#as someone whos overweight and obesed and still trying to manage their way with self hate and body image issues and So Much More tied into

[iiapple]

currently despising that one tiktok person that was like "we all have body fat!!! we have rolls its normal!!!" and proceeds to forcibly bend over to get a sminch of body fat rolls. bitch i have rolls 24/7 doing nothing to get them shut the fuck up stop forcing yourself to fit into fatness for the sake of body positivity when you havent grown with being naturally non-fat. also body positivity is bogus die

[hearthandhomemagick]

Food For Thought - Steven Universe

Hello there, I would like to tell you my story and journey with the amazingly beautiful, and wonderfully written TV Show...

Steven Universe.

I started watching this show when it first came out in High School. I mean, I was so excited to watch it that I anticipated the very first episode and sat down with snacks to observe it’s premier. I had become immediately enthralled not only with the art style, but also with the genuine wholesomeness and elucidations of processing emotions and life experiences. I was astounded that a kids show could express to me how to manage my emotions as well as connect with my moral standings. It’s a show I recommended to everyone, but often didn’t talk about because of it being a kids show, and me being almost being grown. It was my secret love until someone else brought it up.

This show stuck with me through the years, and helped me through some of my hardest moments in life. 

I remember watching the episode, “Mindful Education” and melting into Garnet’s lesson of mindfulness and self-awareness. I had been going through a lot at the end of 2016, graduating and going through a rough election along with having to move states for college. My opinions were forming in the extreme area and I had a fire to protect my thoughts and opinions with no restrain or any form of control of my emotional reality. I was rambunctious as much as I was head-strong and, at times, hard-headed all together. 

When this episode aired, I didn’t know why I loved Garnet and Stevonnie’s song, “Here Comes a Thought.” But I did, and it still carries with me into my life today. 

I want to discuss a specific time, though, that this episode saved my sanity and opened my eyes to a concept I didn’t understand when I first watched it. I was on social media, and was defending my opinions against quite a few people by myself. Eventually, I was getting nasty comments from a bunch of millennials telling me, 

“You’re too fucking stupid to understand, maybe you should go back to school, child.”

“You’re so emotional, and your emotions don’t matter here. Imagine being this dumb.”

“Imagine being a dumb bitch like Carly and saying you wanted to cut your penis off to look like a woman.” *NOTE I am not transgender, there is nothing wrong with being transgender and her insinuating such did not bother me. Her rhetoric insinuating trans was wrong is what irked me, this bitch was transphobic and had issues that she needs to repair in her own time. She wrote an entire post based around this context on her personal page using my real name, and she didn’t even know who I was.*

and my personal favorite, “Here’s the suicide hotline, I know your generation is prone to killing themselves and are overly emotional.”

Now, there were over 50, under 100, messages going back and forth where these people were just bullying me and I refused to back down. I wound up in a panic attack in my bedroom, literally wanting to kill myself because they were bullying me. The hotline would have come in handy if it were the actual hotline. I ended up going to my dad and older sister (my older sisters friend was the main one I was arguing with and her posy showed up on my post), because no one on the post was on my side.

Both told me, “If you can’t handle the heat, stay out of the kitchen.” My sister told her friend to stop, and threatened the other girl for her nasty posts and comments. My dad tried to mediate on the post itself, but the people wouldn’t stop. I eventually had to take it down.

My family didn’t calm me down in this moment. Not even a little bit. It felt like a back-handed helping hand. Like they wanted to protect me, but also somewhat agreed with the people on the post.

The only thing that calmed my nerves in this moment, ultimately, was the song, “Here Comes a Thought.” 

I sat in my room, sobbing, hoping to myself that it would make sense as to why it was okay for these things to happen. The song soothed over my nerves, eventually releasing my muscles and giving me a sense ease. I was able to process and realized a few personal things as well. I didn’t realize it, but before long, I was meditating to the song on repeat. I kept telling myself, “I’m okay, this is a thought. A moment. I am not my thoughts. I am not this moment.”

This was simply one of the ways Steven Universe has helped me process and understand myself more. I bring this up because I came across and article today that disappointed me to the core.

The Steven Universe Fandom has toxic tendencies.

I was shook.

How could a child’s show be turned into something so negative? Something that was meant to promote self-awareness, self-love, acceptance of character, and understanding of others had been morphed into a gatekeepers safe haven.

Now I know this isn’t the majority, and before you get offended, hurt or start defending yourself, I want you to ask yourself if what you are defending is an action you would defend from anyone else. If it is, by all means defend your ground.

But the one concept that eludes me, and offers zero substance in terms of valid arguments, is that men can not watch this show. Let me explain why men NEED to watch this fucking show.

My boyfriend watched this entire show, episode for episode, and benefitted from it. This show offered him coping techniques, an understanding of why love should come before war, and mediating every situation so you see and understand every perspective. These are things children shows didn’t offer him growing up, he has often and openly verbalized his need for this show in his childhood because of certain traumas, and we often continue watching it even after seeing every single episode and movie.

This show was never meant for one or two groups of people, and if you feel that way then refer back to the writers themselves who were literally trying to teach the lesson in the show over and over again to NEVER EXCLUDE PEOPLE FROM YOUR GROUP. You exclude people, and you create a division, a war of sorts. You immediately have become the thing Steven Universe advocated against in the first place.

This also leads into the whole “art” situation in the fandom. 

This show is anti-bully. There are commercials for it and everything. It is expressed in multiple episodes why bullying is never a good thing in any situation. 

You simply cannot justify the hypocrisy in bullying someone out of self-expression that literally harms no one. You can’t justify it.

Think about it. You draw or sketch a piece of art that took you hours, or even a few minutes. It’s your favorite character, and maybe you yourself are going through some mental thoughts regarding your weight that lead you to draw the character thinner or bigger. Size shouldn’t matter in any capacity when relating a character to ones self. 

If you’re skinny, you’re beautiful. If you are thick or curvy, you are beautiful. If you are obese or overweight, you are beautiful. Weight doesn’t matter, but representation of body types in different characters does matter.

Imagine a child falls in love with a bigger character, but is experiencing body challenges where she is being picked on for being too thin or scrawny (it happens, I’ve seen it with my nieces). Who are you to say that making her favorite character look like her own body is wrong? Especially if art is a coping mechanism they use for mental health reasons.

Like Malachite, a fusion that was devastating and abusive in every way, you are taking the choice and voice of an entire being to make your actions and opinions “right” or “okay”.

There is so much more I could say on this show, and so much more I could say about the fandom. And I know it is not the majority of the fandom, but I did want to make everyone in the fandom aware that we are human.

None of us are stoic and balanced like Garnet, and even Garnet had problems in her relationship. None of us are strong and laid back like Amethyst, and even she had self-love issues. None of us are as analytical and organized as Pearl, and yet she had problems throughout the series. 

None of you are perfect, and to act as if you are is defeating the purpose of a show trying to teach you how to be responsible for yourself and your actions. I’m not perfect either, and preaching about a fandom I’m not a huge part of sounds counter-intuitive, I’m aware.

But my nieces want to watch this show. My nephew watches this show with me. My boyfriend’s niece is going to start watching the show. 

Please do not make a toxic environment for kids who need this show to grow up. Kids who experience trauma, and learn from this show deserve a safe space without people trying to justify bullying or force them to think that because they are a boy or girl, they can or can’t watch the show. Without people making people feel bad for being themselves.

Why don’t we create a new space? A space where everyone is accepted as they are, and negative behavior is addressed the same way the gems or Steven would address them. With education, perception awareness, and PATIENCE. 

I know some will say, “It’s not my job to raise your child.” and “It’s not my responsibility to make people aware of their tendencies.”

You’re right. It’s also not your responsibility to bully people into changing themselves to fit your dialogue. Simply put, you’re responsible for yourself alone. But you have no right to complain on someone's behavior, art or experiences if you are not willing to be patient with correcting said behavior in yourself first.  

Who knows, maybe I’m in the wrong here for not knowing the full story. All I’m saying is, if you see someone being a bully, being mean or even being a hypocrite, call them out in the sweetest way possible. Let them know we are facilitating a safe space for people who need a community rather than a closed off club.

Be the change you want to see in this world.

Learn, grow and prosper. 

I wish you all well and genuinely hope we can all expand our perspectives to fully understand each other in healthier and more communicative based ways. We deserve that sort of kindness from each other.

[script-a-world]

My story is going to place in prehistoric times and I cannot find any information on the existence or status of plus sized people that I believe is neutral and not fat-shaming. Most sources say there weren't any, since better diet and a lot more exercise, but I doubt that, to be honest. Should I just say screw it and add plus sized characters anyway or would you suggest finding scientific sources first?

Mod Miri Note: Hi folks, there’s a lot of talk in this post about body size which I can be triggering for some readers, and with tumblr’s tag system being pretty unreliable, I just wanted to put up a quick warning in case that would be an issue for any of our followers who may want to skip this post. 

Feral: Yes. If you want to include plus sized characters, include plus sized characters. First of all, waist size is not actually a great indicator of physical fitness level. Second of all, at some point in prehistory humans evolved and when we did that, we evolved to store fat; this was likely for a reason. And third of all, no one is going to care if you do or do not find "scientific proof". The truth is, people have been people for as long as there have been people.

Tex: I would suggest to first figure out why you are defining things in the term "plus sized" - Google's Ngram Viewer finds that this wasn't in public circulation until almost 1950, which means that the vernacular would be entirely different the further back you go into the past. Wikipedia's article on "Plus-size clothing" indicates that the origins for this size group in fashion had comparatively very recent roots.

"Plus-size", "curvy", "big and tall", "stout"- these are all euphemisms to refer to a body type that is considered larger than the normal range. Human bodies are delicately-organized organic machines, and while they can tolerate a wide variety of stressors, they can only tolerate any given stressor for a certain amount of time before it damages the body - sometimes permanently, and fatally, if it's allowed to go unchecked.

The human body is built to be within a certain weight range for given heights - despite the flaws of the BMI, with its difficulty in telling apart muscle from fat (and which type of fat), it's still a good tool when used in conjunction with other diagnostic tests. To be overweight and to be obese are separated by very thin lines, and is better discussed in @ucsdhealthsciences' post "Fat but Fit: a pleasing myth or something else? ".

Given the comorbidities of being either overweight or one of the three grades of obesity, carrying more fat on your body than your body can safely tolerate is quite literally dangerous for your health. Prehistoric peoples rarely had the luxury of idleness or having someone transport them instead of walking (or even riding a horse/similar animal). Walking  in and of itself is ridiculously good for your health, to the point where exercising in the form of a gym or even manual labor can be a marginal part of one's exercise routine if someone has a choice about it.

I don't know why you doubt that a better diet and more exercise wouldn't reduce the occurrence of overweight/obese individuals - excess weight from specifically white fat has serious detrimental effects on the body and has a tendency to kill people off:

- "Study in mice suggests drug to turn fat 'brown' could help fight obesity"] from the University of Cambridge- Wikipedia- University of Virginia Health System - National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases - "The Definition and Prevalence of Obesity and Metabolic Syndrome"  by Atilla Engin  - "Prevalence of polycystic ovary syndrome in Chinese obese women of reproductive age with or without metabolic syndrome"  by Liang, Peiwen et al.- ittybittykittykisses, archived version - Stanford Health Care - PDF "Mechanisms, Pathophysiology, and Management of Obesity"  by Steven B. Heymsfield, M.D., and Thomas A. Wadden, Ph.D.- "Review of Childhood Obesity: From Epidemiology, Etiology, and Comorbidities to Clinical Assessment and Treatment"  by Seema Kumar, MD and Aaron S. Kelly, PhD- "A Proposal of the European Association for the Study of Obesity to Improve the ICD-11 Diagnostic Criteria for Obesity Based on the Three Dimensions Etiology, Degree of Adiposity and Health Risk" by J Hebebrand et al.- "Health Effects of Overweight and Obesity in 195 Countries over 25 Years"  by The GBD 2015 Obesity Collaborators - "Study of nearly 300,000 people challenges the 'obesity paradox'"  from the European Society of Cardiology

The Archaeology News Network has an article  about prehistoric obesity, and how it relates to fat storage in humans - the mutation of the uricase gene that was originally meant to help ancient humans survive famines and seasonal periods of low food. "Evolutionary history and metabolic insights of ancient mammalian uricases" by James T. Kratzer et al backs this idea up and goes into some further detail. "Archeologia dell’alimentazione umana [PDF]", or "Archaeology of nutrition" in English, by F. Gregorio and M. Sudano (abstract also provided in English) talks about how the human genotype has changed as diet and sedentary levels shifted.

Perhaps you're thinking of the Venus figurines as an example of "plus size"? But that's still not quite right - many of these figurines are meant to display what fertile women look like, especially pregnant ones (peak fertility for a great many cultures, but also a temporary state for women), and real-life steatopygian body types are mostly restricted to either parts of Africa or parts of India, often by tribe.

In China, and I believe parts of Asia with similar cultures, fat under the chin heralds many good things  - possibly because it meant you weren't starving and thus had enough food to be considered wealthy. Your mileage will vary on that, because China and many other cultures frown upon consumption unto excess for a variety of reasons.

People with more weight on them than average for their population, historically, have access to more food - which means ruling families, wealthy people - and once it was invented, (wealthy) farmers. But many cultures that were around in prehistory didn't have those kinds of societal structures, and pre-agricultural societies were inherently on the thin side because they were nomadic (which meant lots of walking), and had a diet primarily of gathered fruits/vegetables and whatever meat they could hunt down. It's usually the carbohydrates and other complex sugars in processed grains, such as breads, noodles, and bread-beers, that incite weight gain which is difficult to slough off, so it's something you need to keep in mind when worldbuilding your prehistoric societies.

If you want these kinds of body types in your worldbuilding, that's fine, but I would recommend that you don't try to view the past through the context of the present - life was very different back then, for very legitimate reasons, in ways that are neither wholly good nor wholly bad.

Saphira: Tex effectively nailed it, but I realize that you are likely writing "Plus-sized" characters into your narrative for representative purposes. You see how people under that title are treated in our current era, and you want to give them a more positive experience through your story. This is benevolently spirited, and so I understand your frustration with the situation. Being that history is not giving you a foothold for your vision, it's time to try another method.

Let's take a look at the Venus Figurines! They were made to represent women with bounty of life within them (as they were pregnant). They were also structures that represent faith. It gives us a fun, and positive, perspective on figures who are plus-sized. If we add a few degrees of separation, we get a foothold! First step: Pregnant people are plus sized. Second Step: Plus-sized means fertility and life. Third step: Anyone representing that plus-size is a bringer of fertility and life.

If Humans didn't have that plus-size due to their lifestyle and resources, then they may have idealized it. Look at how the renaissance models their women. They are plump and wealthy. Would not the people in your era feel similarly? Would they seek out, would they dream of, someone with that stature? Would they have a divine figure with those attributes? "This Venus figure represents a woman who is pregnant." "This Venus figure is not a pregnant woman, for it does not give birth to human children. Instead, it gives birth to vibrant fields, fresh water and honeybees."

If you are using divines or magic itself, you can find ways to representing plus-sizes in more creative ways. If you are working in a natural world, you can represent them with faith, or impressions of other creatures (like the bounty of a fruit, or the strength of a bear). Honestly, if we can worship skinniness through the art of Photoshop, others can worship the equally idealistic forms of the plus-size and all the wealth it represents in a pre-historic era.

Constablewrites: Another thing to remember about the Venus figurines is that recent scholarship has argued that they aren't just pregnant women, but they're self-portraits of pregnant women. That is, what was generally assumed to have been created by someone else *koff* men *koff* as an idealized depiction may have in fact been a way for women to explore and understand their own changing bodies. Perspective is critical when talking about beauty standards.

And Tex's point about the connection between economic status and beauty really needs to be underscored. You can see the point in history where a white person with a suntan went from being someone who worked outdoors (which meant they were poor and therefore undesirable) to being someone who could travel somewhere sunny and lounge around outside (which meant they were rich and therefore desirable). People are inclined to look for a mate whose children will be healthy, well cared for, and prosperous; the outward indicators of that status, whatever they might be in a given society, end up being conflated with an abstract idea of beauty.

Feral: As Tex, Saphira, and Constable pointed out "plus sized" has a wide definition (and can mean as small as an American size 10 depending on the brand), and it's important to also remember that "prehistory" has a wide definition - specifically a 3 million+ year definition. Prehistory covers everything from the first stone tools 3.3 million years ago to maybe somewhere around 5,300 years ago. Kinda. Prehistory means "before written record" and runs through the Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age, which all end in different places at different times.

So, what this means is that depending on which epoch your civilization falls under, there may absolutely be the necessary agriculture and division of social class that have been brought up.  Narrowing down when and where you are trying to base your worldbuilding in will help you as you develop you characters and do further research on  a variety of issues that may come up.

Another thing to consider is that you're probably not going to be describing your characters as "plus-sized" in your story (and if you did, all your readers would have different concepts about what that actually means), so the clearer your idea of what the characters' body shape (aka "where mass tends to accumulate"), the easier I think it will be for you to describe the character to your reader in a way that expresses what you specifically mean when you're thinking "plus sized." The fashion designer Justine Leconte has a great video to teach people how to recognize different body types using celebrities [Youtube]. It is geared towards fashion and what to wear based on your body type, but the knowledge is still helpful.

You might have seen this post on Tumblr with the body shapes of all the greatest athletes in the world that might also be helpful for you. But ultimately, I stand by my original point. This is a topic that no matter what you choose to do and what evidence you use to back up your choice, some of your audience is going to have a problem with it. So, just create your world and characters as you see them.

[feederfiction]

Build-a-Butt | 1

Matt gazed around the packed club and stirred his drink slowly. He didn’t particularly feel like being there but his friends had convinced him to come out to drinks after work, and then clubbing. Watching them dance and flirt with each other, he now realised that he had been an excuse for Jayce to subtly get Richard into bed with him. Matt’s belly growled and he realised he hadn’t eaten since lunchtime. Finishing the rest of his beer, he walked out of the club and into the cold night air.

Exiting the club, Matt felt self-conscious once again. His 100 kilo frame seemed massive in comparison to the line of twinks and muscleheaded gym gays waiting in line. Pulling his sweater on after escaping the stifling club heat, he felt his shirt untuck and reveal the bottom of a  pale, flabby belly. Hearing giggles from next to him, he turned to see a group of bleach-blonde skinny guys laughing and filming him. Blushing brightly, he hurried away, one arm and his head still trapped in his sweater. Rounding the corner into the laneway next to the club, he finally got his arm in, only to thrust it out and into someone next to him.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry, are you alright?” He asked.

Concerned for the stranger who was now coughing on the ground, he offered his hand to the man, who eventually looked up at Matt and took his help. Matt was stunned at the attractive stranger who was now nose to nose with him. His bright blue eyes shone in the dark alleyway, a pained smile on his face. He was the polar opposite of Matt in appearance. Tight chinos and an XS button up, showing off his trim waist and toned arms, the top three buttons undone to show off his trimmed chest hair. His sharp jawline punctuated by perfect stubble, and a trendy blonde undercut pulled off a very metrosexual, attractive guy.

Matt, on the other hand was on the border of “chubby”, leaning more towards “fat”. His belly pushed out against his shirts and he had gone up 2 sizes in as many years. Ever since leaving university and getting a job as an accountant, he had found it impossible to stop the weight piling on. His polo shirt, sweater and jeans made him feel self-conscious before this well dressed stranger. It took him several seconds to register that the man had introduced himself.

“Are you alright? I thought I was the one that took a punch” The stranger laughed.

“Sorry, I was just…worried. I’m fine, are you Matt?” He said, shakily, then winced, realising his minced words.

“I’m all good, you don’t need to worry.” He said kindly. “And I’m Lucas.”

“Nice…” Matt trailed off.

“I was just about to grab a snack and head off, my friends bailed early tonight. Wanna join?” Lucas offered.

“Same here actually, what do you feel like?” Matt asked tentatively, half expecting him to reply with-

“Pizza! I need carbs bad after tonight.” Lucas replied.

“Sounds like a plan, I’m starved” Matt exclaimed, unable to believe he was about to eat with a guy as hot as Lucas.

After making their way to the closest Pizza Place, they each picked out an extra large deep dish. 3 slices in, Lucas passed his over to Matt, who promptly finished both. Groaning with the weight of both meals in his gut, Matt belched loudly.

“Sounds like you needed all that” Lucas smiled, offering his hand to the bloated accountant. “At least now I have a chance to help you up”.

“Thanks, I appreciate it! I think it’s about time I head off though, I can barely walk” Matt said sheepishly.

“I wouldn’t be a gentleman if I didn’t help you home after you so gallantly finished my meal.” Lucas said in a posh accent.

“That was the worst British accent I’ve ever heard but I won’t say no to some help” Matt agreed.

After an uncomfortable Uber ride, in which every bump and pothole made Matts bloated belly bounce, they eventually reached his apartment building, and with some help from Lucas, he managed to make it to his door. Matt kept expecting Lucas to leave him, after the Uber ride, after they got to his building’s lobby, the front door, but his handsome friend kept his arm around Matt’s waist, guiding him into his room and onto his bed.

“Well… I should probably leave you be…” Lucas said, staring at Matt.

“You don’t have to!” He replied, a little too quickly. “You could uh, take the couch, or I could?”

Smiling, Lucas began unbuttoning his shirt, before tossing it aside, to reveal his toned, hairy chest, and sidling up to Matt on the bed. Moving his hand up under the polo, he began to rub Matt’s belly in circles, causing him to moan softly. After some time, Lucas pulled off Matt’s shirt and sweater, and released his belt, eliciting a grateful sigh from the stuffed man. Shimmying closer to Matt, Lucas smiled sadly.

“What?” Matt frowned.

“I have a confession to make, and it’s kind of awkward. I should have been more forward but I was nervous.” Lucas admitted shyly.

“Um, well… What is it?” Matt asked cautiously.

“I have a thing for uh… Fat guys.” He said slowly, then started to panic. “I know it sounds weird and like I think you’re gorgeous but I don’t want you to think I’m a creep or-“

Matt leaned over and kissed Lucas passionately. Lucas hesitating before leaning into the intimate act, their tongues dancing, hands groping and bodies grinding. A minute later, the two were fully naked, Matt’s pale, jiggly body a direct contrast to Lucas’ toned, tanned and hairy one. The two stayed locked like that for some time, occasionally kissing each other’s necks, their cocks rubbing together. Lucas broke away and smiled devilishly before making his way south. Once he was positioned over Matt’s manhood, he began to pleasure the larger man in ways he’d never experienced. Working the shaft, Lucas felt Matt was already close, and pulled off, making his big man whine slightly.

“Don’t worry, I have something better planned.” Lucas reassured.

Flipping Matt onto his stomach like a beached whale, Lucas licked his lips and whispered “Fuck” under his breath at the sight of Matt’s wide ass. Parting his cheeks, Lucas dived in, his tongue exploring Matt’s tight pucker. Matt had never been eaten out in his life, and it was the most amazing feeling he’d ever experienced. His eyes crossed and he felt his hole relax under Lucas’ trained mouth. Matt then felt Lucas go even further and moaned loudly, unable to believe how good it felt. Lucas then started to grab Matt’s love handles and slap his ass randomly, which prompted Matt to grind his erection into the bed below.

A few moments later he felt Lucas go deeper again, and his hole stretch. At this point Lucas was grabbing his meaty thighs and squeezing, adding to the pleasure of the act, and making Matt’s whole body jiggle wildly on the bed. It wasn’t until he felt his stomach begin to push down into the bed too that he looked back and saw Lucas’ ass and legs twitching from out of his ass. Stifling a scream, Matt tried to reach back to help him out, but the shift of weight only pulled Lucas in further, his bubble butt slipping down, quickly followed by his legs moments later. Feeling Lucas struggling in his belly, Matt tried to pull himself up, but the extra 80 kilos now settling in his gut threw his balance off and it took some time for him to turn himself over, his massively engorged belly now preventing him from reaching his own ass to try and help Lucas. In a state of shock, Matt didn’t know what else to do but cry. He sobbed as the struggling in his boulder sized stomach slowed and eventually stopped. Matt eventually fell asleep from the combination exhaustion of devouring another human, and that person having been someone who cared for him.

 -----

As the first rays of light shone through the blinds in Matt’s bedroom, it was evident he had gone through some changes during his sleep. Matt snored on though until past midday, his digestion requiring more energy. As he groggily woke, he slowly remembered last night and looked down at his belly in shock. What he saw confused him, however, as his midsection looked much fatter, but nowhere near as big as it was last night. Assuming it had all been a very confusing nightmare, he was suddenly shocked into reality by the sight of Lucas’ clothes on the floor. Pulling his much heavier body up with some difficulty, he lumbered over to his full length mirror and was stunned at what he saw.

Where before Matt had been a slightly overweight late 20’s desk jockey, he now looked positively obese. His whole body had thickened up, from his arms to his love handles. His slightly fleshy chest had rounded out into two soft moobs, with bottle cap sized nipples topping them, hard and pink. His belly had truly fattened up, now much larger and softer, jiggling crazily at the bottom of his overhang, his now smaller cock almost obscured from view. His pelvis too had grown to fat that his previously 4” flaccid penis was now barely 3” long, buried as it was. His love handles now resembled small bellies on his side, each bowing out half a foot from his ribs and sagging down to his thighs, which were like huge hams that supported his torso with ease, despite their softness. Turning slowly he noticed the biggest change of all though. His previously flat ass was now massively inflated. In fact it was obscene just how huge his rear had grown. Each cheek was the size of a soccer ball. Huge and bouncy, but somehow still tight and resembling a bubble butt, much like the one Lucas had, Matt mused.

After the initial shock of how fat he had gotten, Matt noticed other changes. He was now several shades darker than his previously pale skin tone. On top of that, he saw that he was hairier all over. His legs were covered in a thicker layer, while his belly and chest had a short but full layer over them, making his body more masculine in appearance. Matt had never been able to grow much more than patchy stubble, but now he had a five o’clock shadow across his jaw and cheeks, both of which had filled in more with the absorption of Lucas. Matt grabbed his ass with both hands and shook it, his sadness pierced with a thought. Something horrible and yet right at the same time.

He wanted more.

[paleorecipecookbook]

The Benefits of Using Wearable Technology for Health Tracking

You’re ready. To sit less, move more, sleep eight hours a night—to adopt new habits in order to become the healthiest you possible. As I shared recently, I recommend shrinking the change you want to make to set yourself up for success. Can wearable technology for health also help? Should you use these devices to aid you in achieving your wellness goals? Can tracking measures like your activity level, heart rate, and sleep really add up to big health gains?

Let’s explore some of the wearables currently on the market and discuss how making lifestyle shifts using the data they provide may mean you not only look and feel better today, but also avoid chronic disease down the road.

Do you use wearables to track your health? These devices can help you hit your wellness goals—when they’re tracking the right things. Check out this article for my recommendation on the best tech to track your sleep, stress, and activity levels. #healthylifestyle #chriskresser

What Are Wearables, and Do We Really Need More Technology?

Wearables are smart electronic devices that can be worn on the body to track a variety of health markers, such as:

Activity level: time spent sedentary, number of steps taken, etc.

Sleep patterns

Resting heart rate and heart rate variability

Stress level

Body temperature

A wide range of wearable health devices are available, from watches to rings—even shirts. I suspect we’ll see much more innovation in the coming years. After all, the industry is booming: analysts predict that more than 245 million devices will be purchased this year alone. Sales of smartwatches like the Apple Watch and products by Garmin, along with Fitbit’s watches and other fitness trackers, are on the rise, making these some of the most popular options today. (1)

And they do have merit. Although I often write about technology’s detrimental impact on health, these tech devices can support well-being.

They’re remarkable, really, in that they allow you to monitor wellness markers that not too long ago only doctors could track and measure. As a result, you gain important knowledge about your body that is vital to improving your health. What’s more, these devices take continuous, round-the-clock measurements, providing you with much more information than what you’ll get from annual trips to your physician, or even semi-regular visits to a healthcare practitioner. This wealth of data can also help your clinicians in making diagnoses and recommending treatments.

I see wearable health trackers as effective tools in your behavior-change toolkit. In this way, they integrate well into a Functional Medicine approach to healthcare. In Functional Medicine, we believe that for patients to overcome a persistent ailment, they must shift their behavior; we also know that behavior plays a major role in preventing—or contributing to—chronic disease.

Making the shift to an ancestral lifestyle that includes regular movement, quality sleep, and a focus on stress reduction—all trackable with today’s best wearables—is key to promoting general health and staving off chronic illness.

But Do Wearables Work? A Look at the Research

In some intervention studies, fitness trackers have a moderate effect on increasing step count and physical activity, leading to improved health outcomes for wearers.

Older patients who were given trackers increased their activity, lost weight, and had decreased LDL (“bad”) cholesterol levels after 12 to 14 weeks of use. (2)

Obese and overweight participants who wore trackers for 36 weeks and increased their step count lost weight and saw marked improvements in their body mass index (BMI), body fat percentage, waste and hip circumferences, and other body composition measures; they also saw a bump in their HDL (“good”) cholesterol. (3)

Overweight individuals who accumulated 10,000 steps per day over 12 weeks not only had lower body weight and BMI at the end of the study period than when they began, but they also experienced significant reductions in feelings of anxiety, depression, anger, fatigue, and confusion. (4)

However, the majority of the currently available research on activity trackers hasn’t concluded that they’re extraordinarily or overwhelmingly effective. In fact, some studies have found conflicting results to those mentioned above; in one, people wearing trackers lost less weight than those who used standard behavioral weight-loss approaches. (5)

All in all, the cumulative scientific results are mixed as to whether or not fitness trackers make people more fit. Even within studies, the results are often at odds and inconclusive. For instance, one study using the Fitbit generated tracker-damning headlines a couple of years ago. Yet, the results weren’t all bad: although wearers didn’t see improvements in weight or blood pressure, they did get more physical activity than non-wearers. (6) Another study published in 2018 found that the Fitbit increased wearers’ activity levels. But its authors noted that their research required participants to check in with a health coach (health coaches are extremely beneficial for behavior modification), and they suggested that it's possible being accountable to someone did more for increasing participants’ exercise levels than self-monitoring with the tracker. (7)

A grain of salt: The latter study brings up an important caveat to wearables research. Many previous studies were conducted with devices that are now several years old. They were essentially glorified pedometers without other meaningful function. They didn’t connect to your smartphone. They didn’t track sleep or measure heart rate variability (HRV)—more on those in a minute. They didn’t factor in practices that can be crucial for behavior change, like goal-setting or community support, as in the most recent study.

Fortunately, today’s wearables are much more sophisticated. The better ones address the points mentioned above and then some, and can track activity, heart rate variability, and sleep all in one device.

Regardless of what the studies show, you and I know that increasing physical activity and leading a less sedentary life—the aims of these trackers—are absolutely necessary for overall health and well-being and the prevention of chronic disease.

Why Wearable Technology for Health Tracking Needs to Include Sleep and HRV

It’s not enough for your device to simply count your steps; it should track other important health indicators, like your sleep quality and your heart rate variability (HRV).

Why Sleep Matters

Modern life is wrecking our sleep, with serious negative health consequences. Sleeping less than seven hours in a 24-hour period is associated with: (8)

Cardiovascular disease and diabetes risk

Depression

Learning and memory problems

An overall increase in mortality

Other research has shown that poor sleep can undo the benefits of a healthy diet and exercise. It’s the dealbreaker of all dealbreakers. (9)

What HRV Is, and Why It’s an Important Indicator to Track

HRV, which stands for “heart rate variability,” is a calculation of the time variation between each heartbeat. (It is not the same measurement as “heart rate,” which refers to the number of heart beats per second.) You may have heard about HRV in the context of assessing an athlete’s performance readiness. But it’s also useful in terms of evaluating stress in the human body. HRV involves measuring the function of the autonomic nervous system (ANS), part of the central nervous system that affects heart rate. To put it simply: if you’re stressed, you’ll have a low HRV; if you’re relaxed, a high HRV. (10)

No matter what diet you follow, what supplements you take, or how much exercise or sleep you get, if you don’t manage your stress, you’ll still be at risk for modern degenerative conditions like heart disease, diabetes, hypothyroidism, and autoimmunity. Low HRV specifically is tied to a host of chronic conditions, from chronic kidney disease to cardiovascular complications. (11, 12, 13)

My Recommendation: Find a Device That Tracks Everything

Of all the next-generation devices on the market that track a multitude of health indicators, I think the Oura smartring is the most effective, as it tracks your sleep, heart rate variability, body temperature, and activity level. I have one myself, and we use it extensively with patients at the California Center for Functional Medicine. (To my knowledge, it’s the only wearable with sleep-tracking technology that has been validated by a peer-reviewed study.) (14)

Each morning, the Oura ring displays a sleep score in its app. This is an overall calculation of how well you slept, which takes into account total sleep, efficiency, quality, disturbances, REM sleep, deep sleep, sleep latency, sleep timing, and your lowest resting heart rate during sleep. This data can be used to make changes that will lead to better slumber. For example, lowest resting heart rate measures the lowest 10-minute average heart rate you experience during the night. This ranges anywhere between 40 and 100 for adults, and you can determine your average by looking at your data history. If you are significantly high or low, it can signal an increased need for recovery from activity or that you are in an active stress response and may benefit from interventions like mind/body relaxation techniques or breathing exercises.

The Oura ring also tracks your body temperature, which plays a role in everything from fitness to ovulation and HRV. According to Oura’s creators, a ring—versus, say, a watch—can gather more accurate heart data because of its position on the finger.

If you do decide to try the Oura ring, enter the promo code KRESSER at checkout for $50 off.

My bottom line: All wearable devices will have pros and cons for you, and all can be helpful when used wisely. That’s the key. Wearables and the data they generate are only effective when truly put to use to change your behaviors.

To succeed in adopting new, healthier habits, I encourage you to combine wearable technology with the shrinking the change technique. For example, if your big objective is to get more regular physical activity, use a wearable to help break that change into smaller, more achievable goals. The right fitness tracker can nudge you to take breaks if you sit at your desk all day and stand, stretch, or move; to get in your daily steps; to schedule a regular run, bike ride, or other workout of your choice, etc. And it will record this physical activity in real time—daily data you can use to celebrate each incremental win, as you get closer and closer to your big objective.

It may seem ironic to use technology to create more balance in your life. But technology is just a tool, and it’s up to us how we employ it. I’m a big fan of using technologies like these to create harmony through healthy habits.

Do you use wearable technology for health tracking? Do you focus on your sleep, activity, or stress? What have you noticed about how these devices affect your habits? Comment below and let me know!

The post The Benefits of Using Wearable Technology for Health Tracking appeared first on Chris Kresser.

Source: http://chriskresser.com January 31, 2019 at 10:24PM

[lifeafterthewake]

11.12.2018

I wasn’t and I’m still not sure what to do with this account. I’ve started it as an attempt at blogging and it’s clearly not working. Then again it usually is quite a challange for me to write as I live with a person who talks a lot and I seek their presence. Oftentimes I talk and all the content inside my mind gets spilled and discharged. But right now I’m in a bit of a pickle, staying at a friend’s house while they’re away so naturally more thoughts come to my mind and the need to express them is more apparent.

I wanted to write a little bit about self-control or self-control issues. I’ve never been good with self-control. Whether it’s money, food, learning for important exams, managing my time, speaking to other people or managing the power I have in relation to them - there were always issues.

My weight is an issue of great concern to me as my whole childhood and adolescence I was bombarded with contradicting communicates: that I eat too much, that I don’t eat enough, that I’m too fat, that my weight is fine, that I should do more physical activities while I was going to extracurricular classes almost all the time (karate, dancing, swimming, horse riding for a short period of time). My parents are obese and they eat too much and so I was overweight ever since I went to elementary school. The most I ever weighed was 102kg I think. I was 15 years old then. It was a turning point for me as when I crossed the 100kg line I thought to myself ‘this is too much, this is dangerous, I have to do something about it’. And so I did.

Before going into highschool, so 15/16 years old I’ve imposed a set of strict dietary rules upon myself. I ate every 3 hours 5-6 meals a day, I chewed every bite 30 times or until it was practically dissolved in my mouth, I’ve only eaten one meal at a time, so no multiple dish dinners. I avoided sweets and juice, drank mostly water. As a result I’ve lost... I’m not sure really. The least I weighed was 76 or 78 I think. Let’s go with 76. So I’ve lost 26 kilograms. In 6 months time. I looked like a different person. I wouldn’t say I was mentally happy with myself but physically I felt so much better. I still had to deal with comments from my family about how I don’t eat anything and how I look ‘so thin’ but it was managable.

I’ve stopped sticking to my ‘no sweets’ rule about a year into high school. It was hard to keep it up. Generally my eating habits have loosened since then but I still feel like it was much needed, even though it wasn’t a safe thing to do, for me to feel that I can achieve something if I try hard enough. You see, I never really had to try to do anything in school. I’m an intelligent person and I’ve never had problems with grades during my time in lower education. It is a bit of an issue now that I’m studying but it’s still mostly managable.

When I moved out of my parents house I got drunk on the money. I still can’t responsibly spend my money although I have taught myself to spend less on food. My father rented me a flat and sent in about 330$ a month for me to live on. I don’t live in US or UK so it’s actually quite a lot of money for a student’s needs (for measure: a loaf of bread in a chainstore costs about 0,68$; 1,5L bottle of water 0,39$; 1kg of chicken breast +/-4,74$) . In the beginning I was spending it like crazy, mostly on food that I was eventually throwing away. I was cooking a lot back then too. You see, I say I’m bad with money but if I am bad then my parents are horrible with it. They probably spend about 530$ a month on food itself, and probably throw away about a 1/5 of it. Every time I visit their house the fridge is brimming with food (and it’s usually cold cuts or cooked meat that I don’t eat often anymore). So you can imagine what kind of an environment I was subconsciously trying to recreate and why it was so costly.

Food apart I don’t manage my money well unless I absolutely have to. My father usually sends me extra cash whenever I need it so I got lazy about controlling my spendings, I splurge on material items and then run out of money for food or I irresponsibly spend money on food in the city center because I don��t have time to cook and I hate planning meals ahead so I run out of cash very quickly (a dinner in the downtown area costs me about 5,26$ per main course; for the same amount I can cook a meal for 3 days). This semester I got super lazy with my diet as well, preciesly because I had so classes at uni. I usually try to avoid grains and wheat because my body doesn’t deal well with gluten in excess. Lately I’ve let myself completely loose (because of personal reasons as well) and I feel horrible.

I feel horrible to the point where I’ve made myself vomit my food twice during the last two weeks. The first time was when I came back from my grandparents’ (02.12). I ate a lot during the small party they threw and I was feeling very sick. ‘I ate a lot’ doesn’t cut it. I stuffed myself. Partially because seeing my family is always very stressful for me, it’s emotionally difficult, I can’t seem to find a way to deal with them and I think it’s getting worse the longer I ignore the issues that I should address. But it’s exactly the lack of self-control that is keeping me from doing it. My parents are very manipulative and the slightest chance they get to change the topic or steer the discussion in a different direction than the issues that I’m trying to discuss they take it and I fall for it. I get emotionally torn apart and die inside and after some time I realise that nothing has really been discussed and I feel like shit. And it keeps repeating itself so I get discouraged even more and it’s even harder to touch upon anything relevant to me.

The second time was today (11.12). I came back to my friend’s flat after spending crazy amount of money on home appliances in Ikea. I went to a shop and bought ingredients for a cake and food to eat for the next few days. I bought a loaf of bread because I can’t control my goddamn self. And a bar of chocolate. Went back to the flat. Ate 5 pieces of bread with generous amount of butter and a cheese slice on each piece. Ate the whole bar of peanutbutter chocolate. May I add I was alterating: I ate 4 sandwiches, I ate a bar of chocolate, I ate 1 more sandwich. Plus I’ve drank half a cup of tea. So then I felt sick. There are a few types of sick in my world. There is drunk-sick, there is stretched stomach pressing on intestines-sick, there is stressed-sick, there is acidic food-sick and there is wheat-sick. We’re going with both wheat and stomach pressing on intestines sick this time.

I don’t really vomit involuntarily unless I’m really drunk and I haven’t been really drunk for at least 2 years I believe. It’s always a decision just as much as spending money is a decision, just as much as stuffing myself with food that makes me feel sick is a decision. So I’ve decided to make myself vomit. In a way it’s cathactic, in another it feels like my mental health is in a really bad state right now.

There is a point I want to make here. I feel like overating isn’t a purely physical act just as eating disorders are mental health disorders. For me overeating is a way of dealing with emotions. I externalise my emotions, put them into food. I then put the food in my self. In a way we always do that but we’re also animals that have to survive so eating and hunger are totally normal and natural. When we analyse something we put a point of focus where we see fit. So I put in my self. I chew it, swallow it, stomach it, it goes through my intestines. All the time my body is breaking this food apart into simpler substances and redistributing them throughout my body. Perhaps the emotions I put into food come back into my body with these simpler substances going straight into the cells. I put bread inside of me, a product that I don’t deal well with - a testimony of hatred. Bread gets broken apart, emotions get inside of me - I get fatter, my nose gets stuffed, I get atopic eczema. Vomitting is an act of desperation. It’s not as much about getting the food out of my system - it’s about getting rid of the discomfort I’m experiencing because of the food I put into myself. But this discomfort is an effect of my actions.

I’ve been feeling like a puddle of pure terrible for about a month now. No, for exactly a month. I’ve done something very stupid and hurtful to people I’ve felt sympathy for and to myself and I can’t get over it. I can’t get over many feelings from my past as well. They haunt me. It’s easier to vomit and for a split second feel like I - this bag of flesh - am not anything much more than a bag of flesh feeling all these sensations that you get when you throw up. But then your thinking and feeling kick in. I still feel like trash and I still haven’t dealt with those feelings that are inside. I’ve tried to push them out and eat them in a different way but in the end I couldn’t deal with them. I hope that I can teach myself how to be in control of my life to the point where I am able to deal with my feelings before I hurt myself or someone else. I want to do it step by step. Right now I’ll stick to avoiding wheat and eating more consciously. It’s the little things that make up the base of our existence. It’s the little things that will pull us apart rolling away if we lose control over them.

---

Laser hair removal update: had my third appointment on monday (10.11). Sometime after my first post the lymph nodes on my neck got infected and it hurt like a mofo. So for the second treatment we went with lower power. Not much inflammation afterwards but also not much effect. My beard is thinning out but not many bald patches so far. For this appointment we went up with power. Very painful especially down the middle of my face and neck (mustache, under the lips, chin, under the chin). A lot of inflammation after the treatment. Today is a little better, a lot of zits, I hope the hair strands will come out easily. Spraying myself with Octanisept and trying to avoid face-skin contact. Doesn’t hurt, feels slightly hot and I’m still puffy. 

[leointhemoon-blog]

my past with dieting

wow, i think this post might end up being long.

to begin with, i was a fat kid from the very start. i don’t think i was obese but i was, i guess, overweight. now that i look back at it, it might have been the baby fat that added to the illusion. or maybe not, since i was fatter than everyone else in my grade. 

before i even started school, i was just known to my family as that toddler that loved to eat. as with every story about eating disorders (disclaimer: i never really had an eating disorder but i guess... i almost did if that’s possible.), a likely factor would be the bullies. so in my story, my first bullies would’ve been my relatives. 

it’s funny because the word and notion of “family” are supposed to resemble people who support you and care about you. i’m not saying my family doesn’t, but i guess they just have the worst ways of showing it... maybe it’s part of being asian? 

anyway, i would remember when my parents dropped me off at my uncle’s place. he’s the second oldest brother of my mom. the uncle would every so often pick at me and say “oh who’s the chubby baby? it’s you” or some cringey baby talk that people do to toddlers-- except it’s usually “who’s a good girl” not “who’s the chubby kid”. lol. there was my cousin, his daughter, who is like at least a decade older than me who didn’t hide her dislike towards me and constantly ask “why do you eat so much?” i often didn’t answer because tbh, as a really young child, i wasn’t much of a person that reacted.

they weren’t wrong ofc. i actually did eat a hella lot. damn, i was a fat kid, deadasssss. even my mom joined on in the pinching of my belly and teasing. i think my first time being self-conscious about it was when i kept sucking in my belly as much as possible when my mom tried to force me into some uncomfortable ass jeans.

when i was a student at my third elementary school (my family moved multiple times), that’s when the bullying started. there’s a ton to say on that matter, maybe i’ll make a separate post, so i’ll just talk about the moments that really matter here. in general, the girls would often refer to me as the fat kid and sometimes would even throw in a comment or two. damn, why are kids so mean sometimes? even now, as a near young adult, i still see kids bullying each other and i can’t help but sigh in disappointment how it’s innate nature of humans to bully others. it’s kind of ridiculous. if you’re going to dislike someone, don’t show it enough to make them feel utterly terrible about themselves. if it gives you power to do so, you’re rotten trash. literally, you’re the real ugly one here.

i remember once when i was sitting a couple of rows behind the rest of the girls in my class in the auditorium of my elementary school, i was watching them talk. and they talked loud so i heard everything. they were just saying stuff like “i do this to my hair to make it look prettier” and “omg your hair is so long it’s so pretty”. i guess they caught me staring so one just smiled and said “(my name) can never be pretty enough with that short hair” to which another said “she’s kind of fat anyway”. ok, first of all-- i loved my damn ass dora the explorer hair cut ok? i was excited to go to the barbershop as a child to request the dora haircut specialty, bitch, i rocked it. i was sorta hurt by both the short hair and fat comments but like again, i didnt say anything i just looked away. 

after that, the next time my dad brought me to the hairdresser, i was rebellious as heck. i didnt want short hair. i wanted to keep it long. but you know, there’s only so much 6 year old me can do, so i got my hair cut anyway.

fast forward to fifth grade. after years of constant teasing about my shape and weight, i think i had my awakening after i finished some good ass sandwich at barnes and nobles. i told my mom i was going to use the bathroom and so i did. after washing my hands, i looked into the mirror. ahh, the mirror that makes all the self-conscious people shudder. but i think i had never felt extremely self-conscious and distraught until then. 

nobody was in the bathroom at that time, so i was brave enough to continue staring. i took in the sight of my flabby arms (which honestly wasn’t that flabby but it wasn’t thin) and most of all, my round belly. i was horrified as i turned to the side and gaped at how my stomach protruded out of my abdomen. it was like i have never noticed before. then as if a dam has been broken. all those comments and pinching at my body flooded my mind, screaming at me that yes, you are fat. you just realized? again, remind you, i literally wasn’t obese. i was overweight. two totally different things. if i want to make myself feel better, i guess i was borderline overweight only but idk, i was still fat. 

i went home that night looking up on the internet “how to be cute” and “how to be pretty” like the naive kid i was and i gave up reading on tips on how to stand or how to dress. i decided i was going to diet. 

when i refused to eat more when my mother offered another helping at dinner, i told her i was going to diet. immediately, she yelled angrily and was probably shocked, like who gave my daughter that idea what-- i was and still am a stubborn person so i persisted... i’m not going to go too deep into this because it was often just her trying to feed me and me trying to eat less and less. 

i remember when we were at this shopping mall we frequently visited and i was in the dressing room trying to fit on new bras. when my mom helped me buckle up my bra after i finished trying on things, she said, “(my name), you got skinnier. i don’t even need to clasp your bra at the outermost row.” there were three sections for adjustment. i had managed to go from the outermost one to the innermost one. her voice held disappointment, but my heart had felt so light. i was elated.

this continued on into sixth and seventh grade. that’s right, it continued on deep into middle school. except it gotten worse. not only was i cutting down on portions of meals at home, i even did so at school. i skipped lunch, opting to avoid the lunch lines. i managed to skip breakfast when one day i got the idea of lying to my mom. “dont give me breakfast at home. i can just eat the school breakfast” to which she believed and sent me off to school without realizing i really wasn’t going to eat anything. i spent classes with awkward stomach growling. at that time, i didn’t know people could hear your stomach make noises when it’s hungry so i was fine with it lol. i slimmed down by a whole lot. 

just to mention, if you’re going to lose weight, make exercise a thing. don’t strictly diet like me. i should’ve probably exercised but nah, i just depended on eating less or not eating at all. like any other rant, i’ll mention this: the rough start of my depression started at the beginning of eighth grade.

i was sick of “friendships”. sick of being used. sick of being second or third or anything else not first. sick of being manipulated. sick of being easily thrown away. most of all, i was just so sick of myself. i felt like i could never be able to have a friend. a friend i could depend on. i cut off all ties, if they barely even existed. i went into complete isolation. eighth grade was the grade i spoke not a single word to anyone. unless ofc i had to answer some question in class or do some group discussion. but even then, i honestly went so quiet. more quiet than i ever was before.

when i did speak a word outside in the hallway once, my classmate thought he was funny and said “wow, (my name) can talk?” and laughed like it was just that damn funny. idk bro, you got nothing better to laugh about? it’s nice that i matter so much to you, you had to make a comment, let alone say my name because clearly my attention wasn’t even on you in the first place. 

anyway, hell yeah, i was hella emo. and when i’m emotionally depressed af, my appetite is ruined. starting that year, i fell into constant times of not feeling like eating. by then i was already thin enough i guess. i admit, i wasn’t skin and bones. but i wasn’t overweight anymore. my skin grew paler. it became harder for me to stand up without feeling lightheaded. i began catching colds more often than i ever had before. none of that deterred me from dieting though, despite by the start of my depression, i was already midway through not strictly dieting anymore.

depression continued that for me though. it hurt to eat sometimes. when i feel like crying, when my throat feels rough, my heart feels heavy, why add to the pain by forcing myself to swallow food? i’m not bulimic, i never was. i just avoided food. i would constantly protest “mom, i’m not dieting, i really just am not hungry.” did i ever mention that throughout my years and still up to this day, my mom would constantly throw shade at me for choosing to diet in the past? it hurts every time she does. in fact, i started writing this long ass post just because she did it again today. 

i think she also started to notice my increase in depressing mood so sometimes she won’t say much if i refuse to eat. it was like my body hurt when i saw food and my mind drove me somewhere else to avoid the food placed in front of me. food repulsed me. my stomach turned at seeing it. near the end of eighth grade, i gotten into my first serious relationship with some girl 2-3 years older than me online. it lasted for about a year. honestly, it was a very rocky one. i constantly felt depressed. she was depressed too. she made me feel more depressed than i’d be if she wasn’t there, if i had to be honest. 

the week following after our breakup, i was utterly broken. 14 year old me had no idea what i was supposed to do. it was halfway through my freshman year at high school. i didn’t have much friends. i only had one. even then, they weren’t there to support me. the other one...who’s now my best friend...i had lost her contact number. it wasn’t until four months later til i finally got in touch with her again so she wasn’t there to help me through my post break up either.

if me skipping meals often because of emotions was bad, this week was the worst. i legitimately didn’t eat more than 3-4 small bites of food a day. even now, i’m surprised how i managed to survive that week on so little food and how my mom didn’t even say much. she did notice and ask “why arent you feeling hungry these days? something wrong?” to which i’d brush off. i cried a lot. a hella lot. most of the times, it was heaving like i was trying to throw up my heart. i mean, i still have my crying sessions as i’m still...hella...depressed and yeah it feels like that. it be like that sometimes. and then the moments besides “most of the times” was me sniffling on the school bus because i just couldn’t stop thinking about it.

i could’ve killed myself. i nearly could’ve. midyear exams were coming. the stress from both school and my personal life was overwhelming. my body was destroyed. but somehow, i manage to overcome myself and get myself back into focusing on the exams. damn, i was hella scholar. now i’m not though lol. but then, i was focused since i was only a freshman that had just gotten into a prestigious school. the exams had managed to make me forget about what happened temporarily.

now, i still constantly look down on my body and wonder if i’m too fat. i still fat check. i squish my thighs, stare at them, hold them, then stare again. i look at my belly, i pinch it, i stare, i hold it tight wishing i can make the fat disappear. i’m not fat per se. people now call me skinny af, call me a pile of bones (i’m not, they’re exaggerating but i wish i was tbh). i hold my arms, squishing them to see if they’re too thick or not. i still look in the mirror observing the width of my body. i still try to calculate how much i’ve eaten on a daily basis. thinking about what i ate today and how much i’ve eaten. 

perhaps, i’m not actively starving myself anymore, but those actions of paranoia and self-consciousness never left me...my stomach is probably ruined. will that stop me? probably not. i’ll be honest.

[fatigued-one]

Way Back When (& My Current Conundrum)

Since I’m new to tumblr, I thought I’d share about myself and why I’m starting this blog for those that are interested. I’m nervous about sharing my story because I haven’t before (partially because I think people will think I’m lying for some reason). I had a longer version, but I figured no one would really care to read that long about my boring life and thoughts. A lot of the details are things that I haven’t discussed with anyone (except perhaps my husband). But, it’s nice to have the option of anonymity (what a weird spelling) that the internet provides. It’s more written for my benefit than anything. I typically don’t like to complain or share my feelings because I feel like I’m just being irritating, rather than actually having valid concerns. So...I feel like I’m really whiny and annoying throughout this post. If you do happen to want to read it though, it’s behind the “keep reading” link.

I’m mainly starting this blog to (hopefully) help me process feelings and cope with issues, similar to a journal. But since this is online, perhaps there will be others to provide me with support and ideas (or even that there’s someone who has been through or is going through something similar to me to be buddies with). I’m also hoping to be able to provide similar support to others. I really enjoy listening when people need a place to vent confidentially, and I’m happy to give advice when asked. I’ll try to be on messenger as much as possible, but with the fatigue issues I have (more detail below), I may not always be able to respond immediately. I’m also planning to keep the ask channel open.

To summarize what I want advice on if you don’t want to read my story: As it has become more evident that my doctors are about out of options to lessen the fatigue, I have become increasingly worried about my weight and wanting to be thin. I feel like there’s not much I can do to improve myself because of the health issues, but I don’t want to be obese again. I feel like there’s not a way to eat right and there’s not a way to increase my activity, so I am just forced to fail and be unhealthy. I feel so trapped in and betrayed by my body. I have mixed emotions about being in the mindset of wanting to start dieting again because I know my husband hates it when I feel this way about my body and gets concerned about my health. But, I’m kind of excited at the idea of being in control of my weight again (which I feel like I shouldn’t be since my husband hates it). I go more into detail about how my mindset has changed in the past few weeks compared with the past 2 years or more at the end of the long story, but it feels like I’ve started to be obsessed with my weight more quickly than the last time.

I don’t want to be obese again, and I really want to take control of my weight like I was when I was losing so much before. I feel like I’m so unhealthy being this fat. But if I let myself start limiting things again, I’m not sure I’ll know when I’m restricting myself enough, and I still don’t want to end up having a feeding tube for my stomach condition. I don’t know how to make my weight acceptable while keeping my husband happy/not concerned, but I don’t want to remain at such an unhealthy weight or as disgustingly fat as I am currently. HELP!

If anyone has any advice or support related to these issues, I’d appreciate it. 

I debated whether to include my current weight and pant size, but I’m pretty ashamed (at least if it’s still the same as it was at the doctor’s office last month) of it after having made so much progress getting down to 120 pounds, even though it is less than my heaviest weight. I’m worried about what people will think about me failing as badly as I have, when I probably should have kept trying to lose weight. 

I also thought about including pictures, but I figured noone would want to see that grossness. If you are interested, please let me know, and I’ll consider posting. I’m so nervous and anxious about sharing how I look(ed), even at my lowest weight, especially considering how so many of the other people in this community look. When I repeatedly see my arms are fatter/bigger/thicker than some people’s legs now (and I really don’t think that’s an exaggeration), it’s hard for me to not be apprehensive about sharing how my body looks/looked. I also feel like if I say I was whatever weight in a photo that I’ll get comments about me lying because I always feel like I look way heavier than other people do at the same weight (though I have had people in real life tell me they think I’m lying about my weight because I look significantly lighter than what I say I weigh...I don’t believe them though).

So, I’ve basically been self-conscious about my weight for as long as I can remember. For the most part, I thought my views about my weight were normal for someone my age. My mom would tell me (and still does sometimes) to suck in my gut and stand up straighter (I assume to hide that I was as fat as I was) especially when I was taking a picture. Starting in middle school, if not earlier, she started to tell me to cut back on snacks and desserts, eventually not letting me have seconds on anything even if I was still hungry. I just figured it was normal for a parent to help keep their child from being too unhealthy when they were already that fat. I had a condescending twin brother, who always picked on me, especially for being so heavy. Mom didn’t ever seem to care about his weight unless he lost some, and more focused on me (the fatter twin) and making sure I was aware that she knew I was overweight. I was picked on for a lot of different things in school, since I was geeky and weird on top of how heavy I was. There were even kids that thought I was/asked me if I was pregnant because of my huge belly making it look that way. I wasn’t too bothered by my weight until I was too big to buy a prom dress in the junior section. Mom was way more incessant about me not gaining weight before prom than usual, as she wanted to make sure I remembered being fatter would make my dress not fit. It fit ok at the prom, but my back fat puffed out over the top of it (so gross). This made me start to be so much more worried about my weight and size.

Although I was disappointed with my size, I just accepted it as my destiny to be fat at the time rather than feeling like I could do something to change it, likely cause my parents determined what and when I ate for the majority of my meals at that time. I didn’t have enough self control to stop myself from eating anything (even things I knew were terrible for me), and I always ate the entirety of whatever started eating. I felt hungry all the time, and I didn’t like the feeling of my stomach being empty at that time. I prayed that I would be able to finally motivate myself to lose weight so I could be healthy.

I started trying to eat healthier in college, after my weight ballooned to 190 pounds. I was a tight US size 16, and so unhappy with my appearance. For a while, my weight stayed fairly stable at 190, because I guess I wasn’t eating as healthy as I thought. I started to become obsessed with the size of my potions. I would meticulously compare what I ate with other people to make sure that my food was “healthier” and I wasn’t eating more than them. After one of my best friends died at the end of junior year (I think I probably should have been in a size 12 or 14, but thought my size 16′s still fit because my body looked exactly the same to me), I lost the motivation to eat because of how much grief I had. I was down to a size 8 at by start of senior year. I didn’t think my body looked much different than it had at size 16, but I did occasionally get asked if I’d lost weight for some reason I didn’t understand. At my annual checkup, my doctor thought it was great I was losing weight and recommended I continue with what I was doing.

After college, I moved back in with my parents’ house for a while. At first, I gave up some of the control over what I was eating, but I started freaking out as I felt my pants getting tighter and tighter. I became obsessed with controlling what I was eating and with how fat I was. I started to skip meals to account for the additional calories I obviously didn’t need to be eating at dinner. I started completely eliminating “unhealthy” foods from my diet. My mom started to suggest that I should stop eating snacks and desserts again, and started to ask questions about if I had gained weight or if I was eating more. I pinched at my fat in the mirror to remind myself of how gross it was. I started combing the internet to find tips on how to lose weight and compared myself with celebrities to remind myself of what my body could look like if I managed to lose some weight.

Once I got a full time job, I moved out on my own again and became more particular about what I ate and obsessed with losing weight. I finally had access to a scale, and started weighing myself every day. I was so anxious that I’d gain even a tenth of a pound. I started to obsessively count calories, initially allowing myself 1200 per day (which I feel like is a ton). The more under my limit I was, the happier I was with how I ate. I was anxious every time I thought I’d gone over my calorie limit. I kept progressively lowering the number of daily calories I could eat, thinking that I was being too generous with my limit. I started competing with myself to eat less calories than the day before, thinking I’d failed if I ate more (after all, I was on a diet because I was hideously fat, so the goal was to eat less calories so I could lose weight). Eventually, I was eating about 600 calories a day and still berating myself for “overeating” by so much. Mostly I was just eating fruits and vegetables, because I had eliminated so many “bad” foods from my diet. I spend more time poking and pinching at my fat in the mirror, and I would even grab at my fat while lying in bed or alone watching TV.

I never actually set a goal weight for myself when I was initially losing weight. My goal was just to not be fat any more. I kept telling myself that I’d look better if I lost 20 pounds. I’m not sure where the 20 pounds came from, but that was always the amount I’d say I wanted to lose. My boyfriend became increasingly concerned that I wanted to lose “so much” weight, but I saw no reason for him to be worried. I was obviously still overweight, and I thought I was just eating healthier. He remained very supportive of how amazing he thought I was, but in my head, I know that he wouldn’t want to see me wearing less clothes or to touch me because I was so fat and disgusting. I used that as motivation to keep working towards being thin, but didn’t want to tell him.

I went for a routine check at the doctor and was put on medication for hypothyroid, which made me ravenous. I started to eat huge meals and snacks (which were probably no larger than what most people consider normal but I felt like I was overeating massively) because I couldn’t control myself with the new hunger. I was terrified I was going to become morbidly obese because I had lost the ability to stick to a simple diet plan. Then, I started to have severe stomach pain and nausea every time I ate. I ate less and less food, but it continued. I eventually felt guilty for trying to eat or drink anything, because I was having the pain even from one bite of a fruit or vegetable or a single sip of water. Obviously my body was punishing me for being so fat and overeating all the time. By the time I was diagnosed and treatment was figured out, I had gotten to 120 pounds and a US size 2 (almost a 0). It was a condition that makes my stomach digest foods more slowly than is typical. The condition medically requires me to eat a low fat and low fiber diet, eliminating a lot of fruits and veggies, as well as many other foods that I had already stopped eating, from the foods I am allowed to eat from a medical perspective. For the most part, I can digest liquids without issues, but it typically limits the amount of food that someone is able to ingest at one time (which made me super excited to think that my body basically would act as a calorie counter for me). I still thought I was not much smaller, and was compelled to keep losing weight. I was fearful of trying to eat because I knew my body would punish me for it, obviously it didn’t need me to eat much (or even every day) or it wouldn’t hurt when I tried to. I was terrified of eating more than about 5 bites, sometimes as few as 2, because I was certain I would gain weight from being such a pig. 

Eventually, my boyfriend convinced (or tricked...I’m not sure) me into letting him control what I ate and how big I was so that I would avoid needing a feeding tube. He wouldn’t let me see the scale even, and I was up to 140 pounds and a size 6 by the finally did. I couldn’t stand it because of how huge I was or how quickly I pudged out, but he continued to force me to eat (what I thought) were massive size meals and wouldn’t allow my to try to lose more. He kept affirming me and making me complement myself until I was mostly ok with not trying to lose weight, even though I still needed to lose some weight.

A couple years later, I started having pain everywhere in my body for what seemed to be no particular reason. It felt like I had done a heavy workout the day before in every area of my body, even though I hadn’t been doing anything particularly strenuous the day before. I struggled to keep my thoughts regarding my weight out of my head still, but I started telling myself that it was my body’s way of punishing me and trying to make me feel guilty for being fat or not trying to take care of it well enough for something. I was able to convince myself that my husband (previously boyfriend) was right about this not making sense. After months of negative test results, this was finally diagnosed as Fibromyalgia.

Once the pain management was figured out, I began to have issues with severe fatigue that would not let up. The fatigue has continually gotten worse, though now seems to be either progressing very slowly or is stable. This has now been diagnosed as chronic fatigue syndrome, which causes me difficulty doing pretty much everything due to lack of energy. I spend the vast majority of my time on a couch with a recliner built in or lying down, mostly watching TV and intermittently using a laptop because I get so exhausted trying to do more that I crash and have sleep the rest of the day.  My doctors have unsuccessfully tried so many different treatments, and are basically out of options. So, I’m not expecting the fatigue to lessen anytime soon. Between worrying about my body being in constant pain and being so inactive, I have gained quite a bit of weight. Exercising, even things like yoga that are low key, is essentially out of the question to do regularly since doing so for 5-10 minutes basically wipes me out for the rest of the day. Most days, I’m not able to prepare food more than things like heating up leftovers or pouring milk on cereal, so making more healthy things, like smoothies, isn’t possible either a lot of the time. I feel like I’m so much fatter than I was when I was this weight before because of being inactive. I’ve lost so much of my muscle, so I feel like just a lazy blob. It’s to the point where trying to stand for more than a couple minutes starts to cause my body to shake, as if is doing some great feat of strength, or to burn like I’ve just done some intense workout. (I try not to be convinced of this being from how massive my weight is, but it’s hard not to think that.) I haven’t pulled out pictures from the last time I was this heavy, but I’m sure I looked less fat since I was actually at least somewhat active (and would have had more muscle). It’s so frustrating to have so little control of how my body works.

Current Thoughts, Feelings, and Concerns

I know that what I was doing in regards to my eating before, probably wasn’t what most people would consider “normal”, but I’m not really sure it qualifies as an eating disorder either, as I never felt like I limited my food enough or lost too much weight for it to be considered as such. If I read a story someone else wrote where they basically the same things I did, I might feel differently. But as is, I never felt like my eating was that strange, other than agreeing that I...might...have had a warped view of my eating right after my stomach issues were diagnosed. I was never underweight so I don’t really feel like I was unhealthy regarding my views on food when I was losing weight.

My obsession with my weight and desire to be thin has been returning with a vengeance lately. I won’t go into all the boring details about why I think so though, but I’ll share a bit about what I’m going through now. My weight has been fairly stable (within a couple pounds) over the past year or so, I have been feeling more and more like I’m getting fatter with each meal, even though I haven’t changed how I’ve been eating. I hate having a full stomach again, whereas that hasn’t bothered me for several months unless my stomach condition started to flare up. It feels almost like my body is revolting against me trying to put food in, as it has started to send me full stomach signals before I start eating a lot of the time. I’m feeling so guilty if I finish eating anything, even for foods like a cup of yogurt. I feel like my weight is so unhealthy. 

I hate that I’ve gotten so huge and overweight again, but I feel like there’s not much I can do to improve myself because of my health issues. I feel so helpless and trapped in my body. While typing this up, I kept thinking that the things I was doing to lose weight before should sound ridiculous, but I also was wishing that I was still doing them or that I had started them again.

Most of what I eat is so junky, because it takes so much less energy to prepare and there are so many healthy things I can’t eat because of my stomach issues. I know I need to prevent myself from eating certain types of foods again, but I feel like I shouldn’t want to. A couple days ago I realized that I’m actually looking at the calories for pretty much every food I eat from a package. I haven’t started tracking them or trying to limit them, but I feel like that might not be too far away. I’m starting to push meals later, waiting for my hunger to pass. I’m terrified that the inactivity is going to make my weight balloon again.

I had been checking my body in the mirror about once or twice a week for the past year or two as just an awareness check of how I look, but now I’m noticing that it’s been once or twice a day that I can’t resist the urge to critique how fat I am and analyze how I could look better. I’ve become more particular about what I can wear again when I actually manage to leave the house, since it’s become so much more evident that my fat is bulging through my clothes. I’ve started secretly spending as much time as I can (hours a day) at so many images online and on TV of people who are thin (probably thinner than my husband would ever want me to be), and combing each one to see how my huge body compares.  

My husband is aware of my eating issues, so he tends to look out for signs that I am skipping meals, keeping track of my weight, avoiding foods, checking calories, and so forth. So it’s not really an option to fast. I haven’t started weighing or measuring myself again yet, but I’m struggling to not start keeping track of my size. That is one thing my husband watches to see if I’m doing. He tries to keep me from using the scale because he knows how knowing my weight tends to make me feel fatter than I already do and how often I weighed myself when I was making myself lose weight. He still doesn’t think I need to lose weight, but I’m pretty sure I’m medically overweight by a few pounds at this point. I think he might suspect something is up with my eating again because he knows me so well. 

Thank you so much for reading my story. If you’ve got any advice, suggestions, resources, encouragement, etc., please share. I’d appreciate some support from others as I try to cope with my health issues vs. my weight.

[we-bodybuildingmotivation]

Why Exercise Is Non-Negotiable For People With Diabetes

Why Exercise Is Non-Negotiable For People With Diabetes Exercise is an essential component for managing diabetes.

Exercise Diet Diabetes is just one of the many chronic ailments that is so prevalent in the U.S. with millions of people suffering each year and thousands newly diagnosed by the same token. And whether you have type 1 or 2 diabetes, making healthy lifestyle choices in the form of exercise (physical and mental), diet, and mental health management are vital for keeping this life-threatening illness at bay. So, we're going to focus on the exercise aspect of diabetes management because it's a crucial component. But, we'll also briefly cover diet, and mental exercise (meditation, etc) because these factors all play a huge role in your overall well-being. What Is Diabetes?  Diabetes is a disease that affects how the body uses blood sugar and it results from high blood glucose, or blood sugar levels. Now, glucose is supplied in our bodies from the foods we consume, and then it's used for energy in the body with the help of the hormone insulin; which is produced by the pancreas.

Diabetes But if this process does not occur efficiently due to several possible factors like lifestyle habits and even family history of the disease; diabetes results, which can then cause many health issues that can potentially affect the heart, kidneys, feet and nerves. What's The Difference Between type 1 and type 2? The two forms are type 1 and type 2 with the former being more severe and the latter the most common form that people suffer from. Over 90% of people who have diabetes are type 2. Type 1 means the body no longer produces insulin, and it occurs more in children and young adults. But it results from the immune system attacking the cells in your pancreas which creates insulin. So, daily treatment is absolutely crucial. About 10% or so of people diagnosed with diabetes are type 1. Type 2 means the body does not utilize insulin effectively or that it doesn't create it at all. This form is more common in middle-aged and older people but anyone can develop it. And countless studies have proven the positive effects of exercise for the prevention and management of diabetes and insulin resistance. But, these effects are much more prominent in combination with making healthy lifestyle choices. So, How Does Exercise Help With Diabetes? Let's talk about how exercise helps to manage and improve diabetes. It reduces stress Stress affects nearly everyone and with the fast-paced, poor diet, and the high-expectation world we live in today, it's no wonder we're experiencing so much dis-ease in the body.

Stress causes hormones like adrenaline and cortisol to be released in excessive amounts, and when these hormone levels are sustained in the body, health and disease result. It also has a direct correlation with increased blood glucose levels and only exacerbates the issue. So, stress management is a must for the sake of your overall health. And exercise is a very necessary weapon in your stress-management arsenal because it not only helps to manage the disease but it also staves it off and can even help to improve it. Exercise releases feel-good chemicals in the brain called endorphins which directly impact mood and distract from many of the typical stressors of life. But it also strengthens the heart, potentially lowers blood pressure, and gives you more confidence as well. Short-term stress is normal but long-term stress is deadly. 4 tips to lower stress. It's Important For Weight Management Overweight and obese individuals on average at a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes due to their physical condition. David Marrero, PhD, president of health care and education for the American Diabetes Association has a very good saying when it comes to the relationship between weight and diabetes. "If I suddenly take a bunch of gravel and throw it in the back of your car, you can still probably make 70 mph on the interstate. But you're going to make the engine work a little harder. If I put 1,000 pounds in your car, that effect increases. I can probably put enough weight in so, eventually, your car no longer can perform like it needs to." He also explained. "What we know in diabetes prevention, and in prediabetes, is that a very modest amount of weight loss has this huge reduction in risk. You lose 7% of your body weight, you cut your risk by 60%. And, in fact, if you're over 65, it's over 70%." As you can see, exercise is not optional, but rather a necessity, especially if you're an overweight individual. You want to be eating lots of dark leafy greens, very little meat (substitute), whole grains, healthy fats, good carbs, and some fruits. But, the greens should make up the majority of your diet while complex carbs, fruits, and fats should be consumed in smaller amounts. And you should avoid anything processed, refined, and high on the Glycemic Index Scale. But certain fats (saturated and trans fats) and even sodium should be on the lower side. Exercise Can Lessen The Impact Of Unhealthy Nutritional Habits Sometimes a healthy diet is a difficult thing to maintain with all of the delectable options and lack of nutritional knowledge. But the good news is that exercise can lessen the impact of a bad diet's effects on health, in a society where processed, fast-food options are the main source of nutrition for many. And a big reason is that it staves off chronic symptoms associated with certain ailments. But, don't think you can just eat bad, then exercise and all will be well because it doesn't quite work that way. Exercise Improves Your Mental Health A diagnosis of diabetes or any other chronic disease can be discouraging and it can certainly do a number on one's mental health. In fact, people suffering from diabetes are at increased risk for depression, anxiety, and even eating disorders. Then tack on the added responsibilities regarding the daily treatment schedule and it's a real challenge for some individuals.

But the illness itself can also bring on a mental disturbance in the previously mentioned forms due to the potential fluctuations of blood sugar levels; which when all added up together, can cause a condition called diabetes distress. And many think that there's no use in trying to do anything to try and improve this condition due to feeling hopeless and helpless. And therefore, mental health worsens from this doomed thought process. Well, the absolute truth of the matter is, exercise is just as important for your mental well-being as it is for physical health. They go hand-in-hand and one without the other is always a recipe for disease. And that is why doing some form of aerobic and/or anaerobic exercise daily is crucial for sustaining your health and well-being. A 12-week study found that regular aerobic activity has a significant positive impact on self-esteem and mental health which is directly connected with a better quality of life. So, whatever activity you choose, be consistent. Weight training, jogging, sports, pure cardio. these are all very viable options. And based on research, all forms whether aerobic, anaerobic, or combined activities are equally good at improving HbA1c values. ( health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/the-importance-of-exercise-when-you-have-diabetes]7) But don't forget about the mental exercise aspect of mental health management; like meditation, therapy, etc because without these, you could be fighting an uphill battle. Talking to someone and implementing cognitive strategies are going to make the biggest difference for your mental health. Engaging in mindful/meditative activities will allow you to focus on the present moment and healing, rather than dwelling on the problem/s. And this is how many people combat depression, boost their immune system, and improve cognitive abilities . How Much Exercise Should Someone With Diabetes Do? This can obviously vary between individuals based on current physical condition. If you haven't exercised in a while, start out very slowly as to not overwork yourself. If you've been exercising lightly then turn up the intensity little by little. And if you're serious into fitness, well, good on you! Keep it up and remember, it's a powerful weapon in your fight against diabetes. The American Diabetes Association recommends starting off with a light walk for those who have sedentary for a while. But do it in a way that promotes a relaxing experience. For instance, listen to a calming audiobook and/or take a stroll through your favorite area with a loved one. And for those more experienced with exercise, at least 30 minutes a day is sufficient. Also, strength training should be a part of your regime at least twice weekly to keep strong and manage blood sugar levels too. ( webmd.com/diabetes/exercise-guidelines#1]11) But, never overexert yourself and always make sure to bring a healthy carb source with you like some fruit or a healthy snack in case your blood sugar levels drop too low. And always consult with your doctor before doing any exercise to ensure the process runs smoothly and for your absolute safety. Sample Workout Routine For Those With Diabetes There's no difference in the type of activities you can participate in when compared to someone who does not have diabetes. Do fun exercise that'll keep you inspired to keep up with your activities. But, try your best to not overdo it and stop when you feel decently tired.

Old School Chest Workout Now, since weight training is very beneficial for maintaining a healthy, we've put together a little workout split that you can follow for at least a month before switching up your routine. Make sure to warm up with lighter weight for a few sets before the working sets which are shown below, and avoid using really heavy weights (which is why we've chosen moderate rep ranges). But you should still train with at least moderate intensity to elicit results. Here's an example weight training routine including the days and exercises.  adjust as needed. Monday: Dumbbell lunge (3 sets x 15 reps) single-leg Romanian deadlift (3 sets x 12) Dumbbell side lateral raise (3 sets x 12 reps) Dumbbell seated overhead press (3 sets x 12 reps) Cardio of choice for 20 minutes Tuesday: Incline dumbbell press (4 sets x 15 reps) Pec dec/machine fly (3 x 15 reps) Tricep rope pushdown (3 sets x 20 reps) Lying EZ bar tricep extension (2 sets x 12-15 reps) Cardio of choice for 20 minutes Wednesday: Seated cable row (4 sets x 12-15 reps) Standing twisting cable high row (3 sets x 15 reps) Standing alternating dumbbell curl (3 sets x 12 reps) Dumbbell cross-body hammer curl (3 sets x 12 reps) Cardio of choice for 20 minutes Thursday: Rest day: Still do 30 minutes of moderately intense cardio (your choice) or go for a brisk walk. Friday: Bodyweight squat (4 sets x 20 reps) Lying leg curl (4 sets x 15 reps) Dumbbell bent-over lateral raise (3 sets x 12 reps for each exercise) Cardio of choice for 20 minutes Saturday: Push-up (4 sets x 15 reps or as many as possible) Pec dec/machine fly (2 sets x 12 reps) Dumbbell bent-over row (3 sets x 15 reps) One-arm lat pull-down (3 sets x 10-12 reps) Tricep bench dip (4 sets x 12 reps) Barbell curl (4 sets x 12 reps) Cardio of choice for 20 minutes Sunday: Rest day: Still do 30 minutes of moderately intense cardio (your choice) or go for a brisk walk. Repeat the routine on Monday. You can train your core 3-4 days per week as well by doing 3 rounds of planks, and lying side hip raises to keep things simple starting out. When Is The Best Time To Exercise? At least one to three hours after a meal when your blood sugar levels are likely relatively higher. But, if you take insulin always make sure to check your blood sugar levels prior to, and following any type of physical activity. If your levels are below 100 mg/dL, eat something to bring it up because you can be at high risk for hypoglycemia. If levels are over 250, then refrain from exercise for the moment, as it can potentially make the situation much worse. Also, it's important to check your levels following any form of activity to make sure you're within a healthy range and to avoid hypoglycemia. Wrapping Up Exercise is a crucial component for the management and improvement of diabetes. You don't have to go ultra hard but you can definitely turn up the intensity a little without worrying about doing too much if you take all the necessary precautions beforehand. Diabetes may be an inconvenience in many ways but that doesn't mean you can't live your life how you want too. And making it a priority to be active on a daily basis will allow you to stave off many of the potentially negative effects and symptoms. So, get into a routine and take control by doing what's necessary, Diabetes or not, physical activity is a key component for promoting and maintaining optimal levels of health, both physically and mentally. But you don't want to forget how vital diet and mental exercise (meditation, therapy, etc) are in a healthy regime for encouraging a better lifestyle as every preventative component should be up to par. Read the full article

[darcy137]

One of the rare times I’m sharing something related to Kpop but not related to my idols. I initally thought of posting this on my Facebook, but decided against it since some of the most severe perpetrators of this are people in my friendlist and I don’t feel good (I’m afraid I would unintentionally hurt their feelings) nor safe there. I debated between letting it go and saying this, but in the end I decided to vent to help me let it go.

So I was reading a summary of netizen’s reaction to Pristin’s Kyla, who committed the grave sin of not having the perfect, slim body like that of other idols. She is in no way obese or showing any indication of health complications due to her weight, but of course how dare she to do what she likes - performing - when she doesn’t look as thin as the one next to her?

What prompt this rant, though, are the predominant top comments on that article, which go along the line of “To be frank, she looks overweight. She just need to lose a few kilograms and she would be so pretty”.

Now, as someone who struggled with weight issue:

1. Why is beauty standard limited to “thin”? And why must you be “thin” to be healthy? Different people have different metabolism, and some people can be perfectly healthy while not being size 0-4. And saying “You would look prettier if you lose weight” means that not-so-thin people do not deserve to feel pretty or good about themselves, because somehow there must be a “prettier” version of them out there, and damn it if you try to feel good about yourself now you are just being lazy in attaining this version of you that must be somewhere within reach (regardless of whether it’s true or not).

2. It is not easy to lose weight. Like I said, different bodies have different metabolism - just because something works for someone doesn’t mean it works for others. I have friends who eat a ton and still never manage to gain weight, and then I have myself who can cycle 4 days a week, each day for two hours under tropical sun as well as do pilate every day, and diet hard for a month to lose like 1kg, and then gain it back right away in less than a week when I travel and thus could no longer continue my diet. Point is, losing weight comes easy for some people - heck, some never really have to worry about it - and for some others, it’s a constant struggle. So it angers me when people say “oh you just need to lose weight”, as if it’s such an easy thing like a stroll in the park. Or when people implies that those who can’t lose weight or can’t control their weigbt gain must be lazy and “unaware of their problem”. It trivializes the struggles of people who have a hard time losing weight, sometimes not due to laziness but due to their metabolism. And how about people who have legit medical conditions that makes them unable to lose weight?

Moreover, in the case of the girl in this article, even if she is an idol, she is still going through puberty. It is stressful enough when you lose control of your body due to all weird physical and hormonal changes, and you have to go and add mental pressure as well? And while some argue that she must look good because it is her job description to be beautiful as an idol, I would like to argue that 1. Look at my first point. Does she has to be size 0 to be pretty? and 2. It is exactly because she is an idol and a figure many young people would look up to, isn’t it equally important that she promotes being healthy and positive about your appearance, and be comfortable in your own skin?

It is truly devastating as an “overweight” person to keep hearing that you should lose weight to be prettier, or that you simply just need to try harder to lose weight and be pretty. It literally took me years to be comfortable with my body, and I am truly grateful to my college for being such a supportive environment to do so. But every summer I see myself crumbling to the ground, my new found confidence vanishing and my mental health deteriorating when I return home and face the plethora of “Oh you need to try harder to lose weight, you would look pretty then”. So please, even if you have good intention, saying that just instill a crippling sense of inferiority and self-loath and distorted view of beauty that, even after the person somehow achieve the “thin”, “perfect” body everyone keeps telling them to have, will continue to damage that person for life.

[ladystylestores]

Eight lessons for the rest of the continent

Left: Doctor in a mask in South Africa. Top right: Someone drinking a cup of tea in South Africa. Bottom right: Two women walking in South Africa

South Africa leads this continent in many ways. Right now, it is poised to lead Africa into the next, most dangerous phase of the pandemic, as the country braces itself for a dramatic rise in infections that will almost certainly overwhelm its relatively well-resourced healthcare system.

Here are eight things it can teach the rest of Africa:

1) Keep the tea rooms clean

No, it is not a joke. Governments, and medical teams, still need to focus a lot more on hygiene.

The most dangerous place in a clinic is considered the tea room

Instead of wasting time and money – as many experts now see it – on acquiring expensive but relatively ineffective ventilators, the evidence from South African hospitals already grappling with the virus points to the need for vastly improved hygiene protocols.

Several major hospitals have already been forced to shut after becoming hot spots for the virus.

Doctors are warning that medical staff continue to congregate in tea rooms, removing their masks, passing mobile phones to each other, and undermining all the work they do on the wards.

“The most dangerous place in a clinic is undoubtedly the tea room. We’re trying to get that message out,” said Doctor Tom Boyles, an infectious disease specialist in Johannesburg.

2) Fast tests – or no tests

After a promising start, South Africa is now struggling, woefully, with its testing.

It has built up a huge backlog – “tens of thousands” according to several sources – at its laboratories, which is now undermining the validity of the entire testing process.

It is taking 14 days to get the results of Covid-19 tests

“How do we prioritise limited resources?” asked Prof Shabir Madhi, a prominent vaccine expert, who said South Africa’s likely testing limit – because of financial and logistical constraints – would stay at about 20,000 per day.

An impressive number, perhaps, but of no real use, doctors insist, unless the results of those tests can reliably be produced within, ideally, 24 hours.

Much longer than that and an infected person will either have spread the virus to too many others to trace properly, or they will already be in hospital, or they will have passed the point of serious risk for infecting others.

Story continues

“Currently the turnaround time for Covid tests is around 14 days in most places, so that basically means it’s a complete waste of time,” said Dr Boyles.

The same concerns apply to South Africa’s much-hailed community screening and testing programme which, experts say, has outlived its usefulness, since the virus has now spread far beyond the capacity of the country’s large team of community health workers to track with any effectiveness.

Banner image reading ‘more about coronavirus’

Banner

“The timeline renders it meaningless and compromises the care that should be occurring in hospitals,” according to Prof Madhi, who said it was vital that the testing system be aimed, as efficiently as possible, at hospitals, medical staff and those at most risk.

But there are signs of a political battle delaying these changes, with officials reportedly resisting calls for older tests to be simply thrown away.

3) It is not old age, it is obesity

Much has been made of the fact that Africa has an unusually young population, and, indeed, that may yet help to mitigate the impact of the virus here.

But the evidence from several South African hospitals already suggests that alarmingly high levels of obesity – along with hypertension and diabetes – in younger Covid-19 patients are linked to many fatalities.

More than half of all South Africans are now considered medically overweight

It is believed that as many South Africans suffer from hypertension and diabetes as from HIV – some seven million people. That is one in eight of the population. Some of them are undiagnosed.

Two-thirds of coronavirus deaths in South Africa so far are among people aged under 65, according to Prof Madhi.

“Obesity is a big issue, along with hypertension and diabetes,” he said.

Although demographic differences make it hard to make direct comparisons between countries, over half of younger South Africans who are dying from Covid-19 have some other illness – roughly twice the rate seen in Europe.

4) Exposure isn’t always exposure

A busy antenatal clinic in Johannesburg recently closed down following reports that one member of staff had been exposed to a coronavirus patient. Twelve nurses were sent home and told to self-isolate.

Experts say the fear factor about coronavirus needs to be addressed

The move has been quietly condemned by many doctors who see it as evidence of a wider climate of unnecessary fear and over-caution among medical staff which is in danger of crippling the country’s health system and undermining its fight against the virus.

“There needs to be clear guidance on what sort exposure is significant. We have not adequately demystified this virus,” said Prof Madhi, who stressed that a person needed to spend 15 minutes or more in close proximity to a confirmed case to be considered at serious risk of infection.

Unions have been understandably robust in seeking to protect their members and to raise concerns where personal protection equipment (PPE) has been lacking.

“The investment in ventilators was a huge waste”https://ift.tt/2HfCbR7;, Source: Prof Shabir Madhi, Source description: Vaccine expert, Image: Shabir Madhi

But several medical workers told me that tougher discipline was needed to enforce hygiene protocols among staff – along with better education and training about managing risk.

“Fear is the predominant factor. Morale is definitely low,” said one hospital doctor, on condition of anonymity.

“But you also find people who are looking to get quarantined, who are very happy to take a two-week paid holiday” in self-isolation.

5) The devil is in the detail

This week South Africa announced that religious groups could resume worship in gatherings of no more than 50 people.

The move was clearly a political concession by a government under pressure to ease lockdown restrictions and that understands that to retain public trust over the longer-term it must show signs of give and take.

During the lockdown churches have been empty and services have gone online

But the decision carries significant risks. Religious gatherings – often attracting older people – are known globally to be hot spots for spreading the virus. By choosing to ignore that fact, the government may be undercutting its own messaging.

“It undermines any pretence that the regulations are rules are science-based,” said political scientist and commentator Richard Calland.

One option for the government might have been to bar anyone over 65 from attending a religious service. Instead it has told religious leaders to implement strict social-distancing and hygiene policies in their churches and mosques.

Will they comply?

All non-authoritarian governments eventually have to rely on the public’s willingness to obey, not just the broad spirit of any regulations, but – as the tea room troubles indicate – the granular detail of clean prayer mats, no-contact services and no more than one person for every 2.5 sq m (about 26 sq ft) of church hall.

6) Winning the peace

South Africa’s official opposition, the Democratic Alliance (DA), has been struggling to make itself heard during the lockdown.

A crisis of this magnitude inevitably pushes opposition parties to the sidelines and, one could argue, they would do well to stay there.

Coronavirus in Africa:

When the DA has sought to attract attention to itself, it has shown signs of flip-flopping on policy.

“They should be playing a much longer game, looking to win the peace, not the war,” said Mr Calland, citing the example of Clement Atlee, who swept to power in the UK, defeating Winston Churchill in the immediate aftermath of World War Two.

President Ramaphosa’s political rivals will seek to blame him for the inevitable rise in infections

The much smaller, populist Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) has already indicated how it plans to win political capital from the crisis, by opposing any easing of the lockdown (its racialised antipathy to foreign investment and to big business freeing it from serious concern about the economic impact).

It will presumably seek to blame President Cyril Ramaphosa for the inevitable rise in infections and deaths.

Mr Ramaphosa’s own enemies within the governing African National Congress (ANC) – currently silenced – may well make common cause with the EFF on that issue.

The blame game will be a brutal one across the continent. Will the power of incumbency – such an important factor in African politics and beyond – prove to be a strength or a weakness with Covid-19?

7) Bring the public with you

When South Africa banned the sale of alcohol during the lockdown, many people accepted it as a harsh, but perhaps necessary step to limit domestic abuse, prevent violence, and thus keep hospital beds free for coronavirus patients.

“The ban is playing into the hands of powerful criminal syndicates controlling contraband cigarettes, and is costing the government a fortune in lost tax revenues”https://ift.tt/2HfCbR7;, Source: Andrew Harding, Source description: BBC News Africa correspondent, Image: Someone breaking a cigarette in half

But over time, frustration – with the ban, and with the brutal and haphazard enforcement of it – has grown and the clampdown is now set to be partly lifted. So far so good.

But in tandem with the alcohol ban, South Africa put a stop to all cigarettes sales too. And that will remain in force indefinitely.

The government insists its decision is based on scientific evidence, but few people seem to believe that is what is really guiding ministers. Instead many suspect that officials are using the lockdown as cover to introduce their own pet projects.

The ban is playing into the hands of powerful criminal syndicates controlling contraband cigarettes, and is costing the government a fortune in lost tax revenues.

But perhaps more importantly, it is undermining the credibility of the lockdown regulations themselves – making compliance, as the country moves to ease some restrictions on movement, less likely.

8) Keeping it simple

For weeks, it seemed, everyone was talking about finding and building ventilators. But the experience of frontline doctors in Cape Town has already shown that simpler, cheaper and less-intrusive devices can play a far more important role.

Countries need to plan according to their limited resources.

With Covid-19 breathing can become difficult and the lungs get inflamed

“The investment in ventilators was a huge waste,” said Prof Madhi, who, like colleagues in Cape Town, stressed the importance of high-flow nasal oxygen machines that work more efficiently than more traditional oxygen masks.

He said he had been “raising the alarm” about the need to improve South Africa’s supply of oxygen “for about six weeks”.

Hospitals in Cape Town are also following the international example of “proning” – lying patients face down in order to improve oxygen supply to their lungs.

The principal of looking for simpler solutions applies to staffing too, with many doctors urging the health authorities to focus on bringing final-year medical students, and perhaps retired staff, into an overstretched system, rather than importing expensive foreign doctors from places like Cuba.

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[jesseneufeld]

The Benefits of Using Wearable Technology for Health Tracking

You’re ready. To sit less, move more, sleep eight hours a night—to adopt new habits in order to become the healthiest you possible. As I shared recently, I recommend shrinking the change you want to make to set yourself up for success. Can wearable technology for health also help? Should you use these devices to aid you in achieving your wellness goals? Can tracking measures like your activity level, heart rate, and sleep really add up to big health gains?

Let’s explore some of the wearables currently on the market and discuss how making lifestyle shifts using the data they provide may mean you not only look and feel better today, but also avoid chronic disease down the road.

Do you use wearables to track your health? These devices can help you hit your wellness goals—when they’re tracking the right things. Check out this article for my recommendation on the best tech to track your sleep, stress, and activity levels. #healthylifestyle #chriskresser

What Are Wearables, and Do We Really Need More Technology?

Wearables are smart electronic devices that can be worn on the body to track a variety of health markers, such as:

Activity level: time spent sedentary, number of steps taken, etc.

Sleep patterns

Resting heart rate and heart rate variability

Stress level

Body temperature

A wide range of wearable health devices are available, from watches to rings—even shirts. I suspect we’ll see much more innovation in the coming years. After all, the industry is booming: analysts predict that more than 245 million devices will be purchased this year alone. Sales of smartwatches like the Apple Watch and products by Garmin, along with Fitbit’s watches and other fitness trackers, are on the rise, making these some of the most popular options today. (1)

And they do have merit. Although I often write about technology’s detrimental impact on health, these tech devices can support well-being.

They’re remarkable, really, in that they allow you to monitor wellness markers that not too long ago only doctors could track and measure. As a result, you gain important knowledge about your body that is vital to improving your health. What’s more, these devices take continuous, round-the-clock measurements, providing you with much more information than what you’ll get from annual trips to your physician, or even semi-regular visits to a healthcare practitioner. This wealth of data can also help your clinicians in making diagnoses and recommending treatments.

I see wearable health trackers as effective tools in your behavior-change toolkit. In this way, they integrate well into a Functional Medicine approach to healthcare. In Functional Medicine, we believe that for patients to overcome a persistent ailment, they must shift their behavior; we also know that behavior plays a major role in preventing—or contributing to—chronic disease.

Making the shift to an ancestral lifestyle that includes regular movement, quality sleep, and a focus on stress reduction—all trackable with today’s best wearables—is key to promoting general health and staving off chronic illness.

But Do Wearables Work? A Look at the Research

In some intervention studies, fitness trackers have a moderate effect on increasing step count and physical activity, leading to improved health outcomes for wearers.

Older patients who were given trackers increased their activity, lost weight, and had decreased LDL (“bad”) cholesterol levels after 12 to 14 weeks of use. (2)

Obese and overweight participants who wore trackers for 36 weeks and increased their step count lost weight and saw marked improvements in their body mass index (BMI), body fat percentage, waste and hip circumferences, and other body composition measures; they also saw a bump in their HDL (“good”) cholesterol. (3)

Overweight individuals who accumulated 10,000 steps per day over 12 weeks not only had lower body weight and BMI at the end of the study period than when they began, but they also experienced significant reductions in feelings of anxiety, depression, anger, fatigue, and confusion. (4)

However, the majority of the currently available research on activity trackers hasn’t concluded that they’re extraordinarily or overwhelmingly effective. In fact, some studies have found conflicting results to those mentioned above; in one, people wearing trackers lost less weight than those who used standard behavioral weight-loss approaches. (5)

All in all, the cumulative scientific results are mixed as to whether or not fitness trackers make people more fit. Even within studies, the results are often at odds and inconclusive. For instance, one study using the Fitbit generated tracker-damning headlines a couple of years ago. Yet, the results weren’t all bad: although wearers didn’t see improvements in weight or blood pressure, they did get more physical activity than non-wearers. (6) Another study published in 2018 found that the Fitbit increased wearers’ activity levels. But its authors noted that their research required participants to check in with a health coach (health coaches are extremely beneficial for behavior modification), and they suggested that it's possible being accountable to someone did more for increasing participants’ exercise levels than self-monitoring with the tracker. (7)

A grain of salt: The latter study brings up an important caveat to wearables research. Many previous studies were conducted with devices that are now several years old. They were essentially glorified pedometers without other meaningful function. They didn’t connect to your smartphone. They didn’t track sleep or measure heart rate variability (HRV)—more on those in a minute. They didn’t factor in practices that can be crucial for behavior change, like goal-setting or community support, as in the most recent study.

Fortunately, today’s wearables are much more sophisticated. The better ones address the points mentioned above and then some, and can track activity, heart rate variability, and sleep all in one device.

Regardless of what the studies show, you and I know that increasing physical activity and leading a less sedentary life—the aims of these trackers—are absolutely necessary for overall health and well-being and the prevention of chronic disease.

Why Wearable Technology for Health Tracking Needs to Include Sleep and HRV

It’s not enough for your device to simply count your steps; it should track other important health indicators, like your sleep quality and your heart rate variability (HRV).

Why Sleep Matters

Modern life is wrecking our sleep, with serious negative health consequences. Sleeping less than seven hours in a 24-hour period is associated with: (8)

Cardiovascular disease and diabetes risk

Depression

Learning and memory problems

An overall increase in mortality

Other research has shown that poor sleep can undo the benefits of a healthy diet and exercise. It’s the dealbreaker of all dealbreakers. (9)

What HRV Is, and Why It’s an Important Indicator to Track

HRV, which stands for “heart rate variability,” is a calculation of the time variation between each heartbeat. (It is not the same measurement as “heart rate,” which refers to the number of heart beats per second.) You may have heard about HRV in the context of assessing an athlete’s performance readiness. But it’s also useful in terms of evaluating stress in the human body. HRV involves measuring the function of the autonomic nervous system (ANS), part of the central nervous system that affects heart rate. To put it simply: if you’re stressed, you’ll have a low HRV; if you’re relaxed, a high HRV. (10)

No matter what diet you follow, what supplements you take, or how much exercise or sleep you get, if you don’t manage your stress, you’ll still be at risk for modern degenerative conditions like heart disease, diabetes, hypothyroidism, and autoimmunity. Low HRV specifically is tied to a host of chronic conditions, from chronic kidney disease to cardiovascular complications. (11, 12, 13)

My Recommendation: Find a Device That Tracks Everything

Of all the next-generation devices on the market that track a multitude of health indicators, I think the Oura smartring is the most effective, as it tracks your sleep, heart rate variability, body temperature, and activity level. I have one myself, and we use it extensively with patients at the California Center for Functional Medicine. (To my knowledge, it’s the only wearable with sleep-tracking technology that has been validated by a peer-reviewed study.) (14)

Each morning, the Oura ring displays a sleep score in its app. This is an overall calculation of how well you slept, which takes into account total sleep, efficiency, quality, disturbances, REM sleep, deep sleep, sleep latency, sleep timing, and your lowest resting heart rate during sleep. This data can be used to make changes that will lead to better slumber. For example, lowest resting heart rate measures the lowest 10-minute average heart rate you experience during the night. This ranges anywhere between 40 and 100 for adults, and you can determine your average by looking at your data history. If you are significantly high or low, it can signal an increased need for recovery from activity or that you are in an active stress response and may benefit from interventions like mind/body relaxation techniques or breathing exercises.

The Oura ring also tracks your body temperature, which plays a role in everything from fitness to ovulation and HRV. According to Oura’s creators, a ring—versus, say, a watch—can gather more accurate heart data because of its position on the finger.

If you do decide to try the Oura ring, enter the promo code KRESSER at checkout for $50 off.

My bottom line: All wearable devices will have pros and cons for you, and all can be helpful when used wisely. That’s the key. Wearables and the data they generate are only effective when truly put to use to change your behaviors.

To succeed in adopting new, healthier habits, I encourage you to combine wearable technology with the shrinking the change technique. For example, if your big objective is to get more regular physical activity, use a wearable to help break that change into smaller, more achievable goals. The right fitness tracker can nudge you to take breaks if you sit at your desk all day and stand, stretch, or move; to get in your daily steps; to schedule a regular run, bike ride, or other workout of your choice, etc. And it will record this physical activity in real time—daily data you can use to celebrate each incremental win, as you get closer and closer to your big objective.

It may seem ironic to use technology to create more balance in your life. But technology is just a tool, and it’s up to us how we employ it. I’m a big fan of using technologies like these to create harmony through healthy habits.

Do you use wearable technology for health tracking? Do you focus on your sleep, activity, or stress? What have you noticed about how these devices affect your habits? Comment below and let me know!

The post The Benefits of Using Wearable Technology for Health Tracking appeared first on Chris Kresser.

The Benefits of Using Wearable Technology for Health Tracking published first on https://drugaddictionsrehab.tumblr.com/

[edsenger]

The Benefits of Using Wearable Technology for Health Tracking

You’re ready. To sit less, move more, sleep eight hours a night—to adopt new habits in order to become the healthiest you possible. As I shared recently, I recommend shrinking the change you want to make to set yourself up for success. Can wearable technology for health also help? Should you use these devices to aid you in achieving your wellness goals? Can tracking measures like your activity level, heart rate, and sleep really add up to big health gains?

Let’s explore some of the wearables currently on the market and discuss how making lifestyle shifts using the data they provide may mean you not only look and feel better today, but also avoid chronic disease down the road.

Do you use wearables to track your health? These devices can help you hit your wellness goals—when they’re tracking the right things. Check out this article for my recommendation on the best tech to track your sleep, stress, and activity levels. #healthylifestyle #chriskresser

What Are Wearables, and Do We Really Need More Technology?

Wearables are smart electronic devices that can be worn on the body to track a variety of health markers, such as:

Activity level: time spent sedentary, number of steps taken, etc.

Sleep patterns

Resting heart rate and heart rate variability

Stress level

Body temperature

A wide range of wearable health devices are available, from watches to rings—even shirts. I suspect we’ll see much more innovation in the coming years. After all, the industry is booming: analysts predict that more than 245 million devices will be purchased this year alone. Sales of smartwatches like the Apple Watch and products by Garmin, along with Fitbit’s watches and other fitness trackers, are on the rise, making these some of the most popular options today. (1)

And they do have merit. Although I often write about technology’s detrimental impact on health, these tech devices can support well-being.

They’re remarkable, really, in that they allow you to monitor wellness markers that not too long ago only doctors could track and measure. As a result, you gain important knowledge about your body that is vital to improving your health. What’s more, these devices take continuous, round-the-clock measurements, providing you with much more information than what you’ll get from annual trips to your physician, or even semi-regular visits to a healthcare practitioner. This wealth of data can also help your clinicians in making diagnoses and recommending treatments.

I see wearable health trackers as effective tools in your behavior-change toolkit. In this way, they integrate well into a Functional Medicine approach to healthcare. In Functional Medicine, we believe that for patients to overcome a persistent ailment, they must shift their behavior; we also know that behavior plays a major role in preventing—or contributing to—chronic disease.

Making the shift to an ancestral lifestyle that includes regular movement, quality sleep, and a focus on stress reduction—all trackable with today’s best wearables—is key to promoting general health and staving off chronic illness.

But Do Wearables Work? A Look at the Research

In some intervention studies, fitness trackers have a moderate effect on increasing step count and physical activity, leading to improved health outcomes for wearers.

Older patients who were given trackers increased their activity, lost weight, and had decreased LDL (“bad”) cholesterol levels after 12 to 14 weeks of use. (2)

Obese and overweight participants who wore trackers for 36 weeks and increased their step count lost weight and saw marked improvements in their body mass index (BMI), body fat percentage, waste and hip circumferences, and other body composition measures; they also saw a bump in their HDL (“good”) cholesterol. (3)

Overweight individuals who accumulated 10,000 steps per day over 12 weeks not only had lower body weight and BMI at the end of the study period than when they began, but they also experienced significant reductions in feelings of anxiety, depression, anger, fatigue, and confusion. (4)

However, the majority of the currently available research on activity trackers hasn’t concluded that they’re extraordinarily or overwhelmingly effective. In fact, some studies have found conflicting results to those mentioned above; in one, people wearing trackers lost less weight than those who used standard behavioral weight-loss approaches. (5)

All in all, the cumulative scientific results are mixed as to whether or not fitness trackers make people more fit. Even within studies, the results are often at odds and inconclusive. For instance, one study using the Fitbit generated tracker-damning headlines a couple of years ago. Yet, the results weren’t all bad: although wearers didn’t see improvements in weight or blood pressure, they did get more physical activity than non-wearers. (6) Another study published in 2018 found that the Fitbit increased wearers’ activity levels. But its authors noted that their research required participants to check in with a health coach (health coaches are extremely beneficial for behavior modification), and they suggested that it's possible being accountable to someone did more for increasing participants’ exercise levels than self-monitoring with the tracker. (7)

A grain of salt: The latter study brings up an important caveat to wearables research. Many previous studies were conducted with devices that are now several years old. They were essentially glorified pedometers without other meaningful function. They didn’t connect to your smartphone. They didn’t track sleep or measure heart rate variability (HRV)—more on those in a minute. They didn’t factor in practices that can be crucial for behavior change, like goal-setting or community support, as in the most recent study.

Fortunately, today’s wearables are much more sophisticated. The better ones address the points mentioned above and then some, and can track activity, heart rate variability, and sleep all in one device.

Regardless of what the studies show, you and I know that increasing physical activity and leading a less sedentary life—the aims of these trackers—are absolutely necessary for overall health and well-being and the prevention of chronic disease.

Why Wearable Technology for Health Tracking Needs to Include Sleep and HRV

It’s not enough for your device to simply count your steps; it should track other important health indicators, like your sleep quality and your heart rate variability (HRV).

Why Sleep Matters

Modern life is wrecking our sleep, with serious negative health consequences. Sleeping less than seven hours in a 24-hour period is associated with: (8)

Cardiovascular disease and diabetes risk

Depression

Learning and memory problems

An overall increase in mortality

Other research has shown that poor sleep can undo the benefits of a healthy diet and exercise. It’s the dealbreaker of all dealbreakers. (9)

What HRV Is, and Why It’s an Important Indicator to Track

HRV, which stands for “heart rate variability,” is a calculation of the time variation between each heartbeat. (It is not the same measurement as “heart rate,” which refers to the number of heart beats per second.) You may have heard about HRV in the context of assessing an athlete’s performance readiness. But it’s also useful in terms of evaluating stress in the human body. HRV involves measuring the function of the autonomic nervous system (ANS), part of the central nervous system that affects heart rate. To put it simply: if you’re stressed, you’ll have a low HRV; if you’re relaxed, a high HRV. (10)

No matter what diet you follow, what supplements you take, or how much exercise or sleep you get, if you don’t manage your stress, you’ll still be at risk for modern degenerative conditions like heart disease, diabetes, hypothyroidism, and autoimmunity. Low HRV specifically is tied to a host of chronic conditions, from chronic kidney disease to cardiovascular complications. (11, 12, 13)

My Recommendation: Find a Device That Tracks Everything

Of all the next-generation devices on the market that track a multitude of health indicators, I think the Oura smartring is the most effective, as it tracks your sleep, heart rate variability, body temperature, and activity level. I have one myself, and we use it extensively with patients at the California Center for Functional Medicine. (To my knowledge, it’s the only wearable with sleep-tracking technology that has been validated by a peer-reviewed study.) (14)

Each morning, the Oura ring displays a sleep score in its app. This is an overall calculation of how well you slept, which takes into account total sleep, efficiency, quality, disturbances, REM sleep, deep sleep, sleep latency, sleep timing, and your lowest resting heart rate during sleep. This data can be used to make changes that will lead to better slumber. For example, lowest resting heart rate measures the lowest 10-minute average heart rate you experience during the night. This ranges anywhere between 40 and 100 for adults, and you can determine your average by looking at your data history. If you are significantly high or low, it can signal an increased need for recovery from activity or that you are in an active stress response and may benefit from interventions like mind/body relaxation techniques or breathing exercises.

The Oura ring also tracks your body temperature, which plays a role in everything from fitness to ovulation and HRV. According to Oura’s creators, a ring—versus, say, a watch—can gather more accurate heart data because of its position on the finger.

If you do decide to try the Oura ring, enter the promo code KRESSER at checkout for $50 off.

My bottom line: All wearable devices will have pros and cons for you, and all can be helpful when used wisely. That’s the key. Wearables and the data they generate are only effective when truly put to use to change your behaviors.

To succeed in adopting new, healthier habits, I encourage you to combine wearable technology with the shrinking the change technique. For example, if your big objective is to get more regular physical activity, use a wearable to help break that change into smaller, more achievable goals. The right fitness tracker can nudge you to take breaks if you sit at your desk all day and stand, stretch, or move; to get in your daily steps; to schedule a regular run, bike ride, or other workout of your choice, etc. And it will record this physical activity in real time—daily data you can use to celebrate each incremental win, as you get closer and closer to your big objective.

It may seem ironic to use technology to create more balance in your life. But technology is just a tool, and it’s up to us how we employ it. I’m a big fan of using technologies like these to create harmony through healthy habits.

Do you use wearable technology for health tracking? Do you focus on your sleep, activity, or stress? What have you noticed about how these devices affect your habits? Comment below and let me know!

The post The Benefits of Using Wearable Technology for Health Tracking appeared first on Chris Kresser.

The Benefits of Using Wearable Technology for Health Tracking published first on https://brightendentalhouston.weebly.com/

[shapesnnsizes]

The Benefits of Using Wearable Technology for Health Tracking

You’re ready. To sit less, move more, sleep eight hours a night—to adopt new habits in order to become the healthiest you possible. As I shared recently, I recommend shrinking the change you want to make to set yourself up for success. Can wearable technology for health also help? Should you use these devices to aid you in achieving your wellness goals? Can tracking measures like your activity level, heart rate, and sleep really add up to big health gains?

Let’s explore some of the wearables currently on the market and discuss how making lifestyle shifts using the data they provide may mean you not only look and feel better today, but also avoid chronic disease down the road.

Do you use wearables to track your health? These devices can help you hit your wellness goals—when they’re tracking the right things. Check out this article for my recommendation on the best tech to track your sleep, stress, and activity levels. #healthylifestyle #chriskresser

What Are Wearables, and Do We Really Need More Technology?

Wearables are smart electronic devices that can be worn on the body to track a variety of health markers, such as:

Activity level: time spent sedentary, number of steps taken, etc.

Sleep patterns

Resting heart rate and heart rate variability

Stress level

Body temperature

A wide range of wearable health devices are available, from watches to rings—even shirts. I suspect we’ll see much more innovation in the coming years. After all, the industry is booming: analysts predict that more than 245 million devices will be purchased this year alone. Sales of smartwatches like the Apple Watch and products by Garmin, along with Fitbit’s watches and other fitness trackers, are on the rise, making these some of the most popular options today. (1)

And they do have merit. Although I often write about technology’s detrimental impact on health, these tech devices can support well-being.

They’re remarkable, really, in that they allow you to monitor wellness markers that not too long ago only doctors could track and measure. As a result, you gain important knowledge about your body that is vital to improving your health. What’s more, these devices take continuous, round-the-clock measurements, providing you with much more information than what you’ll get from annual trips to your physician, or even semi-regular visits to a healthcare practitioner. This wealth of data can also help your clinicians in making diagnoses and recommending treatments.

I see wearable health trackers as effective tools in your behavior-change toolkit. In this way, they integrate well into a Functional Medicine approach to healthcare. In Functional Medicine, we believe that for patients to overcome a persistent ailment, they must shift their behavior; we also know that behavior plays a major role in preventing—or contributing to—chronic disease.

Making the shift to an ancestral lifestyle that includes regular movement, quality sleep, and a focus on stress reduction—all trackable with today’s best wearables—is key to promoting general health and staving off chronic illness.

But Do Wearables Work? A Look at the Research

In some intervention studies, fitness trackers have a moderate effect on increasing step count and physical activity, leading to improved health outcomes for wearers.

Older patients who were given trackers increased their activity, lost weight, and had decreased LDL (“bad”) cholesterol levels after 12 to 14 weeks of use. (2)

Obese and overweight participants who wore trackers for 36 weeks and increased their step count lost weight and saw marked improvements in their body mass index (BMI), body fat percentage, waste and hip circumferences, and other body composition measures; they also saw a bump in their HDL (“good”) cholesterol. (3)

Overweight individuals who accumulated 10,000 steps per day over 12 weeks not only had lower body weight and BMI at the end of the study period than when they began, but they also experienced significant reductions in feelings of anxiety, depression, anger, fatigue, and confusion. (4)

However, the majority of the currently available research on activity trackers hasn’t concluded that they’re extraordinarily or overwhelmingly effective. In fact, some studies have found conflicting results to those mentioned above; in one, people wearing trackers lost less weight than those who used standard behavioral weight-loss approaches. (5)

All in all, the cumulative scientific results are mixed as to whether or not fitness trackers make people more fit. Even within studies, the results are often at odds and inconclusive. For instance, one study using the Fitbit generated tracker-damning headlines a couple of years ago. Yet, the results weren’t all bad: although wearers didn’t see improvements in weight or blood pressure, they did get more physical activity than non-wearers. (6) Another study published in 2018 found that the Fitbit increased wearers’ activity levels. But its authors noted that their research required participants to check in with a health coach (health coaches are extremely beneficial for behavior modification), and they suggested that it's possible being accountable to someone did more for increasing participants’ exercise levels than self-monitoring with the tracker. (7)

A grain of salt: The latter study brings up an important caveat to wearables research. Many previous studies were conducted with devices that are now several years old. They were essentially glorified pedometers without other meaningful function. They didn’t connect to your smartphone. They didn’t track sleep or measure heart rate variability (HRV)—more on those in a minute. They didn’t factor in practices that can be crucial for behavior change, like goal-setting or community support, as in the most recent study.

Fortunately, today’s wearables are much more sophisticated. The better ones address the points mentioned above and then some, and can track activity, heart rate variability, and sleep all in one device.

Regardless of what the studies show, you and I know that increasing physical activity and leading a less sedentary life—the aims of these trackers—are absolutely necessary for overall health and well-being and the prevention of chronic disease.

Why Wearable Technology for Health Tracking Needs to Include Sleep and HRV

It’s not enough for your device to simply count your steps; it should track other important health indicators, like your sleep quality and your heart rate variability (HRV).

Why Sleep Matters

Modern life is wrecking our sleep, with serious negative health consequences. Sleeping less than seven hours in a 24-hour period is associated with: (8)

Cardiovascular disease and diabetes risk

Depression

Learning and memory problems

An overall increase in mortality

Other research has shown that poor sleep can undo the benefits of a healthy diet and exercise. It’s the dealbreaker of all dealbreakers. (9)

What HRV Is, and Why It’s an Important Indicator to Track

HRV, which stands for “heart rate variability,” is a calculation of the time variation between each heartbeat. (It is not the same measurement as “heart rate,” which refers to the number of heart beats per second.) You may have heard about HRV in the context of assessing an athlete’s performance readiness. But it’s also useful in terms of evaluating stress in the human body. HRV involves measuring the function of the autonomic nervous system (ANS), part of the central nervous system that affects heart rate. To put it simply: if you’re stressed, you’ll have a low HRV; if you’re relaxed, a high HRV. (10)

No matter what diet you follow, what supplements you take, or how much exercise or sleep you get, if you don’t manage your stress, you’ll still be at risk for modern degenerative conditions like heart disease, diabetes, hypothyroidism, and autoimmunity. Low HRV specifically is tied to a host of chronic conditions, from chronic kidney disease to cardiovascular complications. (11, 12, 13)

My Recommendation: Find a Device That Tracks Everything

Of all the next-generation devices on the market that track a multitude of health indicators, I think the Oura smartring is the most effective, as it tracks your sleep, heart rate variability, body temperature, and activity level. I have one myself, and we use it extensively with patients at the California Center for Functional Medicine. (To my knowledge, it’s the only wearable with sleep-tracking technology that has been validated by a peer-reviewed study.) (14)

Each morning, the Oura ring displays a sleep score in its app. This is an overall calculation of how well you slept, which takes into account total sleep, efficiency, quality, disturbances, REM sleep, deep sleep, sleep latency, sleep timing, and your lowest resting heart rate during sleep. This data can be used to make changes that will lead to better slumber. For example, lowest resting heart rate measures the lowest 10-minute average heart rate you experience during the night. This ranges anywhere between 40 and 100 for adults, and you can determine your average by looking at your data history. If you are significantly high or low, it can signal an increased need for recovery from activity or that you are in an active stress response and may benefit from interventions like mind/body relaxation techniques or breathing exercises.

The Oura ring also tracks your body temperature, which plays a role in everything from fitness to ovulation and HRV. According to Oura’s creators, a ring—versus, say, a watch—can gather more accurate heart data because of its position on the finger.

If you do decide to try the Oura ring, enter the promo code KRESSER at checkout for $50 off.

My bottom line: All wearable devices will have pros and cons for you, and all can be helpful when used wisely. That’s the key. Wearables and the data they generate are only effective when truly put to use to change your behaviors.

To succeed in adopting new, healthier habits, I encourage you to combine wearable technology with the shrinking the change technique. For example, if your big objective is to get more regular physical activity, use a wearable to help break that change into smaller, more achievable goals. The right fitness tracker can nudge you to take breaks if you sit at your desk all day and stand, stretch, or move; to get in your daily steps; to schedule a regular run, bike ride, or other workout of your choice, etc. And it will record this physical activity in real time—daily data you can use to celebrate each incremental win, as you get closer and closer to your big objective.

It may seem ironic to use technology to create more balance in your life. But technology is just a tool, and it’s up to us how we employ it. I’m a big fan of using technologies like these to create harmony through healthy habits.

Do you use wearable technology for health tracking? Do you focus on your sleep, activity, or stress? What have you noticed about how these devices affect your habits? Comment below and let me know!

The post The Benefits of Using Wearable Technology for Health Tracking appeared first on Chris Kresser.

[denisalvney]

The Benefits of Using Wearable Technology for Health Tracking

You’re ready. To sit less, move more, sleep eight hours a night—to adopt new habits in order to become the healthiest you possible. As I shared recently, I recommend shrinking the change you want to make to set yourself up for success. Can wearable technology for health also help? Should you use these devices to aid you in achieving your wellness goals? Can tracking measures like your activity level, heart rate, and sleep really add up to big health gains?

Let’s explore some of the wearables currently on the market and discuss how making lifestyle shifts using the data they provide may mean you not only look and feel better today, but also avoid chronic disease down the road.

Do you use wearables to track your health? These devices can help you hit your wellness goals—when they’re tracking the right things. Check out this article for my recommendation on the best tech to track your sleep, stress, and activity levels. #healthylifestyle #chriskresser

What Are Wearables, and Do We Really Need More Technology?

Wearables are smart electronic devices that can be worn on the body to track a variety of health markers, such as:

Activity level: time spent sedentary, number of steps taken, etc.

Sleep patterns

Resting heart rate and heart rate variability

Stress level

Body temperature

A wide range of wearable health devices are available, from watches to rings—even shirts. I suspect we’ll see much more innovation in the coming years. After all, the industry is booming: analysts predict that more than 245 million devices will be purchased this year alone. Sales of smartwatches like the Apple Watch and products by Garmin, along with Fitbit’s watches and other fitness trackers, are on the rise, making these some of the most popular options today. (1)

And they do have merit. Although I often write about technology’s detrimental impact on health, these tech devices can support well-being.

They’re remarkable, really, in that they allow you to monitor wellness markers that not too long ago only doctors could track and measure. As a result, you gain important knowledge about your body that is vital to improving your health. What’s more, these devices take continuous, round-the-clock measurements, providing you with much more information than what you’ll get from annual trips to your physician, or even semi-regular visits to a healthcare practitioner. This wealth of data can also help your clinicians in making diagnoses and recommending treatments.

I see wearable health trackers as effective tools in your behavior-change toolkit. In this way, they integrate well into a Functional Medicine approach to healthcare. In Functional Medicine, we believe that for patients to overcome a persistent ailment, they must shift their behavior; we also know that behavior plays a major role in preventing—or contributing to—chronic disease.

Making the shift to an ancestral lifestyle that includes regular movement, quality sleep, and a focus on stress reduction—all trackable with today’s best wearables—is key to promoting general health and staving off chronic illness.

But Do Wearables Work? A Look at the Research

In some intervention studies, fitness trackers have a moderate effect on increasing step count and physical activity, leading to improved health outcomes for wearers.

Older patients who were given trackers increased their activity, lost weight, and had decreased LDL (“bad”) cholesterol levels after 12 to 14 weeks of use. (2)

Obese and overweight participants who wore trackers for 36 weeks and increased their step count lost weight and saw marked improvements in their body mass index (BMI), body fat percentage, waste and hip circumferences, and other body composition measures; they also saw a bump in their HDL (“good”) cholesterol. (3)

Overweight individuals who accumulated 10,000 steps per day over 12 weeks not only had lower body weight and BMI at the end of the study period than when they began, but they also experienced significant reductions in feelings of anxiety, depression, anger, fatigue, and confusion. (4)

However, the majority of the currently available research on activity trackers hasn’t concluded that they’re extraordinarily or overwhelmingly effective. In fact, some studies have found conflicting results to those mentioned above; in one, people wearing trackers lost less weight than those who used standard behavioral weight-loss approaches. (5)

All in all, the cumulative scientific results are mixed as to whether or not fitness trackers make people more fit. Even within studies, the results are often at odds and inconclusive. For instance, one study using the Fitbit generated tracker-damning headlines a couple of years ago. Yet, the results weren’t all bad: although wearers didn’t see improvements in weight or blood pressure, they did get more physical activity than non-wearers. (6) Another study published in 2018 found that the Fitbit increased wearers’ activity levels. But its authors noted that their research required participants to check in with a health coach (health coaches are extremely beneficial for behavior modification), and they suggested that it's possible being accountable to someone did more for increasing participants’ exercise levels than self-monitoring with the tracker. (7)

A grain of salt: The latter study brings up an important caveat to wearables research. Many previous studies were conducted with devices that are now several years old. They were essentially glorified pedometers without other meaningful function. They didn’t connect to your smartphone. They didn’t track sleep or measure heart rate variability (HRV)—more on those in a minute. They didn’t factor in practices that can be crucial for behavior change, like goal-setting or community support, as in the most recent study.

Fortunately, today’s wearables are much more sophisticated. The better ones address the points mentioned above and then some, and can track activity, heart rate variability, and sleep all in one device.

Regardless of what the studies show, you and I know that increasing physical activity and leading a less sedentary life—the aims of these trackers—are absolutely necessary for overall health and well-being and the prevention of chronic disease.

Why Wearable Technology for Health Tracking Needs to Include Sleep and HRV

It’s not enough for your device to simply count your steps; it should track other important health indicators, like your sleep quality and your heart rate variability (HRV).

Why Sleep Matters

Modern life is wrecking our sleep, with serious negative health consequences. Sleeping less than seven hours in a 24-hour period is associated with: (8)

Cardiovascular disease and diabetes risk

Depression

Learning and memory problems

An overall increase in mortality

Other research has shown that poor sleep can undo the benefits of a healthy diet and exercise. It’s the dealbreaker of all dealbreakers. (9)

What HRV Is, and Why It’s an Important Indicator to Track

HRV, which stands for “heart rate variability,” is a calculation of the time variation between each heartbeat. (It is not the same measurement as “heart rate,” which refers to the number of heart beats per second.) You may have heard about HRV in the context of assessing an athlete’s performance readiness. But it’s also useful in terms of evaluating stress in the human body. HRV involves measuring the function of the autonomic nervous system (ANS), part of the central nervous system that affects heart rate. To put it simply: if you’re stressed, you’ll have a low HRV; if you’re relaxed, a high HRV. (10)

No matter what diet you follow, what supplements you take, or how much exercise or sleep you get, if you don’t manage your stress, you’ll still be at risk for modern degenerative conditions like heart disease, diabetes, hypothyroidism, and autoimmunity. Low HRV specifically is tied to a host of chronic conditions, from chronic kidney disease to cardiovascular complications. (11, 12, 13)

My Recommendation: Find a Device That Tracks Everything

Of all the next-generation devices on the market that track a multitude of health indicators, I think the Oura smartring is the most effective, as it tracks your sleep, heart rate variability, body temperature, and activity level. I have one myself, and we use it extensively with patients at the California Center for Functional Medicine. (To my knowledge, it’s the only wearable with sleep-tracking technology that has been validated by a peer-reviewed study.) (14)

Each morning, the Oura ring displays a sleep score in its app. This is an overall calculation of how well you slept, which takes into account total sleep, efficiency, quality, disturbances, REM sleep, deep sleep, sleep latency, sleep timing, and your lowest resting heart rate during sleep. This data can be used to make changes that will lead to better slumber. For example, lowest resting heart rate measures the lowest 10-minute average heart rate you experience during the night. This ranges anywhere between 40 and 100 for adults, and you can determine your average by looking at your data history. If you are significantly high or low, it can signal an increased need for recovery from activity or that you are in an active stress response and may benefit from interventions like mind/body relaxation techniques or breathing exercises.

The Oura ring also tracks your body temperature, which plays a role in everything from fitness to ovulation and HRV. According to Oura’s creators, a ring—versus, say, a watch—can gather more accurate heart data because of its position on the finger.

If you do decide to try the Oura ring, enter the promo code KRESSER at checkout for $50 off.

My bottom line: All wearable devices will have pros and cons for you, and all can be helpful when used wisely. That’s the key. Wearables and the data they generate are only effective when truly put to use to change your behaviors.

To succeed in adopting new, healthier habits, I encourage you to combine wearable technology with the shrinking the change technique. For example, if your big objective is to get more regular physical activity, use a wearable to help break that change into smaller, more achievable goals. The right fitness tracker can nudge you to take breaks if you sit at your desk all day and stand, stretch, or move; to get in your daily steps; to schedule a regular run, bike ride, or other workout of your choice, etc. And it will record this physical activity in real time—daily data you can use to celebrate each incremental win, as you get closer and closer to your big objective.

It may seem ironic to use technology to create more balance in your life. But technology is just a tool, and it’s up to us how we employ it. I’m a big fan of using technologies like these to create harmony through healthy habits.

Do you use wearable technology for health tracking? Do you focus on your sleep, activity, or stress? What have you noticed about how these devices affect your habits? Comment below and let me know!

The post The Benefits of Using Wearable Technology for Health Tracking appeared first on Chris Kresser.

The Benefits of Using Wearable Technology for Health Tracking published first on https://chriskresser.com

[spiritual-doctor4u]

THE ACCURATE HEALTH CARE MANAGEMENT - at no cost

EMPOWERING THE PUBLIC & PRIVATIZING HEALTHCARE MANAGEMENT

A chain smoker refuses to quit smoking, saying it is his right to smoke & yet demands free medical treatment for his asthma/throat cancer, concurrently.  How insane is his premise, & why should the doctors loose their valuable resources on such losers.

Today lying down & sitting put for long hours are diseases.

There is always a way to work out.

WHAT AIL'S THE HEALTH CARE SYSTEM ??

Diagnosing the aliment that health care is suffering from, has been tough for the people who govern and finance the system: the medical staff who toil 24/7 inside the air tight bubble, the poor ignorant guinea pigs who offer themselves for scientific treatments, and the hungry corporations who feed and poison the common man with their toxic harmful processed food products. All the above four agencies are inside the system. To arrive at the differential diagnosis, someone impartial and not connected with the system has to study in depth from outside. It is pretty easy, and a piece of cake for a trained Value engineer and creative Industrial engineer like myself, to take in the total picture of all the elements involved and process them to evolve a workable practical solution. Since this solution is so far advanced and 25 years ahead of its time that the concerned parties may find it difficult to accept and implement it right now, though eventually this is the only way out for everyone involved. We will have to think out of the box to arrive at the best possible solution to this century old problem of health care.

WAIT AND WATCH TACTIC

Let us start with the world’s top most troublesome problem as an analogy – Smuggling of drugs. How are we tackling it today? By policing it, chasing it after the act has been committed. We wait for the drug lords to buy the stuff off the farmers, wait for them to process it and do value addition to it, again wait for them to smuggle it across the borders in ever new ways. We wait for intelligence tips to arrive, and yet again wait for the actual stuff to arrive to catch it, if we can.

LEARN FROM COFFEE BUYERS

Thousands of police officers, border security forces, k-nine units, cars and helicopters by the hundreds are employed to do this job today. If not billions but many trillions of dollars are spent every year unsuccessfully in the effort to contain this drug problem. In vain goes all this herculean effort because our children are still doing drugs and bringing untold misery into the families involved. As a government agency, we ought to be proactive and one step ahead of the drug lords to beat them at their game. The solution is very simple. Who is buying up 90% of the world’s coffee? Starbucks and Tim Horton’s & MacDonald’s. Just like them we go out and procure 98% of the raw heroin/poppy from the farmers and do what we want to do. We could even ask the farmers to harvest the crops much before they blossomed since we intend to destroy them. Ship it to an undisclosed location and dispose it off, by burning it and generating power. Alternately process it for medicinal purpose and huge governmental profits.I would go a step further to the very root of the epidemic, by procuring the poppy seeds themselves and destroying them systematically and clandestinely. In a matter of three to five crop cycles poppy seeds can be in the extinct category. We have to think out of the box for creative solutions.

WRONG PRIORITIES

This would render most of the police force surplus to be utilized in other areas. They would still be required to track down the small time individual poppy growers. Trillions of dollars would become available for critical health care management. Now that you have abundant funds, let’s see how to spend a fraction of it to get extraordinary results.

FOOD MANUFACTURERS WITH NO ACCOUNTABILITY

Coming back to our key issue of health care management, we observe that the poor guinea pigs has been given absolute freedom to do as they like, even if it means going on the road to destruction, and expecting the big brother, their governments, to rescue them later with all paid for health care plans, while they continue with bad habits. The governing agency is too busy with hundreds of higher ranking international priorities, including re-election to office; hence this issue takes a back seat in their agendas. The highly talented medical staff is busy doing what they have been trained for; treating the human body after the DAMAGE has been done. Like our police force they wait and watch till the people fall sick, and the guinea pigs to be carried into the hospitals. Additionally these doctors are always treating the symptoms, the effect, in the body and not the cause of sickness, which happens to be beyond their realm and scope of work. Finally the profit hungry corporations are responsible for all the degeneration caused to the common man’s health. Who is going to hold them accountable? They have been getting away very easily till now, but time has come to put an end to all this mess.

DEFAULTING CORPORATIONS ASKED TO FIX UP THE DAMAGE

Time has come to take a peep into the CRYSTAL BALL for the most of the world.  The doctor – medicine scene has degenerated beyond repair. It has reached levels of INSANITY.                            

SELF DEFEATING POLICIES

These food manufacturers continue marketing richer and bigger portions again and again, expecting different results every time.  In short they have embraced SELF DEFEATING policies and egoistic attitudes, that their corporations are more important than the nation. The picture changed radically for worse, by 2020, which is just around the corner. Like the housing market, this bubble burst with such catastrophic effects, that some harsh steps had to be taken, within the basic frame work of total freedom.

THINK TANKS FIND FOOL PROOF SOLUTIONS

The best think tanks in the world were summoned to find innovative solutions to this devastating problem. They brain stormed and came up with these following proposals. The anti-lobbying law was enacted and passed banning any spending by these hungry corporations on lobbying of every kind, direct or indirect. Another sub law was added to the above, which made it legal, for the affected public and the governments to sue these companies for playing with health of future citizens of the nation, for staggering compensations.

EMPOWERING THE PUBLIC & PRIVATIZING  HEALTH CARE

The federal taxes for personal incomes and corporate profits were marginally reduced and the health care plans dissolved.  The message was clear. Here, take your money and manage your own health with your very own personalized health care plans.

FOOD CORPORATIONS TO FOOT THE HEALTHCARE EXPENSES & MGMT

In lieu of the reduced corporate taxes the corporations were asked to take up the responsibility of health care management and expenses. The law makers additionally argued on the following premises. If the auto manufacturers are compelled to recall millions of defective and unsafe vehicles which could possibly lead to fatalities down the road, then why not apply the same logic to the food manufacturers.                

The food and liquor manufacturing companies were directed to take over the hospitals and fix up their mistakes of misleading the innocent youth on the fatally wrong path. They were required to manage clinics and hospitals, with the profits they made off the poor gullible public, who were Hexed by these very corporations with their false propaganda.

ALLOCATION OF HOSPITALS BASED ON PRODUCT RELATED ALIMENTS

The hospital for mouth and lung diseases was allocated to the tobacco companies.

The hospital for obesity and heart diseases was offloaded on to the food corporations and liquor commissions.

The diabetic clinics were handed over to coffee cafes, tea kiosks, chocolate companies, and candy manufacturers.

The mental health institutions were forced upon meat processing and gaming corporations.

Thus the government washed off their hands from the painful and perpetual issues of health care, its cost-burden and management. This way a major catastrophe was averted very smartly and profitably. The above innovative change was a Utopian step for the troubled West.

TRANSPARENT PREMISE

It worked because these companies managed their hospitals and clinics very professionally and effectively, keeping the same philosophy of CUSTOMER FIRST. They adopted a unique pattern of admitting patients into the clinics and hospitals. They adopted a two window system: PAYING window and NON-PAYING window. The paying window was reserved strictly for indolent, alcoholics, smokers, overweight, and addiction prone public. The non-paying window was reserved for active, teetotalers, nonsmokers, lean and addiction free public. The premise of this system was transparent and simple. If a person could afford rich foods, exotic liquors, expensive cigarettes and luxurious cars then he could afford to pay for his costly illness and sickness too. These companies were happy making additional profits off the rich man which helped pay for the poor nonpaying patients who truly required the expensive treatments. It did not make sense with these companies that people should consume in large quantities, stick with harmful habits, and ask for medical treatments at the same time.

HOLES IN THE BUCKET

A diabetic patient refuses to give up his muffins, dough nuts & sweets, yet he insists on getting free treatments for his insulin imbalance ailment. Go figure.

It was like filling up water, in a bucket which had big holes at the bottom. Why would anyone use such a defective vessel, to fill up and truly believe that it will fill up at some point of time? It was akin to try and button up your jacket only to find out that it has a zipper for closing up.

“These coarse people of bad habits and shallow judgments do not deserve such a beautiful and anatomical a structure as the human body. They deserve merely a sack to put in food and let out again.” I fully agree with LalaHardyal who wrote this many years ago.

RIGHTLY FOCUSING ON PREVENTIVE HEALTH & MEDICINE

These corporations additionally & cleverly leased out all the health clubs and fitness gymnasiums in the country. It was free for all, but mandatory for the non-paying clients to use them on a regular basis. It became more important to prevent than to cure. Hence 80% of the effort was spent on prevention and just 20% on curing the malady. This major paradigm shift brought down the total cost of health care drastically. The idea is that the doctor takes a back seat and allows the common public to take personal responsibility of their health. The Doctor was supposed to be a coach/counselor and that was the original idea to have family doctors to help in preventing the diseases rather than curing them.

WRITING IS ON THE WALL

Today it does makes sense with the governments handing out free health care plans, no questions asked. If they ever did question, then their governments would be voted out of power, on the basis of discrimination. This is the key word. The power of the public to black mail the governments. The future of these governments can be seen in the crystal ball.                    

We do not need another Nostradamus to tell us what is going to happen 20 or 30 years from now. The writing is on the wall, for every one of us to read, if we want to. This global writing too is heavily coded and to get the real meaning it must be deciphered locally.

PILOT PROJECT TO MAKE A SUCCESS STORY OF THE NEW MODEL

I feel the above Utopian approach and health care model, has to be tried out in an educated manageable   advanced country like Norway or Switzerland first to make a success story and then the rest of the world will line up  to borrow the concept, of course at a high cost and perpetual royalties for life. My intuition says that sooner or later the world has to come to its knees begging for such a unique solution to the most pressing and financially draining problem. How do the industrial manufacturers maintain their factories/plants & stay ahead of their competitors? Naturally by following the same very preventive maintenance concept they stay ahead. It should definitely work in the Medical field too equally well. I am suggesting a pilot project on a country level as we do in any engineering field.  I have spearheaded numerous committees at my  steel company to help evaluate the feasibility of major new projects. One noteworthy project was the setting up of new 10 million tonne steel plant on the eastern coast of India. After my findings and in-depth study it was scrapped ceremoniously. I have been the official Think Tank 

Rohit Khanna - IN-VENT  & IN-FORMED