Posted by Natalie Deangelo on Fri, Jun 11, 2010 @ 01:03 PM
Happy Friday, Fighters! I hope everyone had a wonderful week! My apologies for taking last Friday off from the blogging world, as I was attending the Perform Better Summit for Fitness Professionals in Providence, Rhode Island. More to come on that later!
But this week, as I was training one of my clients at the gym, we were discussing how our country needs to learn to cook in order fight obesity. Currently people are turning to quick, easy options for their families, like frozen pizzas, fast food, etc. A perfect example of this is when Jaimie Oliver raided a family fridge, only to find 50 frozen pizzas. But cooking healthfully is truly a skill and just like any skill - it must first be learned and then practiced, right? I guess it's time to roll up our sleeves and get back in the kitchen.
That's what Dr Eisenberg, head of the complementary and integrative medicine division, at Harvard Medical School thinks, too. His mission is to get America cooking again. And he wants the physicians to be the ones to teach their patients the rules of healthy eating. Dr Eisenberg said this:
"We need to first teach the teachers... A physician's own behavior is one of the strongest predictors of how they'll counsel their patients."
Dr Eisenberg helps lead culinary conferences, to give doctors the knowledge and skills they need to inspire their patients to start cooking. He believes this is one of best strategies to battle obesity and chronic medical conditions in America.
Seriously, how cool would it be to get a Rx from your doctor that said Make this Recipe and call me in the morning?
Registered Dietician, Robyn Webb agrees:
"It's not enough to tell people to eat 20 grams of this or that," she said. "They need to be able to translate that into food choices and learn how to do it."
I think this is a great idea..finally someone grabbing the reigns and saying "Just knowing WHAT to do is not enough, we need to teach families HOW to do it". This is how we have always worked at Full Life, but it is wonderful to finally see clinicians saying "Hey, we need to learn this stuff and then teach it!".
My only concern is, do physicians have the time and will this catch on? I hope so.
How do you weigh in? Should it be part of their role as clinicians? Can they prescribe exercise too? How would you feel if your doctor had you cooking? Leave us a comment and tell us what you think!
Posted by Alicia Leeds on Thu, Aug 13, 2009 @ 04:37 PM
Finally! People are talking about how we care for our health and not just how we pay for disease management.
Here's what Dean Ornish said on Larry King Live the other night, "The real issue is that the problem with health reform is that it's focusing way too much on who's covered... but not enough on what's covered... if we just do more bypass surgery and angioplasty and drugs and so on, on 48 million more people, then costs go up exponentially. That's when we have these painful choices like rationing, raising taxes, letting the deficit go up.
But what we have found in our studies is that lifestyle cannot only be prevention, it can be treatment. Three quarters of the 2.1 trillion dollars in health care costs are really sick cares costs. It goes for four diseases: heart disease, diabetes, prostate and breast cancer and obesity, all of which we found not only can be prevented, but even reversed by changing lifestyle at a fraction of the cost."
HMR has been in the business of treating obesity for more than 25 years. We know lifestyle intervention works and we have published results to back it up.
So, we can continue to argue about who should provide what for us and how to pay for it, or we can stop treating the symptoms and focus on the cure. We can change the way we eat and we can find ways to move more. We could stop arguing over what someone else should do for us and and start asking what we can do for ourselves.
Why put your health in the hands of democrats or republicans when your lifestyle choices are not theirs to make? Take a walk while you are calling your congressman because your health care, ultimately, is up to you.
Posted by Alicia Leeds on Mon, Apr 13, 2009 @ 09:52 PM
In the past week I have heard a 200 pound woman tell me she never "Feels Fat" any more, and a 125 pound woman tell me she "Feels Fat" today.
Is fat subjective? How does "Feeling Fat" relate to actually being fat? If you ever "Feel Fat" does that change the way you interact with the world around you?
Last week, my vet told me that my dog, Monroe, was overweight. We changed her lifestyle this week to include more Physical Acitivty and we replaced a portion of her kibbles with broccoli. In fact, every time she scratched at the floor, her way of letting me know she's hungry, she got a nice bowl of leftover steamed broccoli. She seemed to like it just fine.
Monroe lost a pound this week. (About which I was pleased, and yes, some was fat, and some was water weight.) But the vet was pleased, too.
Monroe, of course, couldn't care less. She's never "Felt Fat" in her life - even though she was... (is) aaaa... little fat.
So it all got me to thinking about what we really mean when we say we "Feel Fat". Is "Feeling Fat" the catch all for the negative feelings we have about ourselves - feelings confirmed or negated by that All Powerful Scale handing down our daily verdict?
Cue Wizard of OZ voice, "You...are...GOOD" or "You...are...BAD" (You know you've heard it.)
What's interesting to me is that, on the way down - 160 is GOOD we don't "Feel Fat" but on the way up - 160 is BAD and we "Feel Fat" ... Hey, 160 is 160.
When we "Feel Fat" What does that mean? We are bad, out of control, guilty, lazy, a failure, angry, disappointed, weak hopeless...
And, what, then, does it say about us when we "Feel Thin?" Ahhh Thinness, the Ultimate dangling carrot - ever elusive - (we're never quite thin enough...) because if we were - we would be...Eternally Joyful, Happy, Sexy, Beautiful, Valuable, Deserving, Attractive, Strong... Worthy?
Next time you "Feel Fat" do a little more investigation into that. You might be fat. Or not. That's not the question that matters.
Ask yourself instead...have I done the things I know I need to do to take good care of my health today? Have I had 5 servings of fruits and vegetables, gotten some exercise, eaten nutritious lean proteins and whole grains? Or have I done something else? And what can I do NOW to make sure that I figure out HOW to do WHAT I need TO DO to manage my weight and health.
I'll argue "Feeling Fat" means we just feel bad about our behavior - but "Feeling Fat" actually lets us off the hook, it's easy. I "Feel Fat". Period.
"I have not done my Physical Activity today" is a harder statement because it forces us to actually confront. ("What are you going to do about that?) And when we confront we face the challenge of changing. But therein lies the Power we all have to affect our weight, health and lives.
At last I realize, though we think Fat's a Feeling - it's certainly not an Emotion.