All posts tagged: Food

Beyond Resolutions: Why I Have no Idea Where This Progress is Coming From

New Year’s res­o­lu­tions are a curi­ous thing. Lucky for me, I don’t real­ly need them to aim for more or less in my life. For instance, I don’t have to push myself to exer­cise; it’s such a nat­ur­al part of my dai­ly rou­tine that it’s not even nec­es­sary. But of course, I have goals and desires too. Like run­ning pain-free – after near­ly two years of a nag­ging Achilles ten­don. Or build­ing strength – after tear­ing my bicep ten­don last fall, it’s not just a wish, but a necessity. 

Quick Links — Week 43

«NNor­mal Kjer­ag Full Review — Kil­ian Jor­nets trail run­ning shoe» — Run­ning with Marc, YouTube « ‹Push the bound­aries›: Aus­tralian ultra­run­ner on pace to break dai­ly marathon world record» — Don­na Lu, The Guardian «I just ran my first marathon. Here are the 20 prod­ucts that got me through my train­ing» — Jil­lian Tra­cy, CNN «What Love Has to Do With Run­ning After 50» — Sarah Humphrey, Trail Sis­ters «For Ukrain­ian Run­ners, a Bru­tal Race Made Sense When Lit­tle Else Did» — Jared Beasley, The New York Times «How to Make Your Own Ener­gy Gels» — Becky Wade, Out­side Mag­a­zine  «Present — Redis­cov­er­ing the joy of run­ning» — Suun­to, YouTube «Run­ning doesn’t wreck your knees. It strength­ens them.» — Gretchen Reynolds, The Wash­ing­ton Post  Quick Links are usu­al­ly added once a week to this blog and cov­er every top­ic possible.

Quick Links — Week 24

«THE COLORADO CRUSH: 63 Days of Endurance | Ultra Run­ning Doc­u­men­tary» — The Auda­cious Report, YouTube «British endurance run­ner wins 22-mile race against horse» — Sana Noor Haq, CNN «Your Watch Doesn’t Know How Much Recov­ery You Need» — Alex Hutchin­son, Trail Run­ner Mag­a­zine «Dif­fer­ences in stress response between two alti­tudes assessed by sali­vary cor­ti­sol lev­els with­in cir­ca­di­an rhythms in long-dis­tance run­ners» — Kat­suhiko Tsunekawa, Kazu­mi Ushi­ki, Larasati Martha, Asu­ka Nakaza­wa, Rika Hasegawa, Risa Shimizu, Nozo­mi Shi­mo­da, Aki­hi­ro Yoshi­da, Kiy­o­mi Naka­ji­ma, Takao Kimu­ra & Masa­mi Muraka­mi, Sci­en­tif­ic Reports «Beyond Pas­ta: The New Rules of Carb Load­ing» — Scott Tin­dal, Wom­en’s Run­ning «New! Stra­va is now your go-to for all things trail» — The Stra­va Club Quick Links are usu­al­ly added once a week to this blog and cov­er every top­ic possible.

Woman eating french fries.

The Palatability Theory

There are clear and unan­i­mous fig­ures that obe­si­ty has increased over time, espe­cial­ly in rich nations like the Unit­ed States. On aver­age peo­ple today weigh more and have high­er body fat per­cent­ages than their recent ances­tors at sim­i­lar ages. But why is that the case? One wide­spread assump­tion is the palata­bil­i­ty the­o­ry. It posits that the pri­ma­ry cause is an increase in reward sig­nals in the mod­ern envi­ron­ment from processed food, medi­at­ed by the moti­va­tion sys­tem in the brain, caus­ing us to overeat.