- Move to Improve by Drew Howerton
- Posts
- Our food was never meant to kill us.
Good morning! Today is Women’s Health & Fitness Day. (I promise, look it up.) I have only one call to action in today’s newsletter: share Move to Improve with 3 women in your life today.
This past weekend was the first anniversary of my dear mother’s passing. The women in your life deserve health. The women around you deserve fitness that is accessible to them. The women you love deserve a long, happy, active life. I truly believe that if we can grow this community, we can help each other get there, together.
Before you read anything else in this newsletter, copy the link below and text/email/DM it to 1, 3, 5, or 10 (overachiever) women in your life. It would mean the world 💞
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Futbol Food is life.
please watch Ted Lasso
For the vast majority of human history, food is what kept people alive. Today, it’s one of the greatest contributors to our untimely deaths. Food nourished, sustained, energized. Outside of the occasional poison or bacteria, food did not harm people. But in modern societies, food is now a major contributor to nearly every leading cause of death: cardiovascular diseases, metabolic diseases, cancers, neurodegenerative diseases, the list goes on. Virtually every one of these killers is significantly worsened by poor diet but significantly improved by a healthy diet.
Wild animals don’t really die of these diseases. They don’t suffer from chronic issues caused or exacerbated by overindulgence. Depending on the region, some people groups still live like our ancestors used to, and the rates of these diseases are a fraction of what they are in America and other ultra-modern nations.
You are not at fault for this. This is the result of a food industry engineered for profit. American maximalism taken to its extreme in an industry as personal as what we put in our bodies. The once-miracle of mass food production, developed to sustainably feed the masses at scale, has become the now-curse of ultra-processing, over-indulging, over-farming, and disease creating.
According to some estimates, most Americans consume ~70% of their calories from ultra processed foods—foods that your grandmother’s grandmother would not even recognize as edible. We’ve allowed these industries to profit off our biology; “foods” are literally engineered for maximum palatability and addiction. Over the entirety of human history, we have never dealt with sugar, oils, and ultra-refined and processed commodities to the degree with which we are inundated with them today. Humans are resilient in many ways, but there is only so much change that genetics and biology can handle over the course of a couple generations (Evidence? US obesity rates have grown something like 8x since the ‘50s).
With certainty (and that’s rare in science), we have determined that a poor diet can vastly increase one’s risk of developing the aforementioned chronic diseases, which are our top killers. While obviously not the sole influence in the pie of risk factors, diet is a huge slice—right next to exercise/activity. Those two alone comprise the majority of the chronic-disease-risk-factorberry pie.
The good news? Despite an environment that’s largely stacked against us, these factors—diet and movement—also happen to be the ones we have the most power to take control of and change. Let it sink in how revolutionary that actually is. A pill that reduces disease risk by 10–20% would make headlines and rake in billions. And most medicines pale in comparison to the effects of a healthy diet and exercise on disease risk reduction.
The other good news is that there are not really any life-altering dietary secrets that are gatekept. While it’d be easy to go down rabbit holes and get in the weeds of food science and nutritional biochemistry, we can zoom out and aim to hit the dietary basics: whole foods, adequate protein at every meal, fruits and veggies and lentils and nuts and seeds, healthy fats. Limit overindulgence. Mind blowing that that’s really all there is to it. Any variances from there that we discover or debate are just 1% tweaks here and there, but the foundations we’ve established remain the same.
Changes to your diet can make a pretty big payoff in pretty amazing time. But I’d encourage you only to make changes that will last. Maybe you need a 30-day bootcamp for a kickstart, but consistent, years-long habits are what will be most meaningful in the long term. To make it even easier, you can just focus on adding the good stuff rather than restricting the “bad” stuff. Deprivation is not sustainable and rarely works for long. But if you’re filling your plate and your body with 90% nourishing foods, you naturally won’t have room for as much of the not-so-good stuff.
Our food was never meant to kill us. Yet, sadly, it now takes millions of lives every year. It doesn’t have to be this way. You have the power to choose what you consume. No greater life change is possible through such a low barrier to entry. Just pick up the apple. Unlike Eve, you have all the permission in the world to eat it. It won’t kill you. 🍎
✅ Take Action
Every newsletter's Take Action section will invite you to take small steps to improve your health. Recognizing that we all have different capabilities, I'll offer three different levels of action you can choose to take.
Level 1: How many servings of fruits and vegetables do you eat every day? Increase that by 1 or 2 every day this week. Feel your body come to life.
Level 2: How much protein do you eat at every meal? If it’s less than 30 grams, aim to get at least 30g at each meal.
Level 3: How often do you consume high-omega-3 fat foods (fatty fish, walnuts, chia & flax seeds, soybeans)? Try to eat something from this list at least 2-3 times a week.
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✍️ Drew's Picks:
Listen: “The top weight loss dos and don’ts for women over 40” from The Genius Life podcast. The takeaway I’d shout from the rooftops? Stop trying to lose weight! Try to build muscle! JJ Virgin is a 60-year-old woman who’s been through the cardio-crazed, low-fat, low-protein decades and is currently stronger and leaner than she’s ever been.
Read: “Spreading out the misery” on The Money with Katie blog. Her takes on personal finance are always helpful and actionable. This principle can apply just as much to health and fitness as it can your personal finances!
Listen: “What’s so great about marriage?” from Plain English with Derek Thompson. Don’t let the title fool you. This podcast is about a range of topics, but primarily covers happiness and “social fitness,” which we discussed in last week’s newsletter!
Read: “Be ready for anything.”
That’s all for this week, folks. Remember to share this newsletter with women in your life today so we can grow in health and fitness together. We owe it to ourselves! 🧑🤝🧑
Keep moving,
Drew
The content in Move to Improve is meant to be informative in nature, but it should not be taken as medical advice. It is always a good idea to consult with a trusted health professional before making any major lifestyle changes that could have a significant impact on your health. This is not a medical resource, and any opinions and articles are not intended for use as diagnosis, prevention, and/or treatment of health problems. They are not substitutes for consulting a qualified medical professional. Please think critically and take what I say with a grain of salt (aka don’t sue me).