The day after I wrote last week’s blog, I turned on the TV to see if there was anything I wanted to watch, and The Chew was the most appealing thing on. They were having a show about cheese, but it was only a few minutes before the show ended. After it ended, the next show was The Revolution. To my complete surprise, the theme song for that show seems to be the song that I wrote about in last week’s blog, It’s Who You Are.

What We Find On Television

The Revolution is a new show on ABC, which has a similar format to The Chew in that it has several cohosts. Ty Pennington, formerly host of Extreme Makover, Home Edition, is one of the cohosts, as is “style guru” Tim Gunn, of Project Runway. Other cohosts are a celebrity trainer with a degree in exercise physiology, a therapist/counselor, and an Ob/Gyn. I get the feeling that this show is going to be promoting a lot of restricted eating and weight loss, but I have not really watched it.

I did take a look at the exercise recommendations for one of the “heroes” (the women who the show takes on as projects, basically), and noted that it includes a recommendation for 90 minutes of aerobic exercise per day. It’s not totally clear if that is sort of incorporated into the gym workout, or if that is on top of the gym workout, but that seems to be an awful lot considering the diminishing returns in health improvements after about 30-60 minutes.

There does seem to be some importance placed on finding ENJOYABLE physical activities, so that is a good thing. Here is what ABC says about the show: “The Revolution is your daily boost, whether you are looking for inspiration to accomplish little victories or in need of a road map for a major change. Additionally, each week, the series will highlight one woman’s personal journey over the course of five months.”

Differing Definitions of Inspiration

Inspiration is a good thing, but inspiration for what? I think it’s good to be inspired to be the best we can be, but I worry that shows like this one are going to assume that we have to fit into the mold of “normal weight” in order to be considered “the best we can be.” It just gives me the feeling that they want us to believe that we are not good enough, just as we are.

I think that belief - that we are not good enough as long as we are “overweight” or “obese” - is something we need to push out of our minds. On the other hand, many of us could probably benefit from making an effort to move ours bodies more, with the simple goal of improving our health and fitness levels.

Really, I think the concept of taking care of ourselves is what is important, but the specifics of how we should take care of ourselves are where HAES differs from conventional thinking. This website is a great source of tips on how to take care of ourselves without allowing ourselves to be shamed into the destructiveness of dieting.

The Quest Continues

Speaking of dieting, my quest for healthy food in convenient forms led me to look into eDiets prepared meals starting on Thursday of last week. When I asked the customer service woman how many calories were in the menus, she said 1200 to 1400 per day. I said, “That’s just not enough for me,” so she suggested the men’s program, which is 1600 calories (that basically seemed to mean just instructions for adding more fruit and dairy to the meals).

I warn you, the meals are no bigger than something like Lean Cuisine. I feel like I need to eat 2 to have enough food for a single meal. One breakfast was only 150 calories. On the positive side, they included some snack foods that are quite tasty. One was a product called Somersaults, which is made from sunflower seeds and whole grains. Another tasty snack was called Sheffa snack mix. They also included some nutrition bars called Solo-gi, which apparently have a low glycemic index (meaning they don’t make your blood sugar spike). The flavor sent to me was called mint mania, and it tastes something like a thin mint cookie from the Girl Scouts! This seems to be a staple of the eDiet prepared food plan.

And I want to reiterate that my interest in these plans is not dieting. I look into them because I’m on a quest to find conveniently packaged, easy to prepare, tasty and healthy food/meals. eDiets is not the solution, but separately their snack foods were enjoyable.

I hope you all have a week that feels just right in all kinds of ways!

My interest in nutrition developed from the weight issues I had in my youth. My sister and I always tended to be heavier than other kids, and we were teased about it, so naturally I wanted to "fix" myself by dieting. That worked pretty well in my teenage years, but adulthood was much more challenging. I started out as a dietitian who advocated dieting, but due to my own experience with my weight and dieting, as well as my extensive study of the subject of weight management, I have become an advocate of Health at Every Size. The first fellow professional who influenced my "conversion" was Ellyn Satter, who is also a dietitian. I got my Bachelor's Degree in Dietetics in 1975, (LSU) followed by a Master's in 1981(Univ of TN), and a PhD in 1997 (Univ of TN). I have worked in longterm care, public health, and one hospital. For the last 8 years, I have been teaching at the college level. I am the proud mother of a 24 year old son, and have been single since my divorce in 1993. That is when I moved to Atlanta from Cookeville, Tennessee. I moved around a lot in my childhood due to my father's job, but my parents grew up in Texas, and that is where my roots are. I lived in Brazil for 3 years as a teenager, and one of my sisters still lives there.