This is what I found illuminating 💡 in my ongoing exploration of food, weight, life satisfaction, and body comfort. 

I think of what I do as holistic, but that word has been co-opted by companies that never address the full life circumstances that keep us stuck in unhealthy behaviors.

In wellness circles, holistic refers to practices such as Pilates, meditation, and clean eating (although the latter is problematic for various reasons). In other words, what you can afford to do.

I approach holistic wellbeing by exploring all the friction that keeps people anxious, sick, exhausted, and stuck. My basic theory is that we do what we're designed to do (eat well and move) when our environment supports those activities. 

Uncovering the friction that keeps you from those activities is real-life work. 

The Pieces 🍎

1. This video is so good. It might seem like a weird choice for a newsletter focused on healthy living, but to me, it applies directly. Loneliness makes it very hard to take care of yourself (and leads to self-soothing with sugar and junk).

The Loneliness Epidemic, in Data: Who Americans Spend Time With

2. 57% of every calorie eaten in the US now comes from ultra-processed foods. I don't think we recognize what these products are anymore. That's the real issue, not that most of us are eating veggie straws all day. The majority of food products are now ultra-processed foods.

And yet, we blame our bodies. 

We’re Stuffing Our Faces with Food That’s Not Food

Compared with people who eat well, those who consume higher amounts of UPFs have “significantly higher BMI, waist circumference, blood pressure, insulin levels, and biomarkers of inflammation known to be harmful,” according to a Canadian study funded by governmental agencies and private organizations.

“In a sense, this suggests that our bodies are seeing these as non-foods, as some kind of other element,” says study team member Anthea Christoforou, an assistant professor in the Department of Kinesiology at McMaster University.

3. In the calorie model, whole milk is full of fat and too caloric. In the satiation model, it's an intact, delicious food with plenty of fat to keep you full. I've been drinking whole milk lattes for over a decade, and it makes having a healthy weight easier.

Whole milk intake is associated with lower body weight and body mass index in American adults

Calorie counting has become a religion in Western countries — but we’re getting it all wrong

On the surface, calories seem straightforward. You use them to measure how much fuel you put in your body and how much energy you use when you walk, run, or even just sit on the couch breathing. If you pump your body full of calories and leave it idle, all that extra fuel sloshes around inside you. It doesn’t get used and instead, it becomes the fat that pads your skin and engulfs your organs.

This is more or less the central myth of Western diet. The word “myth” here doesn’t necessarily mean that calories aren’t real. It just means that calories are a story around which we organize our Western beliefs and values — just like ancient societies that had their own culture-shaping myths about why it rained and which spiritual beings ran the show.

But here’s the problem: If you take even a moment to learn about how the calorie was invented, how calories are measured, or what they actually represent, the whole story starts to unravel — fast.

More, please.

• A very big-deal cancer study just dropped
• Traffic Fatalities Are a Choice
• How to Avoid the Depressing Happiness Paradox
• Take the NY Times fiber quiz (unlocked).

Yours in joyful eating and living,

Rebecca ✌️