Pre-breakfast blood sugar: 183
Pre-dinner blood sugar: 227
Breakfast: 1 waffle and scrambled eggs
Lunch: Leftover cheese pizza and oranges
Dinner: Black bean burger with cheese, 1/2 cup macaroni and cheese, lots of stir-fry veggies
Someone in my Google+ circles shared a link to a series of photographs featuring Olympic athletes as well as their height/weight. While the majority of them hold what most people regard as an athletic build, there are several, both men and women, whose build are more like my own. It really is a refreshing thing to see an artistic study of the athlete to include a larger scope of what health looks like. I know I’m not in the best of health so my credibility may not hold much without a medical degree, but I do disagree with the idea of everyone having to maintain a certain weight/height ratio in order to be considered healthy. As a child, I played several years of volleyball, basketball, track and field (shot put and discus throw), pushed kids in wheelchairs in a hurry playing baseball; as I got older (and before my back problems) I lifted heavy things/children/dogs. I have developed some serious muscle over the years, and no healthy, non-surgical weight loss solution is going to get rid of that; I’m fairly confident that once I loose every ounce of fat I still will not meet the ideal weight according to those charts, I will still be considered overweight if not a more severe label.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I understand many of the implications of being heavy. No other health complications, the additional weight, additional stress on the bones can weaken what holds everything together. But take doctors, insurance companies, etc., put so much emphasis on one’s BMI, and pair that with the media and social emphasis on that number, and we’re all shocked that so many people have such bad body images of themselves, whether it is as severe as anorexia, bulimia, etc., or if it is a daily sigh of disgust when someone looks at the mirror. We still wonder why heart disease and the like are so high – because we’re so stuck on achieving that magical number we forget to choose foods with nutrients, take time to exercise in such a way to develop a healthy habit, to take a few moments each day to love yourself and to make sure you surround yourself with emotionally-healthy social situations, as often emotional and physical health go hand-in-hand.
Health should not be about struggling to achieve numbers you may never make. It should be about working with the body and situations you have, and feeling good about how you are maintaining yourself.
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