If it is the fall or winter, and if you happen to live with the average American male, football will be at least discussed during the season. Yes, I know that women also love the sport, but as a rule football tends to be in the realm of male pastimes. I have yet to meet a guy who did not have a team that they favored, knew about or were in the smallest degree a fan of. So, when you live with two males and it is the cooler months, you will find a game or two at least on your radio or TV at some time. I must confess, I would rather play than watch football. (Okay, these days I could not play even if I wanted to, but you get the idea). I am a football dummy- I do no understand how the scores are computed, what position is what, or what makes up a good or bad play. All I know is that football players are professional athletes who spend about 6-8 months out of the year training, playing, surrounded by professionals who are able to mold their bodies into the optimum specimen for the game.Trainers, coaches, sports medicine, work outs and more. Few of us could step in and go through their training or pre- game workouts, to be sure. No one would call a professional football player a couch potato. These guys are perhaps the gold standard of active ! The sports medicine/trainers are able to get them to rally through an injury as a rule , in order to return to the game and nutritionally their needs are calculated by science. It's not simply big guy grabs a ball, runs and knocks down folks in the way. Different positions are treated with a slightly different diet and work out to archive the ultimate in human anatomical engineering for the position according to current knowledge. Wide shoulders, muscular thighs, strong arms, and flat stomachs.
Imagine my surprise when I found myself watching a couple of football games over the weekend and noticing the beginnings ( or more) of a belly bulge on several players. A belly bulge is the result of abdominal fat, brought on by too much Cortisol ( a stress hormone) in the bloodstream. Then I looked even closer and began to realize that according to the current BMI nonsense ( weight with height), almost every single one of these professional athletes would be called Obese. So here we have a group of highly paid, scientifically trained athletes who are technically obese, AND have belly bulges. Huh ????? ( Quarterback Payton Manning is one example) I pointed this out to Bob, and we got into a meaningful discussion about the affects of stress, fitness, weight and more, which led me to doing a little investigating this morning. Turns out , my eyes did not deceive me ! Obesity IS a problem in the NFL ( click here to read)
So if it is simply a matter of calories in vs calories out and moving more will bring a healthy weight, why are football players obese ???
Could it be that weight is, after all, NOT controlled by thermodynamics, but by hormones ? Let's make something clear from the start- hormones are not simply things that control your period and sex drive. The body contains numerous hormones that control all manner of bodily functions. Hormones are regulated by FAT- so if you are eating a low fat diet, your hormones can and will become imbalanced in time. One hormone in particular is tied closely to stress, and when it is out of balance it creates belly fat. That hormone is called Cortisol. Another will make you hungry for chemical reasons , and that hormone is called Leptin. This page gives a very brief explanation of the role hormones play in weight
So here you have this group of athletes, doing all that the current wisdom says one should do for optimal physical condition, whom are technically obese and showing the effects of stress hormones , in part BECAUSE of the current wisdom ( the training schedule, actual game play). And we mere mortal, ordinary persons are supposed to follow the same wisdom and expect positive results ???? I don't know about you, but I think this might be the best evidence to date to kick the current wisdom to the curb and start listening to the kind of wisdom that prevailed BEFORE nonsense like the lipid hypothesis , low fat diets and aerobic theology prevailed. You know, way back when people were actually healthy.
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