Too Much

   Lately I have found myself eating way too much sugar, too much rich food and exercising being the reverse, doing it much too little.  Certainly with each chomp of a home-made sweet there is a tinge of guilt, almost as if that giving in to that temptation to break out of our normal routine is later met with our inner voice chiding us with a "why did I do that?"  Guilty pleasures is the term, I believe.  It's almost unavoidable at this time of year as all sorts of religions and holidays come together to emphasize their message of gathering and renewal and to celebrate something greater and to think about those less fortunate than ourselves.  It is also a time when we can see the approach of a new year, a fresh start, and to promise ourselves that this time for certain we will change our ways.   But in the meantime, we cook those large dinners and attend yet another big gathering of familiar faces...and perhaps have just one more bite of that lemon bar. 

   Something else comes at this time of celebrating and of looking back and it's the analyses (the plural term for analysis) and studies of long-held beliefs which begin to emerge as being either outright marketing gimmicks or just early mistakes now being realized; in earlier decades the corn industry touted the evils of butter (to promote its margarine) and the sugar industry hired scientists to bump up its own falling sales.  One set of new myths now being broken came from Men's Journal which talked about our bodies' metabolism and citing these five things that we once thought were true: 1) that metabolism slows as you age; 2) that any exercise will help your metabolism; 3) that thin people have a faster metabolism; 4) that heavy people don't have much muscle; and 5) that physical activity burns the most calories...all false beliefs, according the article.  When a person loses weight, about 20 percent of what comes off is muscle, says weight management specialist Jamy Ard.  (This is muscle the overweight person unknowingly developed to carry the extra fat.)  Along with that loss of sugar-eating muscle, the dieter's metabolic rate drops.  So even after he's hit target weight, he must eat less than he ate previously to prevent regain, since his body now burns calories more slowly...Making it tougher still, after losing a lot of weight, the body responds by decreasing metabolic rate even further and increasing hunger even more.  That's a physiological response created by human evolution, which was more concerned with preventing starvation than love handles.  And here was another, this one from JAMA (Journal of American Medical Association), that cautioned: Among young adults with a BMI between 25 and less than 40, the addition of a wearable technology device to a standard behavioral intervention resulted in less weight loss over 24 months.  Wait, less weight loss?  Hmmm...

    The editors of AARP's magazine also thought about this rethinking of our health myths and teamed up with the editors of the Eat This, Not That series.  Why?  As they said, "The word 'diet' gives you 471 million hits to choose from on Google."  And with that, a few more results emerged such as that of bottled green teas not being quite as beneficial as thought since they lose about 20% of their antioxident benefits during processing (brew your own, says the article).  The article also pointed out that a single tablespoon of soy sauce "has nearly 40 percent of the day's recommended sodium," and the average muffin "carries a third of the day's saturated fat and 74 grams of carbs, most of which are the unhealthy refined kind."  Much of this, as the article goes on, came about several decades ago when: ...scientists discovered that if they injected vegetable oil with hydrogen, it would turn solid -- and stay that way, even at room temperature.  Unfortunately, this new type of fat, called trans fat, also tended to stick around inside your arteries, including those in your brain, impairing cognitive performance.  

    So what can be done?  In the midst of all of these rather depressing results came a few surprises, such as marshmallows (did you know that they usually add food coloring to them?) helping to relieve your sore throat (it's the gelatin), or that holding onto something cold during or after a workout helps to pull additional heat from your body which leads to longer workouts (from a Stanford School of Medicine study) and the same goes for downing an extra glass of cool water to burn up calories (the body uses the calories to warm the water to room temperature).  Wait, haven't we heard all this before, just as we heard about what's right or wrong for our metabolisms?  Even the above book on what's better to eat comes into question from the site WebMD which cautioned: Eat This, Not That is not exactly a diet, but a calorie-counter's guide that could help you lose weight by making healthier choices.  Don’t assume that everything on the "eat this" side of the book is healthy and recommended for weight loss...There is no research supporting this weight loss approach, and there are questionable recommendations in the book, like many nutritious foods on the "not that" side of the page.  

    It all boils down to common sense for even reaching for that extra piece of fudge or dessert comes down to it being our own choices and to heck with the studies.  Not to throw caution to the wind but even during the holidays there's a time and place to seek balance.  There is good and bad and indeed, this time of year can seem precarious for many of us in many ways, emotionally as well as physically.  Studies and their results, as you've noted, change through the years and what was once thought to be good for us might prove less than beneficial some years down the road.  New oils (avocado, walnut, coconut, flax) seem to be lining the shelves with higher claims and accordingly higher prices, even as "smart" waters and once-trashed vegetables start to push the usual items off of the shelves (as one example, kale is now being found to be less beneficial than spinach, especially in minerals such as magnesium...and whatever happened to acai berries).  So perhaps we should all just step back and take a look at ourselves from a distance.  Take the words of Lorraine Twohill who is the senior VP of global marketing for Google and who averages close to 20 meetings each day.  As Fast Company interviewed her, she noted these things: Time to think is the scarcest resource in life.  I use my drive to and from work to think, but it’s never quite enough.  For me, going for a walk and being in fresh air is almost a form of meditation...I still believe the best form of communication is talking...The most common email people get from me is two words: Call me...You get older and wiser and realize you can’t do it all.  You can’t even begin to do it all.  You have to be realistic...And when I walk into my home, I’m done.  The kids take over, giving you hugs and telling you about their day.  It’s family time.  Kids are the best way of balancing your life.  All that from one of the top personnel at Google.  Who would have thought?

   This holiday season, amidst all the eating and laughter and frivolity, we can stand back and almost picture ourselves as the healthy person on one side and this seemingly mad ravenous party-goer on the other; but mix in all those studies and advice columns and it becomes --especially now-- too much.  As the saying goes, who knows you better than yourself.  Even with all the temptations, the resisting and the giving in, come January you'll probably still emerge as the person you were the year before...or not.  As you step back and look at those two people you recognize you might just spot a third...and maybe, just maybe, that third person is the person you really want to be.