I started gardening this week! We've got carrots, strawberries, lettuces of multiple varieties, lots of herbs, and a couple house-cooling plants that work as air-filters like an aloe- and snake-plant for the Summer months! 

Welcome back First name / Babes!

 

I don’t know about anyone else, but my clients and I collectively agreed that April was a hit and run- painful and quick. For anyone who didn’t have that experience, more power to you! I hope you soaked that up on our behalf. 

 

This month, we’re getting into one of the three pillars in my practice, Wellness Education (wellness isn’t all food and exercise.) The other two are Behavior Change Principles (adherence is not change) and Self-Care Ideology (self-determined care isn’t bubble-baths) - covered in March and April respectively! You can back-track through those here:

 

And now, the goods.

 

I had a fellow wellness-industry professional ask me what I thought the underlying problem stems from when it comes to confusion around food, exercise, and the extent of which it can change people lives. This was my two-part response:

 

 

 

I may stand alone in that opinion, but it’s important to me that you know WHY I think that. So over the next month, we’re going to dive into a few different topics related to food and exercise- including:

-Is food and exercise the key to wellness (this email)

-Food and exercise advice debunk: overhyped or worth the fight?

-What to focus on *in addition* to food and exercise. 
 

If you follow me on socials, you know I’ve been speaking to a few of these over-complications already, like you don’t need a gallon of water a day to be adequately hydrated, but there are far more over-simplifications. While over-complicating simple things is frustrating, oversimplifying complex things can easily become dangerous. 

 

Maybe you’re familiar with a few complex topics that tend to be over-simplified. These are the most-common ones:

 

To summarize, all the above are highly-sensitive to any one individual and require complex protocols. They’ve been demonstrated time and time again with over-simplified challenges, book-guided demonstrations, and self-assessments when they actually require rigorous assessment, protocol interventions that require ongoing oversight and educated adjustments, and easily take years to troubleshoot- not days or months- if they are to be successful.

And if not done with care, they’re very likely to fail you, leaving you back where you were to begin with, but even more so- they’re likely to bite back, leaving you with even more problems than you had to begin with. 

 

 

You’re conditioned to be invested in what claims to overcome or defeat mortality and/or your social fears. That’s a HUMAN thing! We all do that. 

 

Meaning, if living in a larger body is socially unacceptable, then we label it as “unhealthy” and work to be the polar opposite despite health-markers needing to be assessed, not judged, in order to define a person’s health-outcomes. And we do so without thinking twice about those living in thin bodies- which is statistically more significant and likely and that being the body type which suffers from eating disorders significantly more. Eating disorders, might I remind you, are a leading cause of death- this is specifically the case for adolescent girls and adult women. 

 

This is one of 500-reasons why I don’t think food and exercise rhetoric should be brushed off and why well-being interventions should be better regulated and held accountable in the wellness industry. Because damage has already been done and it’s not slowing down anytime soon. 

 

We have to remember that we live in a time where food sciences are new, fear mongering is a 5-course meal served daily, and there are real fights going on over the safety of food, preservatives, pesticides, and water quality. 

 

Which is why concepts, or lies, repeated over and over by those who profit but don’t know shit about shit- like “move more, eat less”-  begin to sound like common sense. Or why weight loss is applauded as a healthy change without those applauding knowing anything about what informs metabolic-function or health to begin with! 

 

Oversimplying and overcomplicating are predatory acts- all of which lead people to write others off who sincerely struggle with these messages throughout their lives, giving them shit advice and making asinine statements like, “if you want it bad enough, you’ll stop making excuses and DO IT.” 

 

However, I’m not here to send the same message that many body-positive activists tout without second thought-  such as food and exercise being completely irrelevant or unimportant- BUT… they aren’t the “best ways to take control of your overall wellbeing” despite being marketed as such.

 

How else would supplement companies convince you that their products are the jumpstart to your healthy lifestyle despite being met with directly-oppositional views by quality research analysis? 

 

 

It’s my personal opinion that relevance is more important than fun-facts. Because relevancy is the thing that tells you HOW MUCH those things are beneficial, practical, impactful- or in other words- worth your money, time, or effort in comparison to other less-costly forms of care.

 

So, YOU are not the issue, but there are surely better things you can be investing your time and energy into than shopping for organic products at Whole Foods and getting down on yourself for missing your workouts again last week. 

 

 

There are people who have terrible health due to genetic predisposition despite living an incredibly healthy lifestyle by choice. Then there are people who live un-healthy lifestyles by choice, and even engage in the riskiest of health choices like driving without a seatbelt, over-indulging in drinking, smoking cigarettes, and not feeding themselves who have confusingly great health outcomes. 

 

 

You’re proven to get more long term benefits from 5-min walks outside or even eating 3-4 nutritionally-lacking meals throughout the day than chugging a soy-free, collagen-peptide-infused, micro-green drink each day. I have loads of studies to prove that- including meta analysis and reviews- that I’ll be whipping out in my next email!
 

 

(I normally would encourage you to explain why that’s not true if you had the patience and the time - you know, help others help themselves- but my therapist has me doing this really annoying self-work that includes not obligating myself to save people from themselves so they can learn their own valuable lessons in due time… take that and run with it if you need it too!) 

 

But feel free to offer them my email list if you do end up engaging. I’m prepared to do the heavy lifting in my area of expertise! 

 

 

Option 1: Review a couple of the last emails- those will help you lay the foundation for the research-based convos we'll be diving into of those concepts over the next few emails: 

 

 

 

Option 2: Start interrogating concepts like “move more, eat less” in your own life- where do you hold yourself to illusive ideas, concepts, or pieces of advice? Do you know what they actually entail? Or how to apply them with relevance to your own schedule, intermixing with your desires, or how to balance them along with your many other personal needs? 

 

Option 3: Check out the resources linked in the Party Favor section- they're not to be taken as all-encompassing resources, but rather to get your brain thinking further on these topics if this is your first time thinking-twice about blanketed-wellness-advice. 

I've included 1 article that critiques “move more, eat less” but uses FALSE information to do so…. spicy, I know… then 1 article that discusses fasting protocols for weight management and uses scientifically research in its discourse. I hope you enjoy! 

•If coaching is a good fit, we'll get you started. 

•If not, we'll get you turned around in the RIGHT direction!