my decaf soy latte there, and grabbing high sugar convenience bars, like Clif Bars, outside of endurance workouts (which are really the only time I need them).

The main purpose of the experiments is to reflect on how you feel when you’re eating that way.  For me, lowering my sugar intake always has a positive impact on my energy levels. They stay more constant and I sleep better at night. I once did this for a whole year, and I absolutely did feel better. Doing it for the one-day experiment piqued my interest in making a longer commitment to this approach. I’m considering doing it for the last two months of 2014.

Sam has written about intermittent fasting and on the idea that hunger is not an emergency.  She has also gathered up some of the latest research on fasting for health and concluded that it’s not a great strategy. See her post, “Not So Fast.”

no_food

Fasting has never been high on my list of things I want to do.  I understand that it’s a terrible weight loss strategy, just prompting a famine response.  So I would never do it for that.  But I was curious to try it as an experiment with hunger.  I like to eat at regular intervals and tend not to let myself get real hungry all that often. So for me, the idea of fasting for 24 hours helped me relate to the panic my team members felt when they couldn’t eat meat for 24 hours on plant-based day.

I planned my fast from 7 p.m. on Wednesday to 7 p.m. on Thursday.  That way, I could eat a good dinner on Wednesday night as long as I was done by 7, and then I could plan a good dinner for Thursday. I only had to skip breakfast, lunch and snacks all of Thursday.  How hard can that be?

It wasn’t all that hard. I had to fend off a couple of headaches by taking some tylenol. And I didn’t have the energy I usually do.  Some people say that fasting helps with mental focus, but by halfway through my 3-hour seminar on Thursday afternoon, I felt as if I was cognitively slower than usual and I had to work extra hard to stay present and focused.

Good thing for me I had a full schedule that day with no intense workouts. A challenging workout on a fasting day is not my idea of a fun time.  I did learn that hunger is, indeed, not an emergency. It actually comes in waves. And if I get hungry but know that I can’t eat just yet, my mind actually will let go of it if I keep myself occupied.

The thing I liked most about fasting was that I didn’t have to think about food at all and I could focus on other tasks.  I thought I would obsess about food, but in the end, not so much.  As dinner time approached, that changed. I had planned to break the fast at Zen Gardens, one of my favourite restaurants.  After not eating for 24 hours, food tastes extra good.

Fasting is the only food experiment I’ve undertaken twice.  About a week after my birthday I did it again because I’d been eating so much that I was sick of food and wanted a break.  I enjoyed it just as much the second time, and food tasted good again at the end of it.

Upshot:  experimenting with different approaches to food and eating is an interesting way to gain insight into how different things make you feel, the impact on your energy levels and mood, maybe how they digest.  As I discovered with fasting, it’s also a way of opening up to things that may not have been on the table before.  Of course, I didn’t have a totally open mind, as my rejection-without-trying-it of Paleo shows. But to me that’s more fad than anything else, and though experiments are worth exploring, fads don’t have the same allure for me.

cycling · eating · sports nutrition

Why riding fast and long requires lots of food

Sam B6 Comments

image

When you’re suffering on a long ride, slowing down and struggling to stay with the bunch, one of the first things people ask is whether you’ve had enough to eat.

The people riding with you start rifling through their jersey pocket and handing you snacks. Why?

Why is eating while riding so important? And why does not eating enough affect performance so dramatically?

This article on fueling for a sportive has some of the answers:

 

“Your body will use a combination of fat and carbohydrate to fuel your ride. The harder you work, the more carbohydrate you will use. The body’s carbohydrate stores are limited and can be rapidly depleted so it is very important to keep your carbohydrate stores topped up for the duration of the event. Without available carbohydrate your body will depend more on fat as a fuel. You may think that burning fat sounds great but to do this your body needs a lot more oxygen and in response to this your pace will slow. That’s not ideal if you want to achieve a fast time or a new PB.”

(You might be wondering what a “sportive” is. The Gran Fondo is one example. It’s a long, mass participation, endurance cycling event.)

Riding my bike is one time I struggle with intuitive eating. I don’t feel hungry but I know I need to eat. Sometimes food can even make me feel sick. I go for easy to eat, calorie dense food in those cases.

I blogged about my experiences in the post Hunger and Nutrition. I wrote,

I struggle a bit with this because I’m often not hungry when I know I need to eat–during long, intense bike rides is the most common example–and at other times I’m famished even when I know there’s no need for extra calories (after long bike rides when I’m often hungry for the rest of the day and into the next one even after I’ve refueled.)

I know from experience that if I don’t eat while riding my performance suffers. It’s not just that I struggle while riding, I’m also hungry for days afterwards. By the time I get off the bike I’m eating anything and everything in sight. Often I’m still hungry the next day.

But if I eat regularly, before I’m hungry, and keep eating throughout the ride, I’m fine.

If I get the balance right not only can I ride faster, for longer, there’s no big swing in hunger associated with a long hard ride. I can have dinner that night as usual.

So I do it because I know it works even if it means setting aside my usual “eat when hungry” mantra.

If I find it tough, I think, again based on experience, my smaller cycling friends have it tougher. Food management can hugely affect cycling performance. It’s worth experimenting to find what works.

Oh, and here’s some geeky cycling humour related to our theme.

Top 10 Things Not To Eat While Cycling:

body image · Dancing · diets · eating · family · Guest Post

Inner conflicts in the life of a feminist dancing mother (Guest post)

natadicorsa8 Comments

I have danced all my life. I started ballet when I was an eight-year-old skinny child who never seemed interested in food. But when puberty hit, I developed a ferocious appetite, which made my mother elated, and my ballet teacher, who weighed us every first of the month, horrified: I put on 3 kilos all at once!

So I started weighing myself before and after every meal—or, as my mother teasingly put it, before and after every feed, like mothers used to do with babies, and I declined dinner preferring a meager yogurt instead. Fortunately, I got bored with this regimen, and I liked eating too much to develop an eating disorder as my mother feared. Aside from that one time, I never seriously dieted, mostly because I didn’t need to, but I have struggled with body acceptance since. What boys thought about my body started becoming important soon after, and I routinely found a body part to obsess about: my nose (too big!), my calves (also too big!), my breasts (not big enough!).
My recent favorite: wrinkly knees. I am seriously considering injecting something in them. (I would have to do some research on this!)

My partner has now taken my mother’s place in teasing me. Now, this is interesting because both bear at least some responsibility for my insecurities over my body. My mother, like—I suspect—many other mothers, may have been reassuring about weight, but not about my appearance in general: she rarely praised my looks and often made disparaging comments about them. She also has been on a diet since I can remember. More precisely, she has been “starting a diet” since I can remember. She is the reason why, as a mother myself, I really want to change the way I think and talk about my body. I don’t want my daughter to inherit this self-loathing obsession with looks that is passed down to so many of us, for generations.

I have to acknowledge that my partner has been a lot better than my mother in many respects. As a feminist, he is very aware of the importance of fighting back against stereotypes of femininity. As a lover, he has made me feel beautiful and sexy. However, he has his own preferences about the female body. In fact, his preferences happen to be fairly conventional (although maybe conventional for a man 20 years his senior): he likes curviness. He finds cellulite cute, and muscles unattractive. On the one hand, this is good news: unlike some women I know, I don’t have to deal with men who complain about me getting too fat. On the other, I have to deal with a man who excitedly compliments parts of my body that I do not want to hear praised as “jiggly” and who seems to find never-ending amusement in poking and squeezing stuff that an entire industry has been created to eliminate—or at least photoshop away.

Finally, add to this picture my pregnancy, during which I juggled the worry to stay fit and gain just the minimum amount of weight with the worry of not worrying too much about it, and accept with serenity the unavoidable decline. After I gave birth, I juggled the admiration for feminist, supposedly empowering projects like the  4th Trimester Bodies Project with the shame of feeling relief for not looking much like the women portrayed.

I know that my current concerns with being fit and thin have a functional nature: I can be a better dancer if I am back to my pre-pregnancy weight and shape. But now that I am close to that target, I know that it’s not just that: my not-as-toned-as-before belly does not prevent me from dancing well, but it does make me extremely, and irrationally, sad.

So… the jury is out.

As a mother, I want to be relaxed about my body, and transmit to my daughter the idea that it really shouldn’t matter what she looks like, and that she should instead aim for a healthy, functional body (I am hesitant to say “strong” because of possible ableist biases that shape the normative ideal of physical strength: I think being functional can be declined in ways that involve fewer such biases.)

As a romantic partner, I want to please my significant other, but without sacrificing my preferences. As a feminist, I do not want to succumb to objectifying and disempowering aesthetic ideals. (Don’t get me started on padded bras and waxing practices.)

As a woman, I want to be pretty, even with the understanding that my aesthetic standards are the product of my history and the era I live in.

I hope by the time I am old enough to have a granddaughter I will have figured it all out. In the mean time, I’ll enjoy my chocolate tonight, and my ballet class tomorrow.

Sara Protasi is a PhD student in Philosophy at Yale. She is currently working on her dissertation, tentatively titled “Envy: Varieties, Evils, Remedies, and Paradoxes”, which is at the intersection of moral psychology, normative ethics, and ancient and modern philosophy. Her other teaching interests include feminism and bioethics. Dance is her main hobby and passion outside of philosophy. She is an alumna of Yale Dance Theater and A Different Drum Dance Company at Yale.

advertising · body image · eating

Precision Nutrition, why the photo contest?

Sam B14 Comments

Dear Precision Nutrition,

In short, love your content and your coaching, hate your photo contest

I know, I know. It’s advertising. It’s very effective advertising, I’m sure, but it seems so inconsistent with your own programming and the lessons you teach.

My email box is full these days is messages like this one from Precision Nutrition:

In the next week, I’m giving away $50,000 to the top women’s finalists
from our latest Precision Nutrition Coaching group. And I’m having a tough time choosing the winner. If you click this link below, you’ll be able to check out our top women’s finalists. You’ll also be able to vote for who gets the prize money.

Which woman do you think had the best transformation?

You can see some of the winners here.

First, judging results based on appearance is inconsistent with your messaging throughout the program that what matters is health, strength, and physical and emotional wellness.

Second, isn’t it all about habits not results? Or I have missed something?

Third, throughout the program we were coached not to compare ourselves to others. People progress towards their goals at different rates. It’s your own journey. But then it ends with a giant exercise in comparison.

Finally, I thought it was about lifetime lifestyle changes, not end of a year eyeballing. I liked the emphasis on internal versus external transformations and thought PN’s lean eating program was about the former, not the latter.

As a participant in your program the photo shoot felt like a high school beauty pageant and figure competition, neither of which I’ve ever had any interest in participating in.

And yes, there was lots of room to opt out but then it felt like the last months of the program excluded me. I was also amused and disturbed, alternately, by the discussions about how to get good after photos. Artificial tanning, really? Skin cancer anyone? Okay, then spray tan instead. But that’s very much not my thing. Exercise first to get good muscle definition? How to reduce water for better muscle definition? Again, not my thing.

Given that the “before” photos were mostly selfies done with cell phones and timers it’s no surprise how much better they look. As you know, under these conditions you could do same day before and after photos get pretty good results.

Image from Business Insider, http://www.businessinsider.com/before-and-after-weight-loss-exposed-2013-8 Australian Personal Trainer Debunks Those Infuriating ‘Before And After’ Weight Loss Pictures.

Lean Eating photo shoot defenders say it’s not about six pack abs or sculpted quads. It’s about confidence, about a certain sparkle in the eye, about posture. But that’s not what it felt like to me. It felt like one more time that women’s bodies were being judged not on what they could do but on how they looked in a two piece bathing suit.

Look at the photos from January 2013. What do you think?

Here’s the company’s description of the photos: “A great feature of our Lean Eating Coaching Programs is the body transformation contest we run for men and women: every 6 months, we give big prize money away for the best body transformations in the program….Over the last week or so, the coaches and I have spent countless hours poring over physique photos, weight loss numbers, body composition data and participation records in order to choose a handful of finalists.”

In the end, I did get photos done though I didn’t enter the competition or share them widely. I actually loved the photo shoot experience. I did them with my friend and guest blogger Nat. See her post, On boudoir photos and plastic guitars. And I wrote about my photo shoot in my review of the Precision Nutrition program. I loved the photo shoot as a body affirming experience, not as getting “after” photos done.

I wrote, “I do look different in the photos a professional photographer took, but hey, she’s a pro. And she’s not using my smart phone propped up on a bookshelf in timer mode.  Besides the pricey real camera, she’s also got on her side: make up, talent, good lighting, flattering poses and postures, and a great attitude. See Nat’s take on our experience, On boudoir photos and plastic guitars (Guest post). So much fun. I highly recommend it as a body affirming experience. Don’t wait til you’re thin. (In fact, don’t ever put things off til you’re thin. You might never be thin, so what? Is that so scary? Go now.)”

In short here are my beefs with the Lean Eating/Precision Nutrition photo shoots:  Yes, the winners get prizes but it’s also free advertising for the company. On balance, I imagine, it’s a good deal. But I fear that the bikini style photo competition misrepresents the tone of the company’s own materials which tend to be about intuitive eating, body acceptance, and focus on habits not outcomes. Results after a year also aren’t really relevant. What ought to matter is how people are faring two, five, ten years out. It’s also not about the best transformations. Your results may vary, as they say. Results not typical, etc. What people who care about results ought to know is what percentage lean eaters lose weight/body fat and keep it off. I’ve been thinking about this for while and the recent crop of “best transformations” photos got me thinking about it again. Months later it still feels wrong to me.

Tracy and I have both written about the near impossibility of keeping weight off. See Sam and Tracy Respond …. What would be very useful are stats on how well past participants do over time. To my mind that would be the real hallmark of success. I know that data is hard to get and track but in the meantime, just quit with the before and after photos. It’s not what you’re really about.

Thanks for listening,

Sam

 

eating · weight loss

Eating more veggies won’t make you lose weight, eat them anyway

Sam B6 Comments

Turns out that the truth sometimes isn’t what’s obvious or comfortable to believe. Some thing can seem true while being false, in fact. For example, I’ve long favoured approaches to nutrition that focus on the positive. Instead, of telling ourselves to eat less junk, we should instead focus on making sure we eat enough fruits and vegetable. And it’s true that eating enough fruits and vegetables is good for you, no matter what.

But here’s the rub. Sometimes it’s offered as an approach to weight loss. Don’t count calories or ban carbs (or whatever) just focus on making sure you eat enough of the good stuff. And you’ll lose weight. The idea is displacement. The thought is that carrots will take the place of cookies, arugula will be your go-to instead of apples, and you’ll eat fresh veggies before your meal instead of bread. That sounds right, doesn’t it?

But no. Sounds right, in fact, false.

See Kale Salad Won’t Make you Lose Weight.

“Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham have found that increasing fruit and vegetable intake does not lead to weight loss, despite decades-old popular belief.

A team of investigators performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of data of more than 1,200 subjects in seven randomized, controlled trials to explore the weight loss effects of increasing fruit and vegetable consumption.

“Across the board, all studies we reviewed showed a near-zero effect on weight loss,” says study leader Kathryn Kaiser, Ph.D.,”

 

The displacement theory seems to be false, at least when it comes to fruits and vegetables. Randomized controlled trials are pretty much the gold standard when it comes to evidence.

“In the overall context of a healthy diet, energy reduction is the way to help lose weight, so to reduce weight you have to reduce caloric intake,” Kaiser said. “People make the assumption that higher-fiber foods like fruits and vegetables will displace the less healthy foods, and that’s a mechanism to lose weight; but our findings from the best available evidence show that effect doesn’t seem to be present among people simply instructed to increase fruit and vegetable intake.”

 

Three further things of note:

First, displacement seemed more effective when it comes to high protein foods. Simply adding two eggs for breakfast did reduce subjects’ overall calorie intake.

Second, the Precision Nutrition version of this theory comes with an additional tool, the idea that you only ever eat to 80% full. I wonder if that would make a difference.

Third, it’s still super healthy and good for you to eat the recommended amounts of fruits and vegetables, even if doing so doesn’t lead to weight loss.

Image

 

diets · eating · health · weight loss

Non-Dairy Ice Cream Cleanse. Really?

Tracy I4 Comments

coconutThe article asks: “Would you go on an ice-cream diet to lose weight? New cleanse prescibes FIVE PINTS a day for four days straight.”

Let’s start with my answer to the question: No.

I don’t care if it’s dairy-free. Even if it were completely vegan (it’s got honey in it, so I’m kind of surprised that they’re claiming to be a vegan ice cream shop). I would not go on an ice cream cleanse to lose weight or to “detox.”  And I especially wouldn’t pay $240 for it!

Here’s are the deets:

Kippy’s, a vegan ice-cream store in Venice, is offering a $240 cleanse in which dieters eat five pints of raw coconut-based ice-cream a day for four straight days.

The cleanse, which amounts to 1,000-1,200 calories and 70 grams of fat per day and boasts 20-25 grams of sugar per ice-cream pint, is designed to help people lose weight and achieve a clearer state of mind.

What you get is four days worth of ice cream and you eat it five times a day. They’ve got a “master cleanse” flavor and a “Superfoods” flavor, as well as dark chocolate with Himalayan fire salt, coconut yogurt (for breakfast), and orange creme.

There are lots of reasons I wouldn’t do this.

First, you can’t lose weight in four days and expect to keep any of it off.  The journalist who tried out the cleanse learned this first hand:

A reporter for Gizmodo, who reviewed the ice-cream cleanse with his girlfriend, revealed that despite their typical cleanse grovels (missing the feeling of chewing, salty foods, and solid foods in general), they both lost a similar amount of weight – approximately six pounds each.

But he admitted that ‘in the span of one long weekend, I managed to put all of that cleanse-weight back on (plus another pound or so).’

No surprises there.

Moving on:  all this talk of “cleanses” is just ridiculous. This article on the website “Science-Based Medicine” talks about the whole “detox”/”cleanse” trend as a scam ($240 for four days of ice cream, anyone?)  and gives suggestions about how to avoid it. According to the article, the premise that our bodies ingest and accumulate toxins that we need to cleanse ourselves of is just plain bad science:

Today’s version of autointoxication argues that some combination of food additives, gluten, salt, meat, fluoride, prescription drugs, smog, vaccine ingredients, GMOs, and perhaps last night’s bottle of wine are causing a buildup of “toxins” in the body. But what is the actual “toxin” causing harm? It’s nothing more than a meaningless term that sounds scientific enough to be plausible. A uniform feature of detox treatments is the failure to name the specific toxins that these rituals and kits will remove.

The colon remains ground zero for detox advocates. They argue that some sort of toxic sludge (sometimes called a mucoid plaque) is accumulating in the colon, making it a breeding ground for parasites, Candida (yeast) and other nastiness. Fortunately, science tells us otherwise: mucoid plaques and toxic sludge simply do not exist. It’s a made-up idea to sell detoxification treatments. Ask any gastroenterologist (who look inside colons for a living) if they’ve ever seen one. There isn’t a single case that’s been documented in the medical literature. Not one.

We see this vagueness about cleansing and what is to be cleansed in the claims made by Kippy’s coconut ice cream diet: “It helps us digest, repairs the gut, feeds the brain, boosts the metabolism and is a powerful agent of detoxification,” or so claim its developers and purveyors.

That the offending toxins are either unnamed or, if named, invented or falsely identified, leads to the debunking of the second assumption of cleanses: that the toxins are the root of illness.

And the final suspect claim is that these detox regimens and cleanses remove toxins.  According to the article, “there is no evidence to demonstrate that detox kits do anything at all.”

Yeah so what that says to me is that the very idea of a cleanse of any kind is just a waste of time and money.  My radar for that sort of thing is fairly sharp. I just have to hear the word “detox” or “cleanse” and my hackles go up.

And I think too that there’s a ton of slippage between the cleanse motive and the weight-loss motive.  If you challenge someone about a detox on the grounds that they’re not going to lose weight and keep it off, they will claim that what they’re really doing is detoxing.

Another thing worth pointing out is that there are medical applications of the term “detox.” It refers to a pretty horrible process of withdrawal that people addicted to substances like alcohol or narcotics go through when they are attempting to quit, or people who have ingested poison have to go through to literally clean out their systems. So it’s not a completely bogus idea, it’s just not the sort of thing that is covered in things like an ice cream diet or a cayenne and lemon juice drink or a “rapid cleanse” (which sounds just scary).

Here’s the conclusion of the article I’ve been referring to from the Science-Based Medicine website:

Any product or service with the words “detox” or “cleanse” in the name is only truly effective at cleansing your wallet of cash. Alternative medicine’s ideas of detoxification and cleansing have no basis in reality. There’s no published evidence to suggest that detox treatments, kits or rituals have any effect on our body’s ability to eliminate waste products effectively. They do have the ability to harm however – not only direct effects, like coffee enemas and purgatives, but the broader distraction away from the reality of how the body actually works and what we need to do to keep it healthy. “Detox” focuses attention on irrelevant issues, and gives consumers the impression that they can undo lifestyle decisions with quick fixes. Improved health isn’t found in a box of herbs, a bottle of homeopathy, or a bag of coffee pushed into your rectum. The lifestyle implications of a poor diet, lack of exercise, smoking, lack of sleep, and alcohol or drug use cannot simply be flushed or purged away. Our kidneys and liver don’t need a detox treatment. If anyone suggests a detox or cleanse to you, you’d do well to ignore the suggestion, and question any other health advice they may offer.

So I’m saving my money. I have nothing against coconut ice cream, by the way. I love it. But I’m not about to spend $240 for a four-day supply, eat it as my only meal for days in a row, and try to fool myself that I can use it to improve my health.