by Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist (read the original in Noozhawk by clicking here)
I’m sometimes guilty of yo-yo dieting, holiday times being the hardest. Since my son got us all started on a competitive goal-tracking app called IRunURun, I’ve exposed my health goals. They’re kind of the basics: exercise, keep a food diary, weigh daily, yadda-yadda.
We’d been competing for a couple of weeks when my annual physical came due. I discovered I’d slipped into the “Overweight” category for the first time. Well, maybe not the very first, but the first time I’d admitted it to myself. My doctor was unperturbed.
“You’re very healthy,” he said. “As long as your other numbers stay good and you keep exercising daily, I wouldn’t worry about a few extra pounds.”
I wonder if he was trying to play a mind game with me. Since then, I’ve vacillated between being content to hang out in “overweight” and determined to return to “normal” for the long-term. I turned to research on health issues, but superficially the conclusions seem ambiguous.
You’ve likely heard about the animal studies demonstrating increased longevity for mice and primates when fed a nutritiously sound but calorie-restricted diet. The real killer is that, from what I’ve read, the subjects were constantly hungry. So what good would those extra years be?
The Obesity Paradox is another interesting one. Obesity (Body Mass Index higher over 30) is related to lots of health problems, from heart disease and diabetes to stroke, osteoarthritis, and some cancers.
But obesity itself doesn’t lead to higher mortality. In fact, being overweight (BMI 25-29.9) “was associated with significantly lower all-cause mortality,” according to CDC epidemiologist Katherine Flegal. One explanation is that once you have a disease, a little extra weight is protective versus someone who is underweight or overweight.
Ok, so slightly overweight might be okay. But then we get to Alzheimer’s. Obesity or overweight in middle age has been linked to increased risk of dementia. The National Institute on Aging, examining data from one of the longest running studies of human aging in North America, found that being obese or overweight at age 50 could predict the early onset of Alzheimer’s.
That gets my attention.
I’m convinced, but I still need the right mix of motivations to make it stick long-term. I just read an article about a hunger scale that might be a useful addition to my irunurun goals. A Florida sports dietitian, Kristina LaRue, designed the 0-10 scale, where you rate your hunger before, during, and after meals. This helps you calibrate and listen to your body, so you make better choices.
If I tweak my irunurun goals, I may find the right combination to slip back down into the “normal” range on my bathroom scale.
Meanwhile, writing about eating has driven my gastric juices bonkers. I think I’m a 2: “Really hungry. Pit-in-the-stomach hunger and food are dominating my thoughts. I need to find some food fast, and my energy levels are dropping.”
The trick will be to stop eating at 7: “Satisfied. I’m no longer hungry. While it might be easy to eat more for comfort reasons or for the fact that the food tastes amazing, I feel content and satisfied and I don’t need to eat more.”
And while I’m at it, I’ll add a Thanksgiving goal to stay below 8: “Full. I ate my fill and may need to loosen the belt buckle at this point. Those last three to four bites put me over the edge.”
Karen Telleen-Lawton, Noozhawk Columnist
Karen Telleen-Lawton is an eco-writer, sharing information and insights about economics and ecology, finances and the environment. Having recently retired from financial planning and advising, she spends more time exploring the outdoors — and reading and writing about it. The opinions expressed are her own.