The end of the week is a good time to review the past week of your SWEET Life and count up your accomplishments. Your goal is 5-6 times per week for each aspect of the SWEET Life: Sleep, Water, Eating, Exercise, and Tranquility. If you didn’t achieve some of your goals for the week, then next week, focus on those areas more and think about how to fulfill them more consistently.
How do you feel at the end of this week? Are you better rested? Do you feel relaxed? Are you more energetic? Do you feel generally healthier? Continue with the SWEET Life and you’ll experience all of these feelings!
Topic of the week - The Fatosphere
I happened across an article in the New York Times online about the Fatosphere, a term I’d never heard of. Apparently, blogs about fat acceptance are becoming very popular, and overweight people are finding solidarity in the blogs of others who are overweight. It was interesting for me to read about it because it’s a foreign concept to me to accept myself being fat or to encourage others to remain overweight. I’d have no Personal Training clients if I were overweight, and I can’t see overweight people wanting to use a Personal Trainer if they wanted to maintain their weight.
The article made me think about the relationship between the fatosphere and the SWEET Life. I’ve never called the SWEET Life a weight loss program because the program is designed to be a balanced, healthy lifestyle, appropriate for everyone. However, I’ve always believed that if you were overweight and started living the SWEET Life, you would lose weight as a side effect. So are these people in the fatosphere living the SWEET Life? Let’s see . . .
Do they get 7-8 hours of Sleep per night? Well, research shows that overweight & obese people tend to have more problems with snoring, sleep apnea and other sleep problems, so they may not be getting a good night’s rest.
Do they drink 8-10 cups of Water per day? I have no idea, but my guess is that they do drink ample fluids; however, they might be fluids with calories, sugar, caffeine and other unhealthy ingredients.
Do they Eat a balanced, healthy diet? They may or may not. Although overweight people have all sorts of reasons why they are overweight, the main reason is that they consume more calories than they burn off, whether they consume a balanced, healthy diet or not.
Do they Exercise? Of course there are overweight people who exercise, even those who exercise a lot. However, the fact remains that Americans, in general, are sedentary and don’t even exercise the minimum that is recommended by the American Heart Association and American College of Sports Medicine, which is 30 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise, 5 days a week.
Do they have Tranquility? Good question. I would think that anyone who is content with his/her life has Tranquility, regardless of his/her size.
In sum:
Sleep – no
Water – yes
Eating – no
Exercise – no
Tranquility – yes
So, I would say that overweight people are like the general population, who follow a couple aspects of the SWEET Life easily, one intermittently, and a couple with difficulty.
· About.com: Sleep Disorders: Does Losing Weight Really Help? http://sleepdisorders.about.com/cs/diet/a/talk_weight.htm
· American Heart Association: Exercise and Fitness: http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=1200013
· Fatosphere Blog: http://fatosphere.blogspot.com/
· In the Fatosphere, Big Is In, or at Least Accepted: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/22/health/22fblogs.html
Copyright © 2008 Suzanne Fong. All rights reserved.
