Category: Wellness
-
Orthorexia and Other Imbalances
Orthorexia is a term recently coined (by physician Steven Bratman, who has since reconsidered his original message) to refer, most simply, to people whose rigid dietary rules are harmful to them. People with orthorexia may be preoccupied with the purity of their food (or of their bodies). Depending on the extent of their rules, they…
-
Losing Weight Is Not Enough
In “Weight Loss Doesn’t Always Lead to Happiness,” Ed Cara gives a nice overview of some of the challenges around the weight-loss experience and the efforts of healthcare providers and others to persuade people to exercise more and eat better. Weight loss isn’t magic, but if you keep getting bombarded with messages that it is,…
-
What Makes Habits Stick?
Habits can help us build a solid foundation of good health, low stress, and readiness to act. For scientists, as Isaac Asimov noted, few discoveries are of the “Eureka!” variety but instead something closer to, “Hmm, that’s funny…” combined with having a sense of good questions to ask to figure out what’s happening. You, too,…
-
Just Plain Good for You
As winter gives way to spring in the northern latitudes, taking some exercise outside gets a little more appealing. Some people are out there training up, but whatever pace interests you, outdoor exercise is good for both the body and the mind. Image: Cartoon by Leo Cullum, published in the New Yorker
-
Low-Carb Blues
Carb cycling means eating different amounts of carbohydrate day to day — a common pattern is high-fat/low-carbs on rest days and high-carbs/low-fat on “training days.” Many people find it easier to eat fewer calories to support a fat-loss goal if they eat less carbohydrate, but tough workouts may feel too tough when they eat low…
-
All Calories Are Equal, but Some Are More Equal Than Others
The human body uses energy and nutrients from foods to do work and to build and repair tissues. If it has extra calories, it stores them as fat. This is normal operations — humans evolved in conditions of modest food security, so it should not surprise us that we are descended from people who made…
-
Are You a Binge Eater?
Nia Shanks has a nice post about the skills and mindset that helped her emerge from a diet–binge cycle. She emphasizes getting away from the cues that appear in “lose weight fast” pitches — like rigid, unsustainable rules and a laser focus on fat loss — in favor of thinking about positive actions you can…
-
Eating o’ the green
St Patrick’s day is tomorrow. Why not celebrate with some green vegetables? Vegetarian Diet Tips offers a big long list of green vegetables, including some old favorites and some true exotics. Need suggestions for cooking them? Yumi’s Vegetable Cheat Sheet has you covered. Image by Ruth Hartnup
-
Tips for Better Sleep
Good health is a chair with three legs: good nutrition, regular activity, and restful sleep. The more even the legs, the more stable we are. Most of us do much better at one or another of the three. Some people even sacrifice sleep to make sure they work out during the week, a pattern that…