What brought you here and what you need to know to start

You probably know that you need to make some lifestyle changes, but every attempt you have made yielded itself useless. You like the program you are using, but struggle to be consistent. You do not feel motivated to change. You're looking for consistency. You have a hard time balancing the demands of your life. Do you want to take command of your life? You've come to the right place.

I am here to help remind you why you want to change, motivate you through it, and lead you to helpful resources already out there. I am not making a monetary balance off of this. I am speaking out to make a difference. The only things I am selling are healthy habits.

It is imperative that a chick hatches on its own. The muscles and will power that are challenged at that crucial moment of the chick's development will be strengthened to go on with life which is so much harder. It will follow its caregivers in order to survive the first months of its development, it will learn to find food and fend for itself, then it will shed its baby feathers, live life independently, and eventually have offspring of its own. People, like myself, can help you find your "why". In the end, YOU are the one who can and needs to make the changes. That's what lifestyle change is all about--you creating the new you on your own. It will not be easy, but I promise that it is worth it. 

Materials

I strive to post content from evidence-based literature.

• The Culprit & The Cure by Steven G. Aldana PH.D. I highly recommend getting this book for more in-depth information. It is older (2005), yet the information is virtually constant with today. It is a very balanced look at lifestyle and how to make lasting changes. I would almost say to just get the book and you're all set except for some information that has changed. My job will be to basically give a commentary on his work with some updates and more tools I have found useful.
• Furthermore, I reference news articles, scholarly peer-reviewed articles from PubMed, the CDC, and The National College of Sports Medicine.

Outline:

1. Let's get started: The hard facts about lifestyle choices

    a. Then

    b. Now

2. Your greatest motivation is always going to be functional

    a. The New Thin

3. I-don't-care-itis

4. What you can do

5. Have courage

6. Tools at a glance

7. References

Let's get started: The hard facts about lifestyle choices

This post will address a brief, non-comprehensive history surrounding lifestyle, health, and wellness. I will present tools along the way that have proven to help. Finally, I will talk about what you can do about it.

Imagine a long, rich, life well spent free of bodily pain and disease. What if your body could do everything you set your mind to for your ENTIRE LIFE?! 

What if I told you that it is possible?

That is my very motivation behind choosing a healthy lifestyle, behind eating more fruits and vegetables, going plant-based, and getting daily exercise. Unfortunately, not all things healthy for us are the things we feel like doing. Sometimes we are raised with customs that aren't actually good for us. Choosing a healthy lifestyle sometimes means searching for it.

DISCLAIMERS: (1) I think I should pause now and clarify something. I understand that for some people calling food "healthy" and "unhealthy" gives a stigma that can be destructive and lead to eating disorders. For these purposes, what we might refer to as "healthy foods" I will call "nutrient-dense", and what we commonly refer to as "unhealthy/junk foods" I will call "less nutrient-dense". In the end, food is food and I think that balance can be sought. Not for the purpose of just looking good, but there's more. This brings me to my second part. (2) To start off, I warn you that I must present some alarming yet crucial information that will set the tone for your motivation. This may hit close to home for some of you. If so, I send my condolences. Perhaps, however, that is one of the reasons you are reading this. My intent is not to scare, but to bring to light the impact of your daily lifestyle choices and pique your interest in your life.

The leading cause of death in the world and the United States kills more than 647,000 or 1 in 4 Americans a day. That's right 647,000 lives per day! To illustrate that for you, just 647,000 people dying are the equivalent of more than four Boeing 747-400 three-class commercial airliners crashing. Why is this happening? What is this leading cause of death? 

Here is how it was put by my college professor Dr. Ron Hager. If four commercial jets fell out of the sky on only one day, it would be all over the news, hundreds of thousands of families would be interviewed, a huge investigation would be underway, and that airline would likely be suspended or even sued until cleared for duty. Not to mention many more airlines would lose business for quite some time due to fear inflicted on the public. People would do anything to prevent that kind of accident! Here's the thing. As I mentioned before, that exact amount of people die EVERY DAY, discretely, almost unnoticed by the media, public, etc. Its name is heart disease and it is nearly 100% preventable by lifestyle alone.

Heart disease is one of many chronic diseases all of which are on the leader board for leading causes of death and are contracted due to poor lifestyle choices including "tobacco use and exposure to secondhand smoke, poor nutrition (including diets low in fruits and vegetables and high in sodium and saturated fats), lack of physical activity and excessive alcohol use" (cdc.org).

Listed below are the top 10 causes of death and their prevalence in the U.S. for 2017.

• Heart disease: 647,457
• Cancer: 599,108
• Accidents (unintentional injuries): 169,936
• Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 160,201
• Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 146,383
• Alzheimer’s disease: 121,404
• Diabetes: 83,564
• Influenza and pneumonia: 55,672
• Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 50,633
• Intentional self-harm (suicide): 47,173

If that isn't enough to motivate you to do something, I don't know what is. See more about chronic diseases here. 

...but wait, there's more.

Way back then

Let's do a little rewind. Our ancestors used to hunt and gather for their daily needs, food, hunting, or escaping from ferocious beasts in ancient times. In some cultures even building a shelter for the night was a daily activity. This is still true for some people in the world today, and they have the healthiest hearts to date. The Tsimane and Hadze people of the Amazon get from 100 to upwards of 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) per day and 85% of the Tsimane people over the age of 40 have no atherosclerosis (fatty plaque build-up causing heart disease). Compare that to Americans who average 20 mins of MVPA per day and 85% of Americans over age 40 do have atherosclerosis--exactly opposite of the Tsimane.

This is Jose. A member of the Tsimane group he is 75 years old. Here he stands in the plantain field he planted in Bolivia's Amazon rain forest. Notice that his hair has maintained its color. (Who has the healthiest hearts in the world? Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/03/21/520565500/who-has-the-healthiest-hearts-in-the-world)

Why were our bodies made this way? Just like every other living thing, our bodies were designed to live on naturally occurring resources. Comparing our bodies to a car, a car is engineered out of raw materials.

Here's the deal. It's not your fault. The culture you were born into did not exactly set you up for success. It's a sad catch-22. Society has gone through years of development to make our lives "easier to live". In his Pulitzer Prize-winning book Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, Jared M. Diamond addresses the question of why he and the people from his land have so much more cargo (packaged goods, metal, guns etc.) than people in New Guinea. Diamond comes to the conclusion that it was all based on geography. Diamond reports that it was not until around 12,000 BC that people began to farm and once they did, this opened up time for people to begin cultivating the arts, creating ornate pottery, crafts, and musical instruments. Thus, according to Diamond, it began the start of creating accessories to life. 

Now

Fast forward to today, farming tools have made mass production of food available. That frees up time so that we can explore the world and experience its arts, sciences, and wonders. Once food was able to be taken care of, transportation and communication got faster. What is the result? Now that we are so fixed on making life "easier to live" we don't have to exert daily energy to live. If we don't have to exert energy to live, we stop exerting energy where possible. When we stop exerting energy where possible, we stop exerting energy altogether. When we stop exerting energy altogether, our bodies suffer severe issues leading to a morbid life and even death. The truth is that instead of making our lives easier, technology can make us die sooner. When we stop moving our bodies we make it easier to get chronic diseases.

if we are not careful and don't make physical activity and proper exercise a priority, the tools that were created to make life "easier to live" will actually make our lives easier to end.

 

Technological developments haven't been all bad. There is much good that has come from the inventions. For example, with exercise purposes alone, bicycles make travel fast but still involve exercise. Pedometry and accelerometry technology like those found in FitBits or Smart Watches have made exercise more measurable and they motivate people to move and keep logs of their activity. What I am saying is that if we are not careful and don't make physical activity and proper exercise a priority, the tools that were created to make life "easier to live" will actually make our lives easier to end. I say "proper" because the improper form is not beneficial either. There are worse problems than a long day in the field namely diabetes, cancer, and heart disease to name a few.

Food is becoming less and less made for our bodies. Plants, the non-poisonous ones, were designed to go into our bodies and give us nutrition. You don't need anything other than that. Plants contain vitamins, minerals, fibers, energy, and phytochemicals that help prevent cancer and cardiovascular disease. The more processing and refining our food undergoes, the less we can eat those critical nutrients. Fruits and vegetables in their original form are the most beneficial for our bodies.

We are coming closer and closer to a "Wall-E" reality. Our technology does things for us that we used to do daily for ourselves. Little did we know that in the name of ease, progress, "ergonomically designed", and "for only X number payments of $X.99" we began eliminating activities that kept us healthy. The image painted by the Disney Pixar film Wall-E is not far off from our current situation. Everyone aboard the ship known as the Axiom is obese, they travel on motorized chairs with screens in front of their faces all hours of the day, speaking to people within feet of each other through their phones, every meal is made for them, and they sip it in a cup (not even chewing is required). Bliss or a nightmare? This is clearly a critique of society today and it serves as a prudent wake-up call. 

The explanation for the physical state of people aboard the Axiom is that due to years of being in space, gravity has not had much of an effect on their bones, so their bones have not grown as much and the majority of their body composition has become fat. Not to mention, they stopped doing anything for themselves.

If we don't have something to say or do about it, life aboard the Axiom will become our future in absolute. Do I think it will happen? No. But is it okay that it happens at all? In the name of survival, the answer is a resounding NO.

Obesity is spiking at an all-time record high. Its prevalence began to progress tremendously in the 1970s and at the same time, so also did the prevalence of diabetes. The maps of obesity and diabetes prevalence in America are practically one and the same. More on obesity here.

Yes, exercise is only part of the battle. And on that topic keep in mind that a healthy focus is to be functional. Appearance is a byproduct of doing what your body is meant to do and eating what it was meant to eat.

Now I want to be sensitive to anyone who finds themselves in a situation as depicted in the screenshot above from Wall-E. I realize this may well be your reality. I know it has been difficult trying to lose weight and facing judgment from others. I am not here to judge or offend, and as for now, I do not proclaim myself as an expert in weight-loss/management. My purpose here is to educate and motivate based on what I do know. What I know is that the studies do show a lot of problems related to obesity.

Although it may not be your fault, it is still your responsibility what you do with this information. And you can do it!

Your greatest motivation is always going to be functional

People get disappointed when they don't see their anticipated results and if they don't see them quickly. I interviewed Ashleigh Di Lello, owner of The New Thin, a revolutionary health program targeted towards transforming the minds, bodies, and souls of women everywhere. She tells her students, 

"I don't work out so that I can look good. Looking and feeling good are byproducts of just living healthily. I work out to be functional, to be able to do things like reach for something on the top shelf, pick toys up off the ground, climb, and pick up my daughter. Furthermore, life is very unpredictable. There are earthquakes, floods, major accidents, and emergencies. Ultimately, I workout so that if something bad happened to cause me to pick up my child and carry her up a mountain that I could."

It should be taken into account that Ashleigh has not been able to pick up her daughter or even go down a slide with her without pain for the past four years. To no fault of her own, her pain is all caused as a result of a failed hip surgery that caused all the resulting problems in her body. She says "Truth is that I would have been much worse off the last four years if I hadn't trained my body and if I hadn't done the exercise and strengthening I could do."

I-don't-care-itis

In his book The Culprit & The Cure, Steven G. Aldana Ph.D. addresses what he calls "The most common health problem in America".

"If you are a typical young or middle-aged adult, you are not likely to be suffering from pain or symptoms of chronic disease of any sort. You feel healthy, your physician gives you a clean bill of health, and you feel like you can eat whatever you want, exercise or not, and you feel fine either way. Why should you be concerned about your health if you feel fine?" -- Steven G. Aldana The Culprit &The Cure

As if a definition were necessary, I-don't-care-itis is a common condition in which an individual has no interest in adopting a healthy lifestyle. According to Aldana "Most Americans (83%) don't have a healthy diet, and many Americans (67%) don't get enough exercise to enjoy the benefits. Odds are if you think you have it you probably do, however, Aldana provides a list of questions as a sort of self-assessment for I-don't-care-itis:

• Do you believe that the food and lifestyle traditions of your family and culture are okay because that's the way it's always been?
• Do you feel threatened when someone suggests that you could be healthier if you changed the way you eat?
• Do you feel discouraged because you tried to make changes before, but you failed?
• Do you think that you already have a healthy lifestyle and don't need to change anything?
• Do you feel it is worth it to maintain your current food and exercise habits even though they may shorten your life by more than ten years?
• Do you believe that there is nothing wrong with your current lifestyle so "why fix it if it ain't broke"?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you probably have I-don't-care-itis.

So what do you do?

Move, make fruits and vegetables the most available food in your home, cook your own food, and stick with it!

Your school teachers and parents may not have known all of these facts behind exercise, and eating more nutrient-dense foods, but they were absolutely right when they said to walk or ride your bike to school or eat your green veggies. 

Physical Activity

This is the sitting-mvpa matrix as illustrated by the American College of Sports Medicine

Do everything you can to always be moving. The matrix above shows that the risk of all-cause mortality (death by any cause) decreases with increased physical activity (towards green).

You bet your bottom dollar that I am writing this article standing or I sit for 20 minutes and then walk around for 5. I don't spend much time on my tuckus. In fact, studies show that the longer you sit the sooner you die.

The recommendation is 30-60 mins/day of moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) which is the equivalent of 30-60 minutes of brisk walking or 10,000 steps.

As mentioned before, one form of technology that is useful for this is some form of an accelerometer (measuring speed) or a pedometer (measuring steps per day). Smartwatches with Fitbit technology are useful because they incorporate accelerometry, pedometry, and heart rate monitoring all in one which helps to monitor for hypertension and calculate the number of calories burned from exercise.

Food

Studies show that an increased amount of food from fast-food restaurants is associated with "an increased risk of death from CVD (cardiovascular disease/heart disease) and stroke and increased T2D (type 2 diabetes) prevalence" (Mazidi and Speakman, 2018). Fast-food restaurants are notorious for cooking with high amounts of saturated fats and salts. 

On the contrary, try to prepare your own food where you can be in control of what goes in, where it came from, and how it is prepared.

One example....

Have courage

Life is meant for making choices. Let's be done feeling sad. Hike the mountains. Smell the roses. Sink your feet deep into the grass and sand. Let the sun be your friend.

Tools at a glance (as mentioned in this article)

• Accelerometry technology (Fitbit, Smartwatch or Apple Watch)
• The New Thin - Ashleigh Di Lello
• Write your goals and plan

 

References

1. Mazidi, M., & Speakman, J. R. (2018). Association of fast-food and full-service restaurant densities with mortality from cardiovascular disease and stroke, and the prevalence of diabetes mellitus. Journal of the American Heart Association, 7(11) doi:10.1161/JAHA.117.007651