Questioning The Science and Popular Opinion
The ability to think critically and take things one day at a time is a key to surviving and thriving in 2025
For me, it started with fat. I not only didn’t want to be fat, I was terrified of it.
Gradually, this fear evolved into “I want to be fit.”
Then, the fear evolved into “I want to be healthy:” mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually.
What a challenge! And one best taken one day at a time.
Yesterday I spoke with a neighbor who’s undertaking a wellness challenge called 75-HARD. The 75-day program involves two 45-minute daily exercise sessions (one indoor, one outdoor), following a diet (doesn’t matter which one as long as it’s health-oriented), and reading at least ten pages of a book a day. If you fail at any of the challenges on any day during the 75-day challenge, you start at day one and do the challenge all over again.
As she discussed the program, I thought it sounded a lot like what I’ve voluntarily done the past five years.
Today, I am not the same person as I was in 2020 when Bruce and I left California and moved to Florida.
I am in dramatically better physical health and shape now, and I am presently working on my mental and spiritual fitness.
One of the biggest aspects of that is coming to terms with what my grandparents gently tried to indicate to me when one day I mentioned reading about — something — I no longer remember what — that I was being encouraged to buy (I do remember that!) and both my grandmother and grandfather said,
“You don’t believe everything you read in the newspaper, do you?”
It took me many years to understand that they didn’t just mean that reporters could make mistakes. They meant that people will try to deceive you for their own advantage. Reading or hearing information at a distance (their generation — newspapers; our generation — digital media) makes the process easy.
Until or unless, we use our experience, common sense, and critical thinking abilities to see through the myriad deceptions and fraudulent tactics used to make us do, be, or think any way that advantages someone else over our selves.
Yes, But Where’s the Double-Blind Study Proving It?
I recently mentioned via social media my researched, documented belief that artificial sweeteners have directly contributed to the obesity epidemic. There’s ample correlation between the introduction of non-caloric and low-calorie artificial sweeteners and the obesity epidemic. Numerous studies have shown that individuals who consume a lot of artificially-sweetened beverages and other foods (gum, sugar-free mints, snacks) weigh more than those who do not.
The “official explanation” of the correlation between artificial sweeteners and weight gain has been that people who drink a lot of diet soda compensate by eating more caloric foods. This rationale, lacking any real evidence, was promoted in the early to mid-2000s, as many people had begun to notice that those who consumed diet drinks ironically seemed to be fatter and less healthy than those who avoided them. Now, nearly every health advisory, from Harvard Health to Penn to Web MD, acknowledges that artificial sweeteners cause harm to the metabolism and interfere with the gut microbiome and gut-brain axis, creating a variety of effects that lead to weight gain, obesity, and metabolic illness.
My brief reminder that “sugar-free substitutes are bad for you and might even make you gain weight” inspired an older man who has been an editor in the sci-fi field to dispute my assertion. He said, “Where are the double-blind studies that prove sugar substitutes are toxic and cause weight gain?”
I was unable to assist him to him understand that such a study would not only be unnecessary, it would be impossible. How would this work? Would someone have to secretly be given a caloric soda vs. someone thinking they were drinking regular soda, but instead, it was diet? And how many years would these people need to consume the beverages? How restricted and controlled would their diets have to be to disprove the thesis that people who drank diet sodas were “fatter” because they also ate more calories?
This man was so attached to artificial sweeteners that the only way he’d accept that they were bad for him was a “double-blind study” proving it.
I realized that the entrenched belief that the only way to “prove” if something people ingest has an effect or not is a “double-blind study” is a primary pillar in the economically-motivated marketing campaigns which have deceived so many of us about what we need to do to support our health and wellness over the past 50 years.
Calories — by the way — are not the best measure of food consumption.
The biggest “blind” study of all time is how, since the 1950s and 60s, dietary changes and the U.S. food system have contributed to a severely unhealthy and overweight general population. Throughout my lifetime, people have trustingly consumed the foods offered to them in stores and restaurants, and have been growing collectively fatter and sicker.
In 1960, the average American woman was 5'3" (1.6 meters) tall and weighed 140 pounds (63.5 kilos). In 2024, the average American woman was 5'3.5" (1.61 meters) tall and weighs 170 pounds (77.1 kilos).
Are people in the U.S. (and other world regions experiencing rapidly advancing obesity — including China) simply lazy and stupid overeaters? This is the assumption of men like the former sci-fi editor and countless online commenters who “fat shame” without cease. They firmly believe that fully 75% of U.S. adults — three out of four — are overweight or obese, and that 30% suffer from chronic disease (of which obesity is now regarded, in and of itself). These fat people (I could charitably call the man who was so obstinate about artificial sweeteners “overweight”), mostly men, constantly insult and shame others who may not even be as fat as they are!
These Are Not Immutable Facts or Inescapable Fate
One simple thing that I tell people when talking about changes in lifestyle, attitude, diet, and health is: it’s one day at a time (like the 75-HARD program).
What we eat is more important to our overall health than simple calorie consumption. Someone who eats a 2,000 calorie a day diet comprised of lean protein, fruits, vegetables, and whole grains will be healthier than someone who eats a 2,000 calorie a day diet comprised of ultra-processed foods. Forget how much you weigh: focus on the quality of foods you eat, what you can do each day, and how you feel.
Those who make and sell ultra-processed foods are working overtime to convince you that a protein bar is just as good for you as eating a serving of lean protein, along with a piece of fruit and some raw vegetables … of course this isn’t true.
This is all about the difference between what we do each day and what happens to us over time.
What can we control each day? What we do that day, of course.
Times change, we change, and I think the most important thing that any of us can do is to take one small step each day to improve our mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual health and well-being.
My wellness process started in 2018 when Bruce gave me a Fitbit for Christmas. That first week, the device told me that my resting heart rate (RHR) was 70.
The resting heart rate, along with VO2 Max, is a general measure of cardiovascular health. Later that day after I put my Fitbit on for the first time, I walked from our hotel room in Pacific Grove to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, a distance of approximately 2 miles, much of it uphill. I realized I wasn’t just growing fatter and fatter every year, I was getting more and more out of shape. Regarding the artificial sweeteners, I was chewing several pieces of sugar-free gum every day, and consuming several sugar-free mints. When I cut those out a year later, I lost at least 10 pounds. But of course: it wasn’t a “double-blind study.”
Bruce and I recently contracted COVID while evacuated for Hurricane Milton and, as it had before (2021) and following COVID vaccines, it impacted my cardiovascular performance. This most recent episode was worse than our 2021 infections (while vaccinated), and I have been seriously concerned about my health in several ways, not just cardio fitness.
Most notably, after contracting COVID again, I was seeing RHRs of over 60 for the first time in four years. As of 2020, I don’t use a Fitbit, I use a Garmin fitness tracker. I work out six days out of seven and do both aerobic and strength exercises. I will spend an hour or more each day working out. I don’t have a six-pack like the 75-HARD before and after pictures that I saw on their website, but … I’m not bad, either.
After diligently working to recover through diet and careful exercise, this week is the first week where I truly felt I was getting better and had begun a healing process after the severe infection.
My VO2 Max is 42 and I am 62 years old.
Since Bruce has struggled with severe arthritis and repeated surgeries, it is more important than ever that I be healthy, not just physically, but emotionally and mentally as well.
A lot of people aren’t even at the point of regularly using a fitness tracker to assess their sleep, track their movement, hydration, or see if they are becoming more fit over time. Some of them are very close to me.
And it’s not just cardiovascular health I’m talking about, it’s everything.
I just reviewed my social media over the past decade, and I invite people to do the same. The “me” of 2015 is not the “me” of 2025 in any way.
I can see the “news of the day” and realize how out of touch with reality so much of it is. I can see the same tired topics being brought up over and over. I can see how realistically, people’s circumstances, with wages, expenses, healthcare, and general quality of life — are not as good as they were a decade ago.
But my personal situation right now, even with the daily challenges of Bruce’s illness, is much better.
We successfully moved out of an increasingly hostile Southern California. I own my own home. My credit is good. I have been successfully supporting our family financially despite challenging odds. My personal health is excellent.
I now have the ability to judge and discern whether something that is being advertised to me would be helpful and beneficial for me — or not. From political slogans and ideas to foods to medications, I have the ability to discern whether they are something I’m interested in, or not. I have the ability to say “yes” or “no” each time, and use a solid set of metrics by which to measure and make the decisions.
And that ability, those metrics — I think — is the key to who is going to make it from now moving forward. And who isn’t.
Here’s an exemplar: remember back in 2010 when the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was passed by the U.S. Congress? At that time, I had become familiar with Health Canada and provincial health plans because I was doing Canadian business plans and I would tell people “Just copy Canada.” Much like my acquaintance the former sci fi editor recently attacked me for not providing him with multiple “double blind research studies” proving that artificial sweeteners were bad for people (here’s a quote — “How dumb are you — don’t you know what a double-blind study is?”), I was roundly and verbally attacked by many people in the sci-fi, academic, and trade publishing fields for saying the U.S. would do well if they copied Canada’s healthcare system. Some of those people are no longer with us today. I doubt many of those who so eagerly verbally abused me would, today, say that the ACA was worth it — one politician had even said, “We have to pass the bill to know what is in it.”
Nothing good. That’s what was in it.
This is such a change time right now. And like any of them that humans have ever gone through, it is eyes open and heads down, until the maelstrom is over.
Glad you're recovering well. My one covid infection in March of 2023 elevated my HR and BP. They're still elevated but trending down.
The ACA was a scam. It was nothing more than a pipeline installed between the Treasury and health care insurance vampires. It did made everything worse.