Stopping the Death of 1,000 Cuts

When NY Mayor Mike Bloomberg took action to restrict the size of soda pop beverages, much of the public, including the nutrition pundits, whined like a three year old being told she couldn't have a lollipop before dinner. No surprise there were lots of objections from people in the streets because in NY over half the population is obese, unlike the rest of the a US where only one-third of us are. Many of them are addicted to sugar. Do you see cocaine addicts gleefully forgo snorting cocaine?

Of course, the soda pop industry marshaled its PR hacks, many with PhDs, to remind everyone that it's not just soda  pop that's leading to the epidemic of obesity and diabetes, especially among our children. What about french fries and candy and donuts and pizza and ice cream and mom's apple pie? They acted as if they had been wrongfully accused. What great actors!

Actually, there is a tiny germ of truth in what they said. Yes, it's a lot of little things we do day in, day out that are causing our slow motion health massacre. Not just one dramatic thing like millions of people lining up to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge. No, it's quieter and more insidious than that. It's the death of 1,000 cuts where you slowly bleed to death. A major source of those cuts is the beverage industry, in particular soda pop.

The only way to stop the death of 1,000 cuts is to stop the cuts - one at a time. We need to change our social norms so it's not acceptable to push sugar, especially onto kids. This will not happen instantly, but over time as more people stand up to sugar profiteers and just say NO, it's not cool to drink the stuff at home, parties, and at work. That's how it will change - more and more people stand against sugar-embalmed drinks just like they did tobacco.

Mayor Bloomberg should be commended because he's doing what he can to stop the nutritional blood-letting. It might deter a few New Yorkers or get them to think about what they are doing to themselves or their kids. It's already caused debates on national television, a good thing (if anybody's watching).

The dump-soda pop movement is spreading West, too. Recently a close relative who works in a hospital in the Pacific Northwest asked why the vending machines are full of sugared crap, especially when so many patients are there because of health issues like heart disease and diabetes, diseases caused by poor nutrition and sedentary lifestyles. The hospital higher ups have promised more healthful choices.

When it comes to sugar and soda pop, we all need to become Mayor Bloombergs. In our houses and workplaces, maybe we can help stop the bleeding.

Shake Days

Food/diet purists had a twit that First Lady Michelle Obama, a champion for exercise and healthy eating, enjoyed a burger and milk shake (estimated at 1700 calories) last week at a popular burger joint in Washington, D.C. What they over-looked is that she gets up every day at 4:30 am to hit the weights and treadmill, and most days of the week she doesn't drink milk shakes. She's probably the fittest First Lady in history. She frequently wears sleeveless dresses; look at her well-defined arms. Shake days are rare.

We all have our equivalent of Michelle's "shake" days, when we consume cookies, cupcakes, beer, chips, donuts, pretzels, bagels, bread, milk shakes, pizza -- name the sweet, high carb food your brain craves. There's nothing wrong with a shake day now and then, even once a week, but our national problem is that, for many of us, shake day is everyday.

Our economy may not be growing, but our appetites are are, along with the fat riddling many parts of our bodies. A study from U. of North Carolina said that between the late 1970's and and mid-2000's, the average American adult increased caloric intake increased from 3 meals per day to the equivalent of 4.9 meals per day. Of course, we aren't doing this by sitting down for 1.9 extra meals on top of the 3 square meals we ate in the good old days. We're doing it by eating larger portions and snacking.

In the community health center where I work, we formed a Wellness Club. To become more aware of what we eat, many of us keep a food journal. In an inexpensive notebook, we write down what we eat at every meal, and for snacks. Everything we put in our mouths and swallow.

Right now we don't try to calculate volume and calories, though that would be useful. But even lacking these details, the food journal itself is revealing. Over time, each of us will discover a unique, day-in, day-out eating pattern, hopefully aligned with our health and fitness goals, though sometimes not at all. I can see already that I snack too much on high calorie nuts and chocolate. At least these foods have some  nutrient value -- nuts, especially, are calorie dense and nutrient dense.

The hard to swallow fact is that the snack foods most Americans eat too often are calorie rich, but nutritionally poor. Note that the U. of North Carolina also did an interesting experiment with rats. They fed one group of rats the typical snack foods that you can buy at the super market, and fed lard to the other group. The lard group actually stayed pretty healthy. However, the snack food rats got fat and developed metabolic syndrome and prediabetes.

Give Michelle Obama a break. A shake day here and there is no problem. What needs to be eliminated are the junk snack foods full of salt, sugar and fat.

The One Thing

This TOJ is a total fanatic about the importance of regular exercise of all kinds to promote your health and well-being. But, hands down, the one thing that may be more important for your health, especially if you're a typical American, is to radically reduce your sugar consumption.

To understand why, watch this short video (I've posted the 1.5 hr. one before) by Dr. Robert Lustig:

Also, read this excellent discussion by Dr. Mercola.

The typical American diet is embalmed with sugars. The USDA recommends that we not consume more than the equivalent of 10 teaspoons of sugar a day. Of course, many people gorge themselves on pop, candy, and donuts, the usual sickly suspects. But they are only one source.

Where we really get poisoned is from the sugar-by-any-other-name in the list on the right side below. Look at the ingredients on everything in your freezer and cupboard. Whether frozen or canned, it likely has one or more of these sugars (note: molasses at least has a couple of nutrients, unlike all the rest). Then look at the food label chart for sugars. See how many grams on in it. Go down the list on the left. One teaspoon of sugar = 4 grams.

Double check the foods that are labeled "healthy" and "natural" like yogurt and granola bars. Very likely, just one of them contain all the sugar it's safe for you to eat for the entire day.

Look at the photo below, which shows what 10 teaspoons of sugar look like in comparison to 34 teaspoons of sugar, which is what is consumed each day by an average American. Wonder why you feel fat and sluggish? Wonder why so many people, especailly middle-aged and older, have pot guts?

It's possible to run, lift, or pedal off the calories from this excess. However, what's really important to grasp is that what makes sugar deadly is not about the calories, but it's destructive effects on your liver, rapid fat formation, insulin resistance, and the inflammation it causes to your arteries.

Remember, your body has NO requirement for refined sugars. None. It needs some carbohydrates, which are automatically converted to glucose.

Know how much sugar you are consuming in all forms. Never drink soda pop. Rarely eat sweet crap. Avoid processed foods. Learn how to trick your brain with natural sugar substitutes.

By reducing your intake of sugars and increasing your exercise, you give your body a chance to thrive. If you don't, you're poisoning yourself just like a drug addict.

Food, Fitness and Fat

"The experts are always telling us to 'Listen to your body!' But if I listened to my body, I'd live on toffee pops and port wine. Don't tell me to listen to my body...It's trying to turn me into a blob!"
                                                                       -- Roger Robinson, New Zealand Masters Runner ***

I guess lots of Amercians are listening to their bodies. Recently the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) published a study which projects that by 2020, 75% of Americans will be overweight or obese. The OECD is concerned about this because obesity has a direct impact not just on the individual, but on rising healthcare costs. Overweight has a causal connection to cancer, heart disease, diabetes and a host of skeletal problems. In fact, obesity can shorten a life by 8-10 years.

The obesity epidemic is occurring mainly in the industrialized world. The causes are well known. Too much poor quality, cheap fast food, too much sitting in cars and subways, too much sitting in front of computers and school desks, too much eating.

The flip side of these "too much's" is too little -- too little exercise, too little eating of more nutritious foods, too little eating of smaller portions, too little rest, too little suport in the workplace for wellness. It was disappointing to see a NY Times article this week reporting that after two decades of federal programs to encourage Americans to eat more vegetables, only 23% of Americans eat even one vegetable with their meals when french fries are excluded.

Luckily, once you get on the path to fitness you start to realize that years of brain-washing by our culture and advertising make it necessary to reconsider all our assumptions about food and our cravings. The food industry, indifferent to the effects of their industrialized products on your body (they leave it to the healthcare system to deal with it), has made it necessary to become more picky about exactly what your body does listen to.

Most Americans are addicted to sugar and fat before they are teenagers (I speak from experience). Our bodies are the product of evolution. Not that long ago, when our ancestors were hunter-gatherers, fat and sugar were rare commodities. Our body needs both, but not in the amounts and forms heavily marketed nowadays. We crave them naturally, and the food industry stands ready to satisfy our cravings at a nice profit.

But once fitness becomes a focus in your life, so does food. Strength, endurance, reflexes, balance, ability to rest and sense of well being are all affected by food choices. For a TOJ, food is even more important to ensure muscles receive adequate nutrients to repair and grow and to maintain a strong immune system as the body is subjected to the stress of exercise.

When you exercise frequently and hard, you also begin to rewire your cravings. You become less satisfied by consuming empty calories with few nutrients. Soda pop, burgers, fries and soft serve ice cream pass into history like your youth.


*** Quote from "The Quotable Runner" edited by Mark Will-Weber