Answering questions: Can you be healthy but not fit?

I put some time into recent responses on Quora and figured I'd share them here, too, since I clearly need to work on writing more consistently.

Can you be healthy but not fit?

Yes, but we need to define our terms first.

Americans in the US typically use “fit” to describe physical fitness and athletic capability, whereas other English-speakers in the world may use it to describe people’s appearances and level of attractiveness. The juxtaposition of “healthy and fit” implies the former definition (physical/athletic ability).

“Healthy” has myriad definitions, but I assume the questioner means metabolic health, which includes measures of blood pressure, triglycerides, LDL-cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol, total cholesterol, fasting plasma glucose, etc.

There are, indeed, many people who test in the “normal” and “healthy” ranges on such metabolic measures but who do not exercise regularly and/or may have physical limitations or disabilities that limit fitness endeavors. Metabolic measures are frequently influenced by genetics, so that “health” is not entirely within our control. But those influences can result in good metabolic health or poor metabolic health independently of physical fitness, which takes action and training to achieve.

Physical fitness can influence metabolic health, as metabolic health can influence physical fitness. If a person has naturally high blood pressure, it might not be safe for them to undertake an intense exercise regimen in pursuit of physical fitness. However, researchers have found that “even low levels of physical activity have a beneficial effect on metabolic fitness and the overall health of the individual.” (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pub...)

Many doctors erroneously mistake weight/BMI as a proxy for health. From the article “Weight Science: Evaluating the Evidence for a Paradigm Shift”:

• Yet using BMI as a proxy for health may be more costly than addressing health directly. Consider, for example, the findings of a study which examined the "healthy obese" and the "unhealthy normal weight" populations . The study identified six different risk factors for cardiometabolic health and included subjects in the "unhealthy" group if they had two or more risk factors, making it a more stringent threshold of health than that used in categorizing metabolic syndrome or diabetes. The study found a substantial proportion of the overweight and obese population, at every age, who were healthy and a substantial proportion of the "normal weight" group who were unhealthy.
• Psychologist Deb Burgard examined the costs of overlooking the normal weight people who need treatment and over-treating the obese people who do not. She found that BMI profiling overlooks 16.3 million "normal weight" individuals who are not healthy and identifies 55.4 million overweight and obese people who are not ill as being in need of treatment. When the total population is considered, this means that 31 percent of the population is mis-identified when BMI is used as a proxy for health.

So athleticism, metabolic health, and body size are all different variables, and while any one of them can influence another, none definitely determines or defines another. A person can be healthy and not fit. A person can be fit and have poor metabolic health. And a person can be either of these at any size or weight.

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June Journaling 9

I found a list of daily prompts for journaling in June and thought I'd give it a shot.

9. Your top priorities:

I would say that I prioritize myself and my health pretty highly. To that end, maintaining my job is important, but going in late or leaving early when I don't feel well is too. I try to eat a balanced diet with a lot of vegetables but also try to treat myself with compassion when food prep is difficult.

I run to help manage my anxiety and depression. A lot of people talk about "runner's high," but for me, the endorphins bring me up to a "normal" and balanced emotional state. It's especially hard to maintain the habit because I don't get positive reinforcement; I just get "not terrible" days.

I'm not naturally nurturing, and sometimes I think I care about my family largely out of enculturation and expectations. I'm nice to them because it's important to me to be good to others and to try to make the world a better place for those who need it most.

Faith and romantic relationships don't make the list, but friends do. I make an effort to regularly plan quality time with friends as I'm able. It's tough when I'd prefer to go to bed by 8 p.m., though.

Somewhere in here I prioritize social activism, but I'm not sure where it falls on my list.

Let's Talk Truthfully About Trainers

The Daily Beast has a great article about important questions to ask when you are searching for a physical trainer. It's definitely worth a read:

... the health and fitness industry is rife with problems. The hype, the body-shaming, the obsession with weight and body-fat—these things stand as barriers to people actually adopting healthy habits that they can maintain throughout their lives. Even so, this is the industry we look to when we decide we want to learn about our bodies—how they work, and how to take care of them, and how we can use them to experience enjoyable, natural movement.

So, if you have a trainer, or you’re thinking about hiring a trainer or some other sort of health professional, you want to be in the best hands. I offer here a simple test: three questions to pose to your potential health guru, to weed out the bad ones. And believe me, there are bad ones out there.

1: Do I Need to Lose Weight?

No.

You don’t need to lose weight. If you’re an average American, you probably need to be more physically active, and you could probably tweak your diet in any number of ways. But your trainer should not be telling you that you need to lose weight.

The above sentiment may surprise, and even upset a lot of people. But the very fact that the idea of “not needing to lose weight” seems so radical is a testament to the brokenness of our health culture.

Despite our obsession with it, weight is a poor proxy for individuals’ health.

  

Here's the link to the rest of it.

First Quarter Goal Progress

This year's goals primarily focus on cultivating healthy habits rather than setting outcomes-based resolutions.

The first quarter of the year has been largely successful for creating and maintaining various wellness habits and has also brought to light a few areas where I would like to improve. I set up a spreadsheet to track various activities and divided it by week. January 1 to March 31 makes 13 full weeks.

My first goal was to hit 70,000 steps each week, barring injury or illness, based on the Fitbit 10k/day recommendation. I'd been wearing the Fitbit since July and hitting my goals most days, but I didn't think 10k every day was an achievable goal compared to 70k/week. I didn't hit my 70k goal as often as I wanted to these three months, but I only missed it during bad migraine weeks and a few race taper and recovery weeks when I was deliberately working to keep my mileage low. Overall, my 13-week step totals average to 72,714, so that's fine by me.

I also had a goal of logging 1,000 miles walking and running in 2016. I'm at 405 miles with 9 months to go.

I'll have to reassess and reset some goals for the following months.

I got back into the swing of regular blogging with a goal of 50 posts for the whole year and am already halfway there. I like writing but typically lost steam and stop for weeks (or months) at a time. I posted 46 times in 2015 and 48 in 2014. I usually have a half dozen posts in the works and just need to finish and schedule them for the times when I have nothing new to write about. I got a head start in 2016 with finishing up 3 drafts and scheduling 5 posts in the first week.

My goal for the year was to lift 75 percent of my body weight on the assisted pull-up machine, and I hit that just after two months, so maybe I'll go for a real pull-up this year. I want to see how I progress from here before I make that an official goal.

Daily meditation and biweekly stretching/yoga just aren't happening. The step goals were easy to continue because I'd already begun the habit and was nearly hitting my new goals to begin with. Not the case for meditation and yoga. I've been trying to start a daily practice for at least 6 months and not getting more than about 3 days in a row. I guess I'll keep trying.

On track:
I'm a little over one-quarter of the way to my goal for writing gratitude lists 200 times this year and on-track to finish my feminist and racism reading lists. I've taken 4 new fitness classes already with a goal of 10 new classes for the year. My rec center has LOTS of offerings; I just need to figure out how to get a few into my training schedule.

I'm going to add a new column to specifically track the miles per week that I log running so I can keep an eye on my volume of running, whereas running and walking are combined on my Fitbit and yearly mileage goals.

Workplace Wellness

Today at the first meeting of the company safety and wellness committee, we discussed purchasing AEDs (defibrillators) and holding CPR and first aid classes but did not get to the part of the agenda labeled “Physical and Intellectual Wellness Programs,” which included cool ideas such as lectures and workshops on stress management, meditation, and yoga in addition to the shitty fucking idea of a company weight loss competition.

As the meeting dispersed, a coworker friend suggested programs to the facilitator that might reward employees for wellness achievements over time, such as smoking cessation, which created a segue for me to tell the facilitator I’d be emailing her with similar ideas so I wouldn’t spend an extra hour talking her ear off on the spot.

Hi [person in charge],

I enjoyed our discussions today and am excited to participate in these safety and wellness initiatives going forward. I especially want to offer input on the suggested wellness programs on the agenda that we didn't get to cover today.

The concern with weight loss programs/competitions is that they lend themselves toward under-eating and overexercising in order to win rather than focusing on actual health habits. They are also problematic in that they can be triggering and outright dangerous for people who have or are in remission from eating disorders, which is honestly a much wider-spread issue than anyone wants to talk about. Further, they set up competitions that reward a select number of people but exclude many who cannot participate in the first place due to health concerns and limitations, low initial weight, and differing personal health priorities.

However, there are many types of wellness challenges that can eliminate all the above issues. I’ll do some research on specific program setups, but for example: allowing participants to choose a healthy behavior to pursue from among a handful of options is more inclusive* for anyone who is interested. Behaviors that are shown to improve health outcomes, unlike intentional weight loss efforts, include eating more vegetables, smoking cessation, getting enough sleep on a regular basis, and adding or increasing enjoyable physical activity (e.g., setting up step-counting/tracking goals, beginning a 5k training program, moving from a sedentary lifestyle to exercising X times per week, from an active lifestyle to increasingly challenging goals or adding strength training).

Thanks for your time and interest in these issues, and I look forward to further discussion and planning.

Warm regards,

Me

The reply I received:

Fabulous input!  Really important to give thought to such issues.  Thank you for looking into this for us!  Love it and really appreciate your support and participation!

Since I was on a positive roll, I sent in another idea:

Last summer we collected a petition/list of names of at least 50 employees who were very interested in using the business complex’s new fitness center on a regular basis (several times a week) in exchange for company assistance with the membership fee. Though the $120 yearly fee is very inexpensive when one thinks of it as $10/month, there is no month-to-month payment option, and it’s difficult for many of us to find or justify spending a lump sum like that on non-essential recreation. We submitted the petition to [HR] but never heard anything after.

In truth, there are myriad studies linking employee wellness to better gains for the company due to fewer sick days and increased focus and productivity as a direct result of engaging in regular fitness. With so many interested [OurCompany] employees and with  [OurCompany] comprising such a significant portion of the business complex, [OurCompany] is also uniquely positioned to negotiate a lower membership rate for us as a bloc.

This might be something worth following up on or reopening.

Thanks!

I’m keeping my fingers crossed. That fitness center is GORGEOUS and has a full lockerroom with showers I’d love to access after my mid-afternoon runs, as well as a squat rack, kettlebell set, and other weightlifting equipment that my city rec center lacks.

*I know these ideas alone fail to address all barriers, but I’ll expand on that in another post.

Define "Transformation"

Transformation photos are highly problematic because success and human worth are not size-dependent, nor should happiness be. Intentional weight loss is not shown to improve health. Intentional weight loss efforts are most likely to result in weight regain.

Transformation photos typically consist of at least a pair of side-by-side photographs of a person purported to display their "progress" or "success," but which almost universally display weight loss over time. Sure, weight loss can be a kind of progress, even if that means progression through an eating disorder, physical illness, cancer, depression, or poverty. But the reasons for weight loss never seem to matter since becoming smaller is so widely viewed as a positive change.

You cannot determine health based on appearance.

In my case, any transformation photos I could post would show obvious weight gain. What they don't show is my recovery from disordered eating habits, untreated depression, over-exercising and under-fueling. Nor do they show that I've completed two half marathons, a 15-mile obstacle race, and several triathlons since I've begun running. They can't show that I've become stronger, fitter, faster, and far healthier since gaining ≈15 pounds (≈half muscle, half happiness) over the last 5 years. 

Weight change does not show wellness.

It's not petty envy at being unable to effectively participate or receive feedback and admiration that fuels my irritation with transformation photos. It's frustration that body size is used as a measure of success without regard for any person's actual health or positive changes in wellness. It's the widespread belief that weigh loss is the ONLY measure of success and that without seeing numbers on a scale decrease, one can only be a failure. Even moderate weight loss is seen as a failure if one hoped to achieve more. This is the message blanketing so-called "health" and lifestyle magazines, TV ads, "inspirational" fitness memes, gym walls, and "fitness" forums.

Body size does not indicate health.

What if instead of posting weight change and body measurements with "transformation" photos, we captioned them with accomplishments such as strength increase, distance goals met, increased energy levels, lowered blood pressure, and improved emotional health? These are things more people can pursue and control, goals more inspirational than statistical outliers largely dependent on genetics and starvation-levels of caloric restriction. Actual measures of health and wellness rather than shallow and false substitutes for health.

Pinterest and fitness

I have a Pinterest board dedicated to health, fitness, and mental wellness. It includes recommended workouts and stretches, motivational quotes, and training plans. I try to keep it weight-neutral and body-positive, but some things slip by past Moniqa when present me would know better. Let me know.

Are there any motivational posters or quotes or workouts you'd recommend?