What Do Habits Have to Do With Health?

Bad habits can drive us nuts…

But they can also be at the bottom of health problems too.

It’s no secret that there is an epidemic of overweight, diabetes and stress.  Yet, if we know about these things, which almost all of us do - and we know at least some of the things we should do to make them better - then why, oh why, aren’t the problems going away?

Because a lot of the solution has to do with changing our habits!  And that can be hard to do.

Feel free to weigh in on your biggest bad habits and the roadblocks to changing them.

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Losing Weight Smartly, not Hardly…

Weight loss is not as easy, for some, as eat less and exercise more.

It makes a lot more sense to lose weight the smart way.  Because trying to lose weight the hard way hardly ever really works.

For a lot of people, eating right and exercising is exactly the ticket.  The trick there is just knowing how to eat, and the right kind and amount of exercise.

But for other folks, it’s more complicated.  Chances are good that if you are one of those folks, you may intuitively know that there has got to be something else going on, because you have tried so hard and so many times to lose weight without long lasting results.  That can be disheartening and too many of us end up feeling like we just don’t have enough will power.

By looking at how the system works, our vision opens up about what other things might be going on to have us saying “why can’t I lose weight”?

Take this survey to see if there are other things that may be hijacking your weight loss efforts.

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• Do you feel gassy after eating

• Do milk and dairy products make you feel very relaxed?

• Do you crave baked goods or sugars?

• Do you exercise but no weight loss results?

• Do you have constipation or diarrhea?

• Do you have skin rashes?

• Do you have mood swings?

• Are you always cold?

• Does your social or emotional life revolve around food?

• Are your friends and family overweight?

• Is it hard for you to exercise because of fatigue or extreme muscle soreness?

• Does more than about 1/4 or your diet consist of grains?

Notice that there is no question here about willpower!!!

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How many positive responses do you have?  The more yes responses, the more likely it is you have other contributing factors that make it hard to lose weight.

2 - likely to have some contributing factor
4 - likely to have a couple contributing factors
>6 -  likely to have several contributing factors

Does this sound like you?  What are your challenges around weight loss? Would you like to get beyond willpower?

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Sugar In, High-Fructose Corn Syrup Out…

Who are we kidding?

Sugar is back in packaged foods and drinks, and HFCS is out, as the NYT reports.  But do we really think switching from high-fructose corn syrup to sugar is going to solve all of our sweet tooth induced problems?

High fructose corn syrup may be the evil product of corn subsidies and high tech food manipulation in all of it’s sugary madness, but thinking a switch from one sugar to another is the answer to our problems is just a silly mind game.

Take a walk into almost any grocery store.  Walk down the middle isles which, in most stores, is most of the store.

There lives the sugar coated cereal, the sugary soft drinks, the sugar laden “vitamin” drinks, the sugar coated pastries, the sugar spiked frozen dinners, salad dressing, etc, etc, etc.  The variety is mind boggling.

It’s hard to find yogurt without sugar for Pete sake.  Yogurt!

In all reality, if we didn’t buy this stuff, the stores wouldn’t stock it.  Supply and demand.

It is time to get a national grip!

I do apologize for the rant, but we are drowning in sugar, regardless of the form it comes in.  Our bodies and their million of years of accumulated know-how are beside themselves trying to figure out what to do with it all the sugar we are dumping into them.

How many of us need to struggle with obesity and overweight?  How many of us need to struggle with diabetes?  How many of us need to struggle with heart disease?  What do we have to suffer with before we get it?  Our kids are dealing with adult onset diabetes and hyperactivity.  What is the future we are giving them?  Especially when it doesn’t have to be that way.

We are like a country of addicts for sugar!

Ah.  Bingo.  Actually, the brain is hard wired to covet sugar.  That makes it easier to fool ourselves into making it o.k. to sweeten almost every food we can.  That has a way of making foods irresistible too.  That’s a boon to repeat sales.

But we get to pay with our health…and our medical bills.  That’s not so sweet.  And there is no health care restructuring plan that can make that better either.

It’s funny though.  Once you break the habit of sugar, the craving goes away.  And, you feel better.  And you discover that other healthier things taste good.  Really good.

Then, when you want to have something once in a while, with real sugar, it’s o.k.  No guilt.  Nada. Zip.  Zilch.

So, give me real sugar, yes, but not so much, and not very often.

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