Fitness Obstacles

I have been posting my journey towards fitness here in my blog and it got me thinking about fitness in general. Over the past several decades there has been a growing concern over obesity and a general lack of fitness here in the US. Why is that? Looking at our history, we can see a lot of things that have contributed to that trend, and it's difficult for individuals to mitigate some of them on their own.

The factor that is easiest for individuals to mitigate is portion sizes. Since around the 1950s or so, portion sizes in the US have grown exponentially. Fast food places "super-size" everything. Sit down restaurants serve meals that contain two or three times what the recommended portion size should be. Some menu items can contain enough calories to satisfy an entire day's worth of calories for some people. To mitigate this factor individuals can:

1. Understand their daily calorie intake and plan meals that will satisfy the correct portion of calories per meal.

2. Know going in to it that restaurant portions are too big. Either share the meal with someone else or put half of the meal in a to-go box before starting, that way there is no temptation to eat too much.

3. Find portion size guides online to get a better idea of what a normal portion size really looks like. As silly as that sounds, the US has been serving ridiculously large portions for so long that a lot of people honestly don't know what a normal portion size looks like.

4. Add protein to your diet. Studies show that people are likely to eat fewer calories if their diet is made up of 30% protein.

5. Drink plain water instead of sugary drinks. Water has no calories and drinking water helps people feel full so they will likely eat fewer calories.

6. Eat slowly. It takes some time for the brain to receive the signal that the stomach is full. By eating slower people can avoid overeating during the time it takes for the brain to receive that signal.

Another factor that is more difficult to mitigate is food additives. One of the worst perpetrators here is high fructose corn syrup. Starting as early as 1938, the Us government began subsidizing farmers...corn in particular because it was a mainstay throughout the plain states. Because of this, corn products started popping up everywhere. Corn was advertised as a healthy food that would help people "live longer".

A product that hit the market hard was corn syrup (high fructose corn syrup/HFCS). Basically, a sugar alternative that had many cooking and baking applications. The problem was, corn syrup has between 20 and 23 (depending on its darkness) calories per each 1 tsp serving compared to sugar's 15 calories.

Corn Syrup vs Sugar | 3 tsp per 1 tbsp | 120 / 6 = 20

That's a big difference. As corn syrup began replacing sugar in just about every commercial product, calories counts skyrocketed. Even now that our society has become aware of the problem, a person would be hard pressed to find products without HFCS. So how can someone mitigate this problem? It's not easy, but there are a few things people can do:

1. Read the labels. Look at calories per serving, serving size, ingredients, and all of the other necessary information before buying. Be careful when reading the ingredients. Companies try to get sneaky and list sugar and other fattening additives under different names to try to trick people.

2. Don't be fooled by gimmicky things like organic, GMO free, gluten free, and so on. Organic does not mean better. GMO does not mean genetic mutant. The only people who need to worry about gluten are those who have celiac disease (about 1% of the US population).

A major contributing factor to our nationwide fitness issues is the layout of our cities. Most of our cities are designed around cars. There are highways and overpasses, underpasses and side roads, but pedestrian travel is all but non-existent. Every "upgrade" our cities make only seems to restrict pedestrian travel even further. Let me try to illustrate the effect this has on fitness. I hope you've already read my other fitness blogs, if not, here is a quick summary of what's relevant here. Because of some medical issues I gained some weight years ago. After years of eating too little, my basal metabolic rate dropped. Now I'm having to try to reset it. What's interesting is, that lower BMR wasn't an issue for me when I lived in Norman, OK. I didn't drive. Everything I needed was within walking distance. Occasionally I would take public transit, but for the most part, I walked...everywhere. I stand somewhere between 5'7" and 5'8". While ling in Norman, I was 150 pounds ~ give or take. That's just about perfect, even though my basal metabolic rate was low, and I only ate around 1400 calories per day.

After leaving Norman I have realized that other cities simply are not designed to allow pedestrians to move about freely. Even the San Francisco Bay was not set up for pedestrians...except for specific areas. Everywhere I go seems to be like that. If pedestrians want to walk somewhere, the city shoves them into a riverwalk, or boardwalk, or "historic district," or whatever. The cities themselves are "off limits" because they are set up for cars. What's worse is, a lot of these places have horrendous public transit systems so if someone really wanted to go to that corner the city set aside for pedestrians, they have to drive to get there! It's a travesty! So what can people do to mitigate this? Not a lot, that's for sure:

1. Create an exercise plan. I know, it's far better when the exercise fits organically into your life, but what can you do?

2. Run for local city planner? It might be worth a shot, I mean, the way they're doing it now...sucks.

There are a lot of obstacles in the way of becoming healthy and fit. Companies, even the ones that sell fitness products, are not there to help you reach your goals, they are there to make money. Remember that the obstacles to success can be in disguise. As long as you know where you are going, keep your eyes on your goal, and look out for those obstacles, especially the ones in disguise, you can make it.