Taking Responsibility

Energy balance and weight

I was watching a documentary about Covid the other day. There were streams and streams of pictures of the unfortunate souls who had lost their lives to this terrible virus.

One thing that jumped out at me was the number of these people that appeared obese.

It is a known fact that being obese does put you at higher risk of dying from Covid. Obesity is the accumulation of abnormal or excessive fat that may interfere with the maintenance of an optimal state of health. An excess of macronutrients in the adipose tissues stimulates them to release inflammatory mediators.

The thing is being obese whether it be from under exercising, over eating or a mixture of both creates a perfect storm of 'unhealthiness' and inflammation to cause other diseases such as coronary heart disease, atherosclerosis, stoke, metabolic syndrome, insulin resistance, and diabetes mellitus. These too put you at high risk of dying from covid. It is also puts you at greater risk of diseases such as psoriasis, depression, cancer, and renal diseases.

We know these things so why do we let ourselves get into such a state of disrepair and ill health? Our health is our responsibility - no one else's! Why do we take our health so much for granted and just hope that some one will fix us up for us after we've spent years and years mistreating it?

Would you buy a petrol car and expect it to run on diesel? No, of course not! If the vet told you your pet was over weight would you feed it slimming pills? No you wouldn't, you watch its intake and take it for a longer walk!

I posted these musings on my facebook time line and took a hit from a few people.

In response I wanted to prove how difficult it was to simply keep an energy balance (i.e. maintain a stable & healthy weight). I measured my food intake for the day versus my total calorie burn for the day. For some reason it ended up a particularly busy day with a couple

of long walks, a bike ride and a crossfit class. My fit bit, which I realise gives only a rough guide told me I had burnt something like 2400kcal and I had calculated I had consumed 2245kcal. Exercising and eating like this every day would mean I was in calorie deficit and would lose weight! This was by no means a normal day. On an average day I would burn off 2000-2100kcal, which would mean I would be in calorie surplus and would gradually gain weight.

So what I hear you say....

My worry is that the average person does not do the things their body was designed for let alone all the things I did on the day I logged everything. The average person might sit behind a desk and drive to work (or at the moment not even leave the house to go work).

We don't even need to get up to change the channel on the TV any more (yes team - that was a thing many moons ago).

We've all been on a diet of some description or another and its hard, real hard. Losing weight for many is one of the hardest things you'll ever do. We have deep-rooted habits, and feelings associated with food. We use food for social occasions, for celebrating, for commemorating. We use it as an emotional crutch; we eat when happy, when sad, when stressed! Food is the best, I love it, these not much I wont eat, BUT we are designed to eat for fuel/energy and nutrition. Food is for providing our body with the necessary energy and nutrients it needs to function and thrive.

Last year I lost weight, about 7 or 8kg. I stuck to 2100-2200kcal/day, as my daily kcal burn was 2500kcal+/day. If I was to stick to that amount of calories I could not afford myself a glass of wine, a cake or a chocolate bar with out sacrificing calories from the essential and nutritious food which would support the healthy functioning of my body and the complex systems with in. However, for so many a cake, latte, vino and or chocolate bar has become a daily or several times a day thing! A treat after a morning of desk bound hard graft or a break from the bind of supermarket shopping.

We are fuelling our bodies with a shit storm of high calorie, nutrient sparse junk food in favour of giving it what it needs to survive and flourish.

This way of feeding ourselves will eventually end up leading us to a lifetime, weight & health problems, disease and depression.

The majority of adults in the UK are overweight or obese; 67% of men and 60% of women. This includes 26% of men and 29% of women who are obese. Even if only half of these people succumb to obesity related diseases that is still a huge burden on our already over stretch NHS.

It is hard, I realise that making lifestyle changes can be uncomfortable but I challenge you to make a start. Just try looking at your energy balance for a day, or even better a few days. Write down or log on an app everything you consume. Make a note of every bit of activity you do - if you have fitness tracker use that. Do your calories balance?

If they do balance.... look at the nutrition value of the food you are consuming... could you do better for your body?

If they don't balance - what can you do about it? Add in more activity and/or reduce consumption? Bear in mind a home measure of red wine contains around 200kcal, 3 digestives biscuits 210kcal (and that's with out the chocolate on top). It might not be as difficult as you think - the tricky bit might be giving up something you love!