Read the link, ignore the rant

This is a great, straightforward summary of exactly what gets me all riled up these days. (So much so that I risked mass Facebook downfriending by posting it there, complete with mini-rant.) It just makes me mad that people are working so hard to get in shape and still can't because the conventional advice is wrong.

In case you didn't read the article, this is the conventional wisdom in question:
1. If you want to lose weight, just eat less and exercise more!
2. The more cardio you get, the better!
3. It's as simple as calories in, calories out!

After yoga on Friday, some people were asking me about what I'm doing to lose weight (because after two weeks of strict Paleo I'm apparently starting to look skinny again, yay), and I was saying this very thing—how frustrating it is to me that all the things we've been taught are wrong. One of the people standing around was an aerobics instructor, and she turned the conversation to the evils of fast food, which I could not agree with more. But then she talked about how hard it is with kids and time constraints and "confessed" that sometimes they have to eat there, and she'll "just get a grilled snack wrap without the sauce." I don't even know what a snack wrap is, but I do have a feeling the bun (tortilla?) is a lot worse for you than some mayo or whatever. People will make every effort to deny themselves things for the sake of health, but they don't even know what it is they're supposed to be denying themselves.

It's started to grate on my nerves is when I hear the phrase "artery clogging" in relation to fatty foods. I want to stop the person right there and say, A, it really depends on what kind of fat it is. And, B, the problem isn't artery blockage so much as artery inflammation, which is what the bread and sugar is doing to us.

I'm not saying that people mustn't ever eat foods that are bad for them. That would be a bit hypocritical coming from the woman who sullied her month of perfect eating by letting her husband take her out for pizza on Saturday (which is why the food diary grows strangely silent after Friday). I'm just saying we need to KNOW which foods are actually bad for us.

For Mother's Day, I gave myself permission to indulge in a long, soothing, hot rant. Ahhhhh. That's better.