Health
Habits
Food
Weight 
Better Than Butternut: Roasted Delicata Squash Recipe
10 Simple Ways To Eat Less Without Noticing
Juicing: Stupid and Pretentious or Nourishing and Enlightening?
10 Tasty Carbs That Won’t Make You Fat
How To Start Working Out When You Don’t Like To Exercise
Focus More on Your Brain and Less on Your Diet if You’re Serious About Losing Weight
Home Court Habits: The Secret to Effortless Weight Control
10 Reasons You Aren’t Losing Weight When You Think You’re Doing Everything Right
How To Burn More Calories Without Breaking A Sweat
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Foodists
FOR THE LOVE OF FOOD: Nutrition research is often wrong, stop commenting on people’s weight loss, and this much exercise slows aging
by Darya Rose | May 25, 2018
Welcome to Friday’s For The Love of Food, Summer Tomato’s weekly link roundup.
This week nutrition research is often wrong, stop commenting on people’s weight loss, and this much exercise slows aging.
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Links of the week
- Almost 40% of peer-reviewed dietary research turns out to be wrong. Here’s why – Amazing. Read this. (New Food Economy)
- Seven reasons not to compliment someone on weight loss — and what to say instead – This is something I’ve been working on lately. Growing up, comments on my appearance were typically the first words out of any family member’s mouth if I hadn’t seen the person in a couple weeks. It infuriated me, and almost certainly led to many of the body image issues I dealt with throughout adolescence. Still I internalized it and it is a challenge for me not to speak and think this way. Time to break the cycle. (Washington Post)
- How More Carbon Dioxide Can Make Food Less Nutritious –More research building up about how climate change doesn’t just impact the quantity of food that can be produced, but also the quality of its nutrition. Scary stuff. (NY Times)
- Scientists have figured out exactly how much you need to exercise to slow your heart’s aging process – Good to know. What are you doing for exercise this weekend? (Quartz)
- Vegan YouTube Stars Are Held to Impossible Standards – This bums me out. Be nice to your fellow citizens. (The Atlantic)
- Framing food: Stanford study shows that teens heed food rules that prioritize health – I’m not convinced that this applies to teens outside of the Bay Area (healthy eating is easily the norm here), but it is at least hopeful. (Stanford News)
- The Thing Inside Your Cells That Might Determine How Long You Live – Super interesting. (NY Times)
- Iowa Residents to Sue the State Over Air Emissions from Industrial Hog Farms – Rural Americans are learning that protecting the environment from factory farming isn’t just a liberal issue, it’s a life or death issue we should all support. (Civil Eats)
- Act with Devotion & Intention, Letting Go of Attachment to Outcome – The term “devotion” makes me slightly nauseous, but I know this is a message many of you need to hear. People frequently ask me if improving health behaviors is “worth it” if they don’t lose a significant amount of weight, as if feeling better and having a better relationship with food and your body aren’t valid goals in and of themselves. (Zen Habits)
- One Pan Harissa Chicken – This looks so delicious (David Lebovitz), and I think it would pair great with Heidi’s turmeric chickpeas (101 Cookbooks).
What inspired you this week?
Just wanted to say how much I enjoy Links of the Week, how much I learn, and how much your work putting it together is appreciated. We really missed this over your maternity leave! Cheers Sam in Australia
Thanks Sam!
Darya — I appreciate your work and your insight so much! Your podcast with Paul this week was so helpful that I’ve lost count on how many times I’ve listened to it while driving around. And I really love that you’re drawing attention to not commenting on weight loss. I actually discovered through some coaching a few months ago that this was a fear of mine tucked deep in my brain that was messing with my efforts for eating better and losing weight. I had some negative mocking comments from friends several years ago on social media when I’d lost some weight and I didn’t realize the impact that had on me ever since. It’s been a big breakthrough for me (as are so many things that you’ve taught me in your posts and podcasts). Glad that you’re back in full swing!
The article about commenting on weight loss rings really true to me right now but in a different way. I’m 30 weeks pregnant and there are 5 other pregnant women in my office. Every body and pregnancy is different so we are all different shapes and sizes. It is crazy how much all of the people in the office feel like it’s totally fine to talk about all of our bodies. I’m not sensitive about it but I definitely know it gets to the other women. For instance one of the girls has terrible morning sickness and a high risk pregnancy. She is 22 weeks and has only gained a couple pounds. Everyone compliments her on how slim she is which furthers her worry that something is wrong.
The article about how often we should exercise doesn’t say what exercise means. Presumably it means cardio, but is there a target heart rate involved? Does walking count?
I should add my full throated support of what the others said. Glad to have you back, I love these links!
Hi Darya,
Do you have any thoughts about the exclusion of cardio when you have an active job? I work a food service job that has me standing/walking 35 hours a week (averaging about 12-14k steps a day). I also eat a well and am very healthy (accorsing to my doctor,) so I wonder if the exclusion of exercises that raises my heart rate is actively detrimental to my health, as opposed to “not optimal.”
As always, I love your blog and links!
-Justine
Sorry about the typos and grammar errors. I typed this on my phone.
It’s a good question. I do feel like it’s important to get your heart rate up periodically, but you’re way ahead of the game by not being sedentary.
Thanks. I will keep my eye out for furher research on the subject!
The reason I ask is because I was running 2-3 miles 3x a week and experiencing symptoms of burnout (paradoxical weight gain, insomnia, and irritability) until a recent bout with bronchitis put me out of commission for several weeks. I didn’t realize how miserable running was making me feel until I had to stop, and now thay I don’t feel angry, tired, and hungry beyond what my body actually needs, (not to mention the time I’ve regained in my morning routine) I just… Don’t want to start exercising again. I was in denial about it because as far as I know, running 2-3 miles isn’t exceptional for a healthy 28 year old (it’s not like I run that fast, either!)
Anyways, I know the answer is to try alternative exercises and possibly lower the intensity of them instead of writing off exercise altogether, but I am also curious about the effects of having an active job because I suspect that’s had the biggest positive impact on my health over the last decade.
Interesting article about slowing the aging process of your arteries. They don’t give a definition of the 30 minutes of exercise though. I “exercise” 6 days a week but some days are training with weights, some days walking, some yoga. I wonder if they mean 30 minutes at 50% – 85% of maximum heart rate?
I actually really don’t like articles like the one suggesting we stop complimenting weight loss. Sure, there are times when it’s not super appropriate, and part of becoming an adult is understanding WHEN certain comments are welcome and when they are not. I love hearing I lost weight, because I did! And I worked my tail off to do it, and I work every day to keep it off, and it feels great to have that recognized. Anyone can buy a cute scarf. But I wake up early to pack a healthy lunch, spend extra time on the weekend chopping vegetables, and pass on relaxing on the couch to bring my butt to the gym. I earned that compliment!
But my personal story aside, I think that these kinds of articles and thinkpieces warning everyone to not say this or that – i think it’s a sign of a really sad time, when we are no longer able to understand social nuances, learn to read people and situations, or discern someone’s feelings. We need to speak in completely neutral language at all times because we are so busy on our phones that we forgot how to engage in normal social interaction.
And finally, maybe people should also realize that if you harbor some secret burden like cancer or a history of abuse, it’s not up to the world to predict that and walk around in fear of an innocent comment stirring that up. I am sure that people who actually have cancer have a lot more on their mind than whether someone noticed they lost weight. The people writing these things just ran out of stuff to write about, and are in the business of policing language for fear of some hypothetical scenario.
It needs to stop. Before we just become completely mute or only exchange empty pleasantries about the weather all day and NOTHING ELSE FOR FEAR OF TRIGGERING SOMEONE OMG.
Stop with the social Prozac and let people live.