We wonder why women have eating disorders and disordered eating? This is why.

When I lost all of my weight, I was conscious of the calories that I ate, but I never actually counted calories or did much exercise - it was a combination of a bunch of little things - learning how and what to eat, learning about proper portion size, reading food labels, parking further away, taking the stairs, etc, that were instrumental in my weight loss. Over time, little changes add up to big changes.

I've been listening to the en*theos Supersize Me 10 Year Anniversary #FixFood Summit and one of the speakers, Jonathan Bailor, wrote a book called "The Calorie Myth", which I found fascinating.

Now, I haven't read it, yet, but the things he said during the interview made a lot of sense. The main idea of the talk can be summarized by this statement: "In the book, nowhere does it say that calories don't count, it says you don't need to count calories; there's a big difference between those two statements."

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Humans (mainly Americans) are the only ones obsessed with counting calories. Wild animals don't count calories, yet they aren't obese and somehow, instinctively, know when to stop eating. For the most part, they eat a all natural, non-processed diet and survive just fine.

It's not the calories that people eat that's the problem; it's the quality of food that's the real issue. The food industry has made it so easy for people to be lazy, by supplying us with every kind of pre-packaged food imaginable, that we're not getting the quality of food that we should be getting.

200 calories of Pop Tarts (which is only 1 Pop Tart, by the way...) is VERY different from 200 calories of broccoli. Not only in the amount that you eat, but also in the nutrients and inflammation that it causes in your body.

Another problem is that the food industry has done TONS of research on what appeals to our senses and, in turn, engineers the food to satiate our fat, sugar, and salt receptors - thereby causing us to want more and more, thus becoming addicted. It's those, pre-packaged, processed foods that are killing America by making us obese, unhealthy and obsessed with weight and dieting.

Just this weekend, I talked with a woman that had no clue that an order of Aussie Cheese Fries, from The Outback, have  almost 2,000 calories (1,913 to be exact) and that's not including the ranch dressing. It says that it's six (6) servings, but how many people actually know/follow that rule? Between the three of us, my parents and I would eat that whole thing (est. 800 each /with ranch), plus a Bloomin' Onion (1948 cal / est. 800 each /with petal sauce) then I'd have a full bowl of Alfredo pasta (est 800 cal) and chocolate cake (1574 cal).* That whole meal, calorie-wise, is more than I eat in two days and definitely not at all beneficial for anyone's body.

Then when I mentioned a few simple, healthier ways to cook some of her favorite meals, she seemed completely shocked. It was so strange because, to me, it's common knowledge, but the more I talk to people the more I realize that people really have no clue about the food that they're putting into their bodies and that there are things they can do to regain control of their health - and that's scary.

If you'd like to read more on this subject / books, you can check out these articles:

• How Sweet It Is by David Kamp (New York Times)
• Dr. David Kessler, author of The End of Overeating, On Why We Can't Stop Eating by Louise McCready (Huffington Post)

*Information taken directly from nutritional info at: http://www.outback.com/nutrition

Let me preface this by saying that I do believe that, in certain cases, medication is absolutely necessary and that I know that statins are helpful, to some people, but a majority of the people who are taking them, don't need to be.

So when I heard about this, this morning, it made me raise an eyebrow.

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"New guidelines may put 13 million more on statins ¹"

"Cholesterol-lowering statin drugs could be prescribed to an estimated 33 million Americans without cardiovascular disease who have a 7.5 percent or higher risk for a heart attack or stroke within the next 10 years. That’s according to a new cholesterol guideline from the American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology.

This is a dramatic change from the 2002 federal cholesterol guideline, which recommended that people should only take a statin if their 10-year risk level exceeded 20 percent. The old guideline only considered a person’s risk for heart disease, leaving out the risk for stroke."

The guideline recommends statin therapy for the following groups:

• People without cardiovascular disease who are 40 to 75 years old and have a 7.5 percent or higher risk for heart attack or stroke within 10 years.
• People with a history of heart attack, stroke, stable or unstable angina, peripheral artery disease, transient ischemic attack, or coronary or other arterial revascularization.
• People 21 and older who have a very high level of bad cholesterol (190 mg/dL or higher).
• People with Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes who are 40 to 75 years old.

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As it is, doctors are too quick to diagnose and prescribe medication, based solely on symptoms, without really addressing the root cause of problem. Now, with these new guidelines, it seems that instead of lowering cholesterol the natural way - by first advising patients to go on a low cholesterol diet - they're going to be prescribing statins much quicker. I'd also like to know how they're calculating the "7.5% or higher risk factors" since technically, everyone has a chance of getting heart attack or a stroke - no one is immune.

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"Obesity should be treated like a disease and cholesterol-lowering drugs could prevent cardiovascular disease in more Americans than previously thought, according to new cardiovascular prevention guidelines released Tuesday by the American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology." ³
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Throwing drugs at someone who is overweight isn't going to help them. If they want to treat obesity like a disease, then they need to get to the root and ask their patients two simple questions: When did you start gaining weight (and) Was there anything, around that time, that may have triggered it? Weight loss is crucial and the only way that doctors are going to help people is by going back to school and getting a better education in the fields of nutrition and psychology. People need to better understand how (and what) to eat by learning about proper portion size, how to read labels, what goes into our food and why they started to eat more in the first place.


 And then there are the statins potential side effects ⁴:  cognitive impairment, increased risk of raised blood sugar (which could lead to Type 2 diabetes - which, ironically, the statin is also suggested to help treat) and if paired with certain other types of medication, it can increase the risk of muscle damage.




For an otherwise healthy person who should be able to control their blood pressure, through proper education, diet and exercise, is the risk of these side effects really worth it? Apparently, I'm not the only one who thought this way...

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"For healthy individuals who may have some risk factors for future heart trouble, doctors have always been reluctant to prescribe medications when so much of heart disease is preventable, with proper diet and exercise. “For people with no history of heart disease, but who are trying to prevent heart disease, there is already a tremendous amount of overuse of statins in my view in this country,” says Eric Topol. “So my concern is that the new guidelines will lead to potentially even more promiscuous use of these statins than already exists.” ⁵

( Dr. Eric Topol is a cardiologist and chief academic officer of Scripps Health)
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The best thing we can do is to become our own health advocate. I know that Doctors hate when patients self-diagnose, and come in with a list of things that they could possibly have, but keep doing it! It's your life and your health and you have the right to feel as if you're getting the best care possible. And if you don't feel as if you are, get a second opinion. You know your body, better than anyone else, and if something feels off you're probably right. Do your own research. Dig for the root cause of the symptoms and figure out what can be done to nip the issue in the bud instead of wasting precious time and money on just treating the symptoms.

The face of medicine has to change and it needs to start with us.

If we changed our thinking, could we change the world?

Over the past 5 years, I've read a lot of books on everything from dieting and nutrition to getting what you want out of life. Out of them all, there are three that have really resonated with me: Skinny Bitch, Naturally Thin and Meeting Your Half-Orange. If Skinny Bitch and Naturally Thin were the books that helped me to transform my body, then Meeting Your Half-Orange was the book that helped me to transform my soul.

Meeting Your Half-Orange is marketed as a guide to dating optimism but it's so much more than that. The author, Amy Spencer, talks a lot about the law of attraction and using dating optimism, to not only lead you to finding the perfect person for you, but to also get what you want out of life. It's a great read for anyone who wants more of life in general - single, dating or even married.

When people think "The law of attraction" they tend to think about The Secret, so naturally, when I was having a conversation with a friend about this book, it segued into a discussion about it. I've been wanting to read it but never seemed to have a chance and then she reminded me that the movie was streaming online. I found myself with a bit of free time this weekend, so I decided to sit down and watch it.

The basics of it is are that like attracts like: positivity attracts positivity, negativity attracts negativity. It makes a lot of sense. When things are going good, everything just seems to fall into place then one bad thing happens and everything seems to go down hill. Once that one bad thing happens, how do you react? I know that my whole attitude would change and I'd go from feeling like I was on top of the world to thinking that the world was going to end. Of course I wasn't going to attract anything good when all I was putting out was negative energy.

I find the law of attraction fascinating. I could go on and on about this stuff, but there was  one section of the movie, that really stood out to me: how to use The Secret to change the world. You think I've lost my mind, right? Let me explain.

"I was once asked why I don't participate in anti-war demonstrations. I said that I will never do that, but as soon as you have a pro-peace rally, I'll be there." ~Mother Teresa

Thought can be a very powerful thing; I'm sure you've experience this before yourself. You think about a person that you haven't seen in a while and shortly thereafter, someone else brings up their name in conversation, they contact you or you just happen to randomly run into them.

People are so intent on fighting for what they believe in, but do we ever stop and think about what type of energy we're putting out there? For the most part, we're "anti-this" and "anti-that" and no matter how good the cause, "anti" anything just brings about negative feelings. With all these people putting those type of feelings out there, can you imagine how powerful that is? By trying to help, we're actually just adding to the problem.

What if we came from a place of love rather than than a place of hate? What if we just changed our thought patterns and wording? We'd still be standing up for what we believe in, but going about it in a different way. Instead of imbuing the negative with power, we'd be imbuing the positive with it. Instead of being "anti-war", what if we were "pro-peace"? Instead of  being "against the death penalty", what if we were "for life in prison"? What if instead of being "against animal cruelty" we were "for the humane treatment of animals"? As Newton states in his third law, "To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction; for every 'anti' there is a 'pro', so why not embrace it?

We all have choices and how we choose to react shapes our lives. If we all chose to live our lives by coming from a place of love and compassion instead of a place of hate and judgment, I really do think we could make the world a better place.