Health Vs Fitness - Our city environments make it difficult
It’s way too easy because of convenience An "obesogenic environment"
This can be difficult as we live in a 'obesogenic environment' (1).
These are the environmental factors that influence obesity. Our environment today favours weight-gain, over-consumption of calories and increased prevalence to chronic diseases.
It is not as simple as saying ‘eat less food’ but instead emphasis should be placed on understanding the complex biological, behavioural, psychological, emotional & socioeconomical aspects contributing towards the condition (2, 3, 9).
Some of the factors that contribute to an obesogenic environment include:
-Lack of physical activity due to convenience.
-Ease of access to takeaway foods.
-Government subsidised food commodities (4).
- Access to convenience, processed foods.
-Modern marketing ploys to buy packaged products.
-FAD diets and yoyo dieting.
-Business interests, conflicting studies and reports of what to eat.
-Over consumption of hyper-palatable foods rich in sugar, fat and salt.
-Potential chemical and toxic environmental agents that disrupt the bodies ability to expend energy appropriately (5, 6, 7).
The health challenges we face are a possible result of our environmental factors that favour weight-gain, and with that comes an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes, joint pain, hypertension, lower back pain, neurodegenerative and many other chronic complications (8).
Addressing some of the lifestyle factors such as:
-Movement,
-Sleep
-Stress
-Nutrition
&
-Community
may aid in bringing down these risk factors, but often at times in order to SUSTAIN, we may need to look to our environment and come up with trick ways to manage this.
As from Part 1, there are 2 main camps that offer solutions to address these challenges.
Generalising, we have the Fitness camp and Alternative health camp.
It's Health Vs Fitness...ding ding ding.
So as mentioned in Part 1, you have the two camps generally saying:
Fitness camp: 'It's all about Energy balance and if you're not losing weight then you're eating too many calories/not moving enough'
Alternative health camp: The Energy balance model doesn't account for hormone imbalances, insulin resistance & other health challenges that affect metabolism. It's more about hormones.
So which one's right?
When it comes to absolute truth, the fitness camp has it right here, however practically applying the Energy balance model makes it difficult to take into account the health factors that influence the equation, which can leave people confused and result in them abandoning anything to do with calories, especially if they've already failed at understanding the concept.
So there's truth to both sides of the equation, we need to break it down a bit more and look at how that knowledge is applied through practical recommendations - This is where it usually get's messy & vary from person to person.
Let's dig a little deeper:
Now this totally depends on the goal but let's sake for arguments sake a client is seeking better health, to lose some body fat & general better fitness.
Now if we're on the fitness camp we'd prescribe a dietary regime that induces what we call a:
'Calorie deficit'- So this is where we reduce the amount of energy from food & drink being consumed, to less than that of what the body needs in order to maintain it's current weight (11).
Simply - Less churnin' than what you're legs are burnin'
EXAMPLE - The Fitness Pro example
Here is our beautiful Karen.
She wants to look & feel better so she can finally fit into a big proportion of her clothes that she recently bought for her 10 year anniversary coming up in September 2021, which no longer fit after a stressful lockdown period.
Some of you may remember her from her first battle: Karen vs Calories (as took place on TheMitoMovement Instagram feed).
According to Karen's food diary she would normally eat around 2000 calories daily, to maintain her weight of 75kg.
Karen wants to fit into those clothes, feel better & lose some body fat as her excess weight (body fat) is aggravating the pain in her left knee. So with those goals in mind her fitness pro' prescribes her a nutrition program that reduces her intake to 1500 calories.
This program is focused around the number of calories and the components of food known as macronutrients which are: Carbohydrates, Protein, Fats & Fibre (there's more components but these are the main one's that influence weight).
So given the Fit Pro's resources her 'prescribes' a nutrition program.
We can call this a 'Prescribed calorie controlled program'.
Because Karen has been prescribed specific, direct instructions that involve:
-Numbers,
-Calculations
&
-Relative accurate tracking of food & beverages that are key to obtaining results.
So in our daily energy balance equation [1500calories in] + [2000calories out] = (-500calorie deficit)
Karen follows this program and loses just under 4kg in 6 weeks.
It is now week 10 and Karen has plateaued and now needs further guidance to continue her fat-loss journey. This fit pro decides to increase Karen's daily activity levels and further increases that deficit.
Karen is still eating 1500 calories. Now however, her resting metabolic rate (RMR) has come down to match what she was eating.
So to continue her persuit of fat loss, extra activity has increased her calories out by another 300 calories which means the new (hypothetical) equation now looks like this:
[1500 calories in] + [1800calories out] = 300 calorie deficit = But only a further 1kg reduction in her weight.
Note: Calories out is difficult to estimate but can be done in strict research conditions. As Karen loses weight her body begins to adapt to the lower calories and reduces the calories out side of the equation (also called metabolic adaptation). So her calories out is more than likely lower than this.
Karen is concerned that her attempt at fat loss is a bit slow.
It has been 16 weeks and she is feeling a bit demotivated as she has also noticed that her energy levels are low so she's struggling to maintain the increased daily activity prescribed by her Fit Pro.
To add to this, her menstrual cycle is longer, her sleep isn't so great, she feels hungry a lot of the time & is carrying a lot of bloat and water weight.
She's also struggling to consistently track her food intake on her MyPitnessMal.
As you can see it may get a bit frustrating for Karen as she is not seeing the results.
Now here's where there's room for a more Health-based approach to address the challenges Karen has with her mood, energy, sleep & digestive challenges. This is where the details start to matter.
And from a Energy Balance standpoint, we want to increase the [Energy Out] side of the equation to improve all these factors.
So if 'counting calories' based around the Energy balance model, didn't give Karen the results she wanted so far, she may want to seek alternate advice.
Advice that let's her achieve a calorie deficit without too much focus on the numbers, calculations & obsessive food focus.
A spontaneous reduction in body fat without a intential focus on food restriction.
Karen remembers hearing about her friend Tina tell her that doesn't have to count calories and instead can focus on following stricter diets as well as including taking several supplements, teas, detox regimes & expensive testing.
Feeling like she's running out of options she seeks guidance from this health practitioner.
Little does she know things are about to possibly get more complicated & expensive for her..
We'll take a look at the propositions made to Karen & the possible outcomes in PART 2.
Feel like you're stuck and need some accountability, knowledge, structure & guidance?
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References
NOTE: No Karens we harmed in the making of this post. This is a purely hypothetical scenario trying to educate readers on understanding context the spoke about around nutrition-related topics.
The numbers are referenced calorie intakes are all estimated and again simplified for readers to understand concepts.
All information is solely for education purposes and must not be taken as medical advice. People speak to your GP before undertaking any changes to diet or lifestyle, especially if you're taking medication.
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