What Does Health Mean?

 

What does health mean? When I ask this question the answers I receive are different, but they do have similar undertones. I’ve gotten responses that health is only based on how much you weigh, only eating vegetables, and overall being miserable at the constant thinking about what it means to be a healthy person. Health truly will look different for everyone. I’m going to tell you a little about my personal story to get you out of the mindset that weight=health because remember IT DOES NOT! Back in 2020 I was the heaviest I had ever been and was definitely seeing that mid 20’s weight gain that women go through. Now let’s jump to 2021, I had moved back home to Iowa due to the pandemic and started seeing drastic weight loss. This was actually strange to me because my eating habits hadn’t changed much and I hadn’t been to a commercial gym in ages. I chalked it up to a lot less stress in my life (which I had broken off in 2020), having a more active job, and unfortunately 6 runs of tonsillitis and constant antibiotics. In less than 6 months I had dropped 70lbs. This is something that is very dangerous for you and your organs and if my weight hadn’t leveled out in July I would have seen a doctor because it is concerning. Let’s jump to 2022, after being sick and on some form of antibiotic or steroid every month in 2021 I now weigh less than I did in high school, regardless of trying to gain weight and have been experiencing some health symptoms that are alarming. Doctor’s and Specialist’s ran the tests and came back with “nothing is wrong with you, you are a lean young person”. I went to functional medicine instead after not being taken seriously. Turns out I have an overgrowth of a few different bad gut bacteria that is causing leaky gut syndrome, malnourishment and not able to absorb nutrients properly, and causing my liver and kidneys to overwork themselves trying to excrete and filter out the toxins in my bloodstream that my gut is leaking out. This in turn threw off my thyroid and I now have borderline hypothyroidism. If you just look at me, you wouldn’t know this, you would just think what my prior doctors did, she’s a young, slender, healthy person. Remember WEIGHT DOES NOT EQUAL HEALTH!!! The overall umbrella of health and the underlying tones of responses to the question of “what is health” include: mental, physical, and spiritual. We want to be in the right mindset, we want to be happy and stress free. We want to be able to do the activities we want to do with no issue and live a long life. We want to not have to rely on medication. We still want to enjoy our food and fuel our bodies with what feels good without constantly thinking negatively about it. So I’ll leave you with this question to ponder: What does health mean to you?

Sleep and Nutrition

Nutrition and sleep are interconnected. If we eat an unbalanced diet that will reflect how we sleep and may lead to sleep problems. Having a lack of calcium, magnesium, vitamin A, C, D, E,  and K can disrupt your sleep patterns. This is more due to those micronutrients having an effect on the hormonal pathways involved in sleep. High carb meals can also increase the number of times you wake up during the night and reduce the amount of time you are in deep sleep. Frequent consumption of energy drinks and sugar sweetened beverages is also associated with poor sleep quality. The best “diets” for better sleep are the Mediterranean diet and the DASH diet, however the dash diet is now under review for updates. That is just how nutrition affects sleep. Now onto how sleep affects nutrition. People who don’t get enough sleep are more likely to increase their food consumption and pick higher calorie foods. The production of hunger and appetite hormones can be thrown off after short periods of inadequate sleep. Sleeping can also reduce overeating. 

Ways to improve sleep: 

1. Sleep hygiene such as keeping to a regular sleep schedule, regardless of the day of the week, have a set wakeup time

2. Giving yourself plenty of time to relax and get ready for bed (avoiding screen time at least an hour before bed)

3. Not eating right before bed

4. Prioritize sleep, make gradual adjustments so you can adjust more easily to get to bed at a decent hour and wake up feeling refreshed (and eventually without the need for an alarm)

5. If you are having problems falling asleep (i.e. after 20 minutes), don’t toss and turn, get up and stretch, read a book, or something else calming in low lighting

BMR and Reverse Dieting

BMR stands for Basal Metabolic Rate, that rate at which your metabolism burns calories. Many different factors including: age, height, weight, activity level, hormones, medications, and thyroid health play a role in what this number is. Your base BMR is what I like to call coma calories. Basically meaning if you were in a coma in the hospital the amount of calories you would need to run your bodily systems and function. The number goes up from there based on the lifestyle you live; from sedentary to extremely active jobs. This number is important because we can use it as a tool to see if we are under or over eating and as a way to help fix our metabolism and even speed it back up. In many cases that I have seen the cause of slower metabolisms has been due to undereating. The more underfed we are the more our BMR drops. For example, say I workout 5x a week doing mostly HIIT and cardio and I am only eating 1300 calories per day; my BMR (coma) should be 1300 however because of the amount of exercise I do my BMR may look more like 900 because of the limited amount of calories consumed and the protein synthesis would also be lower (when your body takes what it needs to survive from your muscles instead of the food you eat). In order to fix this I would need to double my calorie intake to 2600 so my body can recognize that I am now giving it enough fuel to run its functions and also enough fuel for my workouts and my recovery. This, in turn, speeds up my metabolism to a more “normal” number of 1300 or even above that to 1500 or 1600 and also helps speed up protein synthesis. Once this is fixed (and only when this is fixed) can you begin to go into a caloric deficit to lose weight if that is your goal. This is how reverse dieting works. You may be thinking to yourself, Sami wouldn’t an increase in calories cause more weight gain?, and to answer your question, maybe. It may cause a slight increase in weight (this is temporary) or you may start to lose weight. It really depends on your hormones at that point in the process and how fast your body recognizes it is now receiving enough food to fuel itself. We need to remember that fixing your metabolism is a process that can take months to figure out and work. What we also need to remember is that weight DOES NOT equal health. Focus more on how you feel throughout the process versus the number on the scale. Reverse dieting will also give you a little more food freedom and the ability to help you heal your relationship with food and the constant binge and restrict that we see so often. Another question when it comes to reverse dieting is wondering if that means you can eat whatever you want. Yes and no. You want to eat more (and I mean massive amounts) of whole foods like fruits and veggies, whole grains, legumes and nuts/seeds (if your gut can handle that), lean sources of meat, and lots of water. You can still have unhealthy foods, just less of them. You’ll find when you eat massive amounts of whole foods you won't be craving the unhealthy foods as much anyway.

Emotional Eating

Emotional Eating: we all do it. In fact, our emotions play a big role in what we eat, why we eat, and how much we eat. Take a few minutes right now to answer this question: What emotions do you associate with eating? Are they positive or negative? Are they both and if they are, are they more positive than negative or vice versa? I associate eating with enjoyment, happiness, comfort, sadness, boredom, guilt, anger, and habit. I am not here to tell you that emotional eating is something that we can solve, because the reality is emotions are what can give food purpose and memory, not just food is fuel. What we can work on is becoming more present to our emotions and our choice of food. Having the donut because you enjoy donuts and having a donut because you are feeling a negative emotion and need some serotonin and will later have feelings of regret against the donut are two different experiences and we want to minimize the latter. Although sometimes we cannot control what we feel (especially the negative emotions), we do have control over our reactions. Remember eating is a part of everyday life and we should enjoy it. When we do this our food becomes so much more satisfying.

Eating Around Workouts

 Pre-workout: easily digestible foods

-4 or more hours before: protein and a carb

Eggs, chicken, veggies, fruit, PB, toast

-2 hours before: quick carb and protein 

Smoothie, protein shake, nuts and seeds, oats

-30-1 hour before: quick carb

Banana, dried fruit

***Remember the closer it is to your workout time the less you want to eat so food is not sitting in your stomach*** You do not need a ton of food to fuel you right before a workout, just something easily digested.

Post-workout: higher protein and carb to refuel

-yogurt and fruit

-PB

-turkey, rice, veggies

-pretzels

***Timing doesn’t actually matter, as long as it is within 2 hours after, does not need to be immediately after but follow your hunger cues***

Also just a general reminder for everyone: post workout bloat is a real thing! It does go away, just the blood flow going back to your organs from your arms and legs that needed them more during your workout.

How to not feel hungry throughout the day:

Ask yourself this question first…...are you hungry or are you dehydrated? Do you follow your hunger cues or do you ignore them? Do you recognize them when they happen? Are you able to eat when they happen (possible work constraints)? How long have you been in a calorie deficit? Might be time to “reverse diet”. This is where we start!! Every single body is different so we all need to be consuming different foods, food timing, and portion sizes. You have to put in the work to figure out what your body likes. It takes time and I know that is not what you all want to hear but it is the cold hard truth. Some people need 3 meals a day and 2 snacks, others only eat snacks every 1-2 hours throughout the entire day. Your body will tell you what it wants, likes, and needs. You just have to pay attention and listen to it!

Struggling When Dining Out?

We’ve all experienced it, you’re on your healthy eating journey and you get invited out to dinner and that dinner causes a week long binge. Eating out can and should be something enjoyable. We don't want to get stuck in the cycle of eating healthy and binging. If you do find yourself in that cycle that could mean one of two things are happening: 1. You are restricting too much or 2. Your total calories are too low and you need to reverse diet. When you are dining out it should not feel like a treat and should feel like nothing more than enjoying delicious food. To accomplish this first we need to take the value we hold on food away. Food is just food. Once we do that you want to eat what you normally do on a daily basis when you are out to eat especially if you are dining out for half your meals. When I look at a menu I pick something based on if I can make it at home or not. Usually if I cannot recreate it then that is the item I will pick as long as it is close to what I normally eat. You can also choose your menu item based on how you are feeling and what you are craving as long as you have gotten to the point of food is food and holds no value. Something else to touch on while dining out is overeating and overindulging. I don’t know about you but I am a big fan of the doggy bag. Huge portions are normally used when dining out so that by the time you finish (if you finish) your whole meal you are ready for the deepest sleep of your life because you are so stuffed. Remember, you want to stop eating once you are not hungry anymore aka content not full. Now overindulging would be when you order the app, the entree, and the dessert and then decide to eat it all even though you were full after the app. Now ordering all that food is more than okay as long as you are listening to your hunger and satiety cues. Take home that doggy bag!

The Number One Nutrition Question

The number one question I always get asked when it comes to food is “how do I get to the point where I’m not constantly thinking about food and getting rid of the good/bad title that comes with diet culture?”. The answer is that it can take awhile to get to this point and can be a complicated process. We need to ask ourselves why we make food choices. When it comes to giving food a “good” or “bad” title we want instead to switch the language to eat more of and eat less of. Never ever restrict! Don’t think of subtracting things from your diet, but instead think of adding in more healthy options. We’re talking about loading up those plates with fruits and veggies. That way when you get to the eat less category you are less likely to binge on those items since you will be more full from the eat more category.

We are conditioned by friends, family, and society as a whole to constantly think we need to restrict ourselves to be able to achieve our health goals. Restriction will always lead to binging. I’m going to tell you now that it is not easy to get to the point of trusting yourself that it is okay to eat the donut and not feel bad that you did. This feeling can also come from our past and how we were raised. As women we have always had to fight for ourselves because we are used to fuel patriarchal capitalism and that’s all we are seen as from a society view point. In short, make babies for the workforce.

Almost everything we do is based on what society tells us to do and not how we actually feel. Most of the time our emotions are invalidated by something or someone when they should not be. We are told often to lose weight, have a big butt and a small waist, don’t weigh over this specific amount or you are deemed worth less than others.

Even the medical system is against anyone who is deemed overweight/obese by BMI and those people have to fight a lot harder for proper healthcare. So then we get into the conversation of why? What is the reason you want to fix your nutrition? What is the reason why you want to lose weight? Because I promise you it is not all that it’s cracked up to be. I have seen so many people lose weight and they are miserable, they have body dysmorphia, losing weight didn't fix any of their problems like they thought it would, and they were unhappy.

We have to find the happy medium. Your body will find its homeostasis, the weight it likes to be at where you can run all your systems properly and you can do all the things you want to do in life with no issues. We have to remember that bodies are just skin suits for our brains and we are much more than our skin suits.

The entire fitness and nutrition industry that is presented to the public is filled with toxic manipulation and based solely on people's insecurities instead of being based on longevity and living a lifestyle, where your only goal is to do all the things you want to accomplish in your life.

Back when I was living in NY and I was trying to lose weight I could never do it because I was hyper focused on it and eating the “right” things and working out 3-5 days a week and it didn't work because I was so obsessive about it. As soon as I stopped trying and focused on what foods I enjoy eating and what are the foods and activities that make me happy that's when I saw the weight come off, only after I reset my mentality toward food and the industry did I make long term progress.

We also have to remember, circling back up to our skin suits, that we will never be the same or have the same body that we had when we were younger. Our bodies and our minds are meant to grow and change based on our lives and that's okay. But trying to get back to what we looked like in college or even 10 years ago is an unrealistic expectation that will set you up for failure.

Enjoy life, enjoy the things that your body is able to do for you right now and the things your body has done for example created human life. We don’t thank our bodies enough for that.