Fit for Life: Never the Victim. Always the Victor

Sunday, July 10, 2016

Matt Espeut, GoLocalWorcester Health +Lifestyle Contributor

When you treat obesity like a disease, so the burden on the healthcare system will be even more, it does little to fix this problem at the roots. I get this odd mental picture of someone standing under a bridge with a life preserver, instead of installing a curb and a guardrail before there is a crisis. We do need to address the root cause of the obesity problem, and it starts with awareness, education and prevention. Once someone is obese, and their blood sugars are abnormally high, their respiratory systems are not functioning properly, and every movement is a struggle. One’s will power, discipline, desire and sense of self worth diminishes, making it more difficult to stick with any health program. Preventing weight gain from getting to this point should be our goal, particularly as we age.

Avoid getting to this point by becoming personally empowered with accurate information about how to eat and exercise. Of course, there is an important role the government can play in this regard. Helping with our product labeling, paying more attention to nutrition and exercise in the schools, and providing incentives to employers to promote health and wellness in the workplace are just a few action items that are beginning to happen and can increase. Helping the organic/biodynamic farmers so healthy eating becomes affordable and accessible to everyone, not just the few, is another top down program that will help, instead of giving subsidies, and tax breaks to large industrial farms and food manufacturers, who are partly responsible for our crisis to begin with.

The role of inflammation.

Another big problem people face, one that can cause a chain reaction of effects on the human body is inflammation. What are the causes of inflammation in the body? Some are food allergies, poor diet with lots of processed food, wheat and dairy, unbalanced hormones, chemical exposure, etc. Most cases of dietary caused inflammation can be alleviated by cutting down on wheat and dairy in our diet and doing some basic movement. How could changing our diets dramatically impact inflammation? Our foods have been denatured by processing to the point where the body treats them like foreign invaders, instead of useable nutrients, and the digestive tract goes into a fight or flight response, just like your immune system fighting a disease. Hence, fever and inflammation. Notice when you eat Chinese food you can't get your ring off and your watch is tight? Or your feet swell in your shoes and your ankles look puffy? That's inflammation. And it’s another place we can start to put our own good sense into our diet and reduce the damage being caused to our body every time the inflammation process sets up.

Learn what you can do, and take back your power.

Really learn what you can do about being overweight, or too sedentary or how to quit smoking or drink less. Make a few simple adjustments to your lifestyle – when you have success at them – make some more. Do what you can to dedicate yourself to health and wellness, prevention, and a natural lifestyle. I don’t believe that you can cure every condition and illness with nutrition and exercise, but I believe you can prevent many of our chronic diseases from setting up in the body this way, I truly do. If you adopt a healthy program before health issues start or before weight gain gets out of hand, you can go a long way to staying out of the medical system. Just think if we could catch a weight problem before it became obesity, before it became arthritis and hypertension and diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

We do have more power against disease than we think - we have our own knowledge and people and resources to help us. In addition to obesity and all the complications it can cause, we can impact allergies, sexual dysfunction, asthma, depression, back and orthopedic problems, and the list goes on and on. We do know the prevention and lifestyle steps we can take – now – we can go for a walk, start a regular exercise program, eat some green leafy vegetables like kale, and turmeric, whole eggs, cinnamon, etc. And so much more.

Take a step back.

To go forward, we can benefit by taking a step back. Learn how we were meant to eat, and how we were meant to move, to sleep, to rest, and rededicate ourselves to that. Not only for us as individuals, but for our children and our families so we can go forward healthier than we have been, smarter than the food companies, educated consumers, and more in control of own health costs and destiny.

Matt Espeut, GoLocal's Health & Lifestyle Contributor has been a personal trainer and health & fitnesss consultant for over 25 years. He is the owner of Fitness Profiles, a one on one, and small group personal training company, as well as Providence Fit Body Boot Camp, located at 1284 North Main St., on the Providence/Pawtucket line. You can reach Matt at (401) 453-3200; on Facebook at "Matt Espeut", and on Twitter at @MattEspeut. "We’re all in this life together – let’s make it a healthy one!

Related Slideshow: The 7 Best Health and Fitness Apps

Here is a list of some of the most obsession worthy health apps.

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MapMyRun

MapMyRun is the number one selling running app for a reason: it is easy to use, offers community support if you want it, and tracks and stores your exact routes for you. If you are training for a race or a serious runner, users say that the extra perks in the upgraded paid version are well worth it.

Made for iPhone, Android and Blackberry

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MyFitnessPal

MyFitnessPal seems to be the clear favorite amongst everyone polled. It is helpful not only for the fitness tracking aspect, but everyone polled mentioned how much they loved the food/diet aspect as well. From carb counting for diabetics to recipe ideas to complement your fitness goals, users love this app.

Made for iPhone and Android

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JeFit

JeFit is another fitness app that has rave reviews. It not only tracks progress for you, but offers a huge database of workouts. While many apps offer community support, JeFit allows you to sync workouts with friends who use the app, offering a (real) virtual buddy system.

Made for iPhone and Android

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Strava

Strava gets the highest mark of all the cycling apps. While it is also great for runners, the cyclers seem particularly inclined towards the fierce competition that can be ignited by this app. You can track all of your rides via GPS, then you can compare your efforts to those logged by others in the community on the same stretch of road. You can also join ongoing challenges that can net you great prizes (in addition to bragging rights).

Made for iPhone and Android

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YogaStudio

YogaStudio gets the top vote for Yoga apps. It has a lengthy collection of full class-length videos available at your fingertips. Unlike many other apps, this one also allows you to customize your own video yoga class. All of the poses are done by qualified yoga instructors, and you can find classes suitable for all levels of yogis.

Made for iPhone only

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SimplyBeing

SimplyBeing meditation app offers the best of both worlds. You can choose to run this app as a background for your meditation with soothing music or natural sounds that run for a set amount of time. Conversely, for those of you who have trouble focusing during meditation, you can choose a soothing voice-guided meditation.

Made for iPhone and Android

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Fooducate

Fooducate is an app all about educating people so that they make healthier food choices. Although not perfect, this app is easy to use (you can even take pictures of bar codes to instantly find foods in their database). It gives food a letter grade, tells you the pluses and minuses, and gives you better ranked alternatives. You can also use it as a weight loss tool by tracking your daily calories.

Made for iPhone and Android