So, what is a healthy weight and why is it important? A healthy weight is just that - a weight that allows you to be healthy. "Healthy implies full strength and vigor as well as freedom from signs of disease." The working definition of healthy is somewhat blurred in the U.S. however, because we often consider ourselves to be healthy even when we struggle with daily or frequent burdens such as allergies, asthma, colds, bloating, heartburn, fatigue, headaches or constipation. For some reason these seem like minor inconveniences that can be easily treated with over the counter or prescription remedies. And in a way, they are. Yes, asthma and allergies can become life-threatening and a bad headache or cold can put us in bed, but often we just treat the symptoms and function the best we can with our added burden without much loss of daily function.
So what does weight have to do with all this? If we are not at a healthy weight for our frame, we often suffer with some of the aforementioned issues and, depending on the severity of our weight imbalance, we are at increased risk for far more serious health problems - obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, autoimmune disorder......the list goes on. We hear about it day after day. If we are not at a healthy weight it is one of our body's primary signals that something has gone awry. What's interesting is that sometimes a little detective work can sniff out a potential remedy of this situation and reduce our suffering.
80% of our immune system is attached to the small intestine. That tells us that nutrition is VERY important for health. Our bodies are designed in such a way that food is what allows us to thrive. Therefore WHAT we eat matters as much, if not more, than how much we eat. What's difficult is that we have such diversity of needs and constitution, that one size does NOT fit all. There is no simple formula for finding a healthy weight. If overeating is a problem, it may have started with an imbalance somewhere in the body - hormones, food sensitivities, or even more likely the quality of foods consumed. Once someone gets on the cycle of overeating it often spirals into ill health and from there it's just a circular problem - can't exercise because of ill health, can't eat right because of lack of energy due to ill health (and money), can't get healthy because they can't manage to eat better.
One of the things that goes awry and contributes to an unhealthy weight is the function of the appestat. The appestat is "the area in the brain believed to regulate appetite and food intake." So here's the deal - the appestat tells us we are hungry if it is not satisfied by what we eat. This sounds silly since most of us really enjoy yummy things like chips, pizza or a good burger. But the appestat is actually satisfied by the nutrients in what we eat. The problem is - we're not eating nutrients! We are constantly eating chemicals and empty calories. More often than not we are drinking our calories in the form of sodas, juices and sports drinks - all very sugar laden and generally unnecessary for our health. (That excludes the juicing of whole vegetables and fruits of course) The drinks that are not sugar laden are often laced with artificial sugars which are linked to weight GAIN. Many of the foods we eat are laced with hidden forms of MSG - a neurotoxin linked to weight GAIN. Many of the foods we eat are so void of actual nutrients that our appestat is literally starving and signaling us that we are too.
The good news is that with education and support we CAN change our weight, not by eating less but by making better choices about what we eat. The better our choices, the easier and healthier our journey. Some starting points are finding hidden food sensitivities, knowing where our foods come from, knowing what's in our foods and most importantly eating naturally, nutrient-dense, whole foods. A naturally nutrient-dense food is one that is not 'value added' like an energy bar, but one that has great nutrients all by itself such as a free-range egg, an avocado or a sweet potato. As we choose more of these nutrient-dense foods our bodies will begin to respond with signals of satisfaction and put us on the road to a more natural weight and better health.
