Yesterday, as I was doing my end-of-workout stretching in the aerobics room, I heard something that made me sick just thinking of it…
It’s not something I heard for the fist time.. That’s the thing. It’s something I hear AND see pretty much every day at the bakery cafe.
Here is the situation:
While I was still working out at the weights room on several occasions I quickly glanced at the rest of the people there. I saw a large girl warming up on one of the treadmills – basically slow-walking. Somewhere close by was a guy that looked slightly overweight, but nothing really like how this girl looked.
As I was finishing my workout and was about to move to the aerobics room, they appeared to be moving in that direction, too.
Thirty seconds later I was laying on the floor on a yoga matt. They – standing 3 feet away, facing each other, doing slow military press-like movements with the lightest set of weights there were there.
I overheard their exchange.
Trainer: Did you bring your food journal?
Girl: No, aaaah…
T: You know you are supposed to write everything in the journal, right?
G: Yes, I know.
T: What did you have for dinner last night?
G: I had chicken and a piece of corn. That’s it.
T: Did you eat anything after that?
G: Uhh, yes.
T: What was it?
G: I had pretzels.. Chocolate-covered pretzels.
T: Do you ever eat fruit?
G: Yes, I do.. Sometimes.. usually in the morning… with cheese. I love cheese..
At this moment I had to leave – I didn’t want to hear more of a story that I know very well.
Want to know what the story is about? It’s about what makes this nation grossly overweight and chronically sick. It’s mainly two things as far as nutrition goes (inactivity is a big one, but it’s not discussed here): carbohydrates in massive amounts, and the other thing is carbs in massive amounts, coupled with fat in massive amounts.
The thing that makes me restless the most is the fact that big agricultural companies know what they are causing to people, and nonetheless they proudly advertise their sugar and cereal processed foods.
People are conditioned to think that eating a lot of carbs and fat is normal, that eating highly processed, refined carb-based foods is normal for us humans.
Well, it is not! And, it’s never been.
Two thought-provoking questions for you:
1) Why are people from poor and developing countries not overweight and obese like us here in the US?
2) What was normal for us – humans – to eat about ten thousand years ago before we started cultivating grains? And, knowing this, how long does it take for our genes to adjust to such a drastic change of eating habits – is it less than ten thousand years, hundred thousand years, or even a million years?
Think about it. May be you’ll find some profound answers that will serve you for the rest of your life. You may even live long…