Eat to move. Move to eat.

Our street corners could look like this...
if we create the demand!

Eat to sit?

It seems to me that for all time, before now, humans have had a pretty simple relationship between eating, moving and sleeping.

Nowadays, we don’t have to move much at all in order to eat. And we mostly choose not to. Rather, we favor the sitting position of cars, couches and office chairs. We tend to choose prepared and pre-packaged foods that are as convenient as possible…requiring as little movement as possible. We prefer to have it brought to us, handed out of the window to us, or in car-driving distance on shiny shelves in the most convenient supermarkets where we park as close to the entryway as possible.

We make it more difficult than it needs to be.

Then, oddly, we pay big bucks for gym memberships and diet plans, all the while complaining about how expensive fresh, wholesome food is and how gas and car insurance prices are criminal. Then, we pay emotionally when our workout resolutions and diet plans don’t work. We figure we must lack will power, and our self-esteem dips as a result. Then we pay physically when all that anxiety, stress, cheap processed food, and sitting/driving results in over 46% of the American population having chronic disease and pain that could have been prevented with simple healthy living habits all along. Too often, we pay with our lives or the lives of people we love. The American lifespan is significantly shorter than other developed countries despite the fact that we spend more on health care than any other country.

Why?

Because it’s hot (or cold or rainy) outside? Because we don’t have time? Because we don’t like to sweat in our regular clothes? Because processed sugar, salt, and fat tastes better? Because change is uncomfortable? Because cooking is boring? Because that favorite TV show is calling to us? Because we are powerless, conditioned by the media to believe that we can’t think and act for ourselves to meet our basic needs with simple solutions? Because it’s just the way it is?

Eat to sit?

We are smarter than this.

I love you, Albert.

Einstein, good ole’ Al, was clear about the value of simplicity. When will the simple solutions become trendy or glamorous? When will we see how elegant a woman on a bicycle is? When will we walk or ride a bicycle when we need to go someplace less than 5 miles away? When will we ride our bicycles to the market to buy fresh, healthy food and take it back home and chop it up and maybe apply heat and a few spices and eat it together with people we love and talk and laugh and know that this is the simple way to feel great in our bodies and look good in our clothes and live long, disease-free lives?

Just a regular (super) woman.

The more I arrange my life to accommodate being able to ride my bike to get places (or walk), the more I see others doing the same. I’m not talking about the expensively outfitted athletes who train so impressively. I’m talking about real people of all shapes, sizes and colors living deeply and presently by interacting more directly with the world than what is possible on a device or in a car, house or office. Breathing fresh air, having spontaneous interactions with other people, and transporting the body using physical movement are simple ways to be more positively engaged socially, physically and emotionally (see expanse of research about the effect of being outside on depression and anxiety). Movement linked to meeting our basic daily needs (acquiring and preparing food and getting from here to there) also improves sleep. We are a sleep-deprived nation. When did we decide to disconnect the most essential of human needs? Let's link it all back up. 

Eat (real food). Move. Sleep. 

Move to eat. Eat to move.