A Queer personal trainer in Toronto says obesity is systemic

A Queer personal trainer in Toronto cuts the shit

As a Queer personal trainer who works with a lot of different kind of folks in a variety of gyms around Toronto I am very pro body positivity. But body positivity is not perfect. So imperfect in fact that it’s in some ways not much better than the typical toxic body bullshit that you see spammed everywhere on social media.

A Queer personal trainer in Toronto clears a few things up

Let’s clear up a couple of issues. First of all, it is true that obese people can have very healthy biometrics. And I do believe it’s super important that people, health professionals in particular understand and act on that knowledge. But there are a couple of things that are left out. Like this is only half a statement. Let’s fill in the rest. Obese people can be healthy yes. But when you dig into these studies what you find is that the healthy participants skew young. It’s not that hard to find an obese person in their twenties with good biomarkers. An obese person in their forties? That becomes significantly more challenging. 

A Queer personal trainer in Toronto spits facts

Obesity and overweightness is a systemic issue. And like all systemic issues it unfairly falls on the shoulders of individuals to both deal with the ramifications in their own lives but to also change the system. 

A Queer personal trainer in Toronto talks stress…again

We live incredibly stressful and busy lives. We are pushed to work more and longer and to always be doing something. It’s gross. It’s really gross. We work so much because we need to to pay the bills in an increasingly chaotic and broken network of economic woes. And we work because we feel empty and capitalism has taught us to fill the void with things. I read a statistic years ago that said an average person spends two weeks of their income a year on leisure wear. We are literally working for two weeks to buy leisure wear instead of you know, actually being leisurely for two weeks. WTF???

A Queer personal trainer in Toronto believes in balance

So our work/life balance is broken but I think we desperately underestimate just how important that balance really is. It can be a difference between a well lived life and a life of what the fuck is the point of it all. And it can really destroy our lives. Or, compared to what our lives could be at least. 

A Queer personal trainer in Toronto eats their words

Our food system is also terrible. And to be clear I am not using these words to be hyperbolic. I am using the appropriate words. Walk into any grocery store and what you find is a whole lot of processed foods and hardly any fresh foods. The processed foods are full of sodium, corn, soy, sugars of all kinds. And all of these things are very high in calories and low in nutritional value, with much of the sodium, sugar and fillers being objectively bad for your body. 

And the fresh food is generally factory farmed in poor soil from thousands and thousands of miles away. Nutritionally it is not nearly as good for us as something grown locally in good soil. Our soil at this point is generally quite eroded and that has a profound effect on how nutrient dense our food can be. 

A Queer personal trainer in Toronto self-soothes

Our relationship to stress is also a huge problem. First of all we have too much stress. We know that we are taking in more information in the run of a day than the human body is meant to handle and a lot of that information in the form of social media death spirals are not at all good for our mental health or well-being. So again - too much work, too much stress. 

And what do we do with this stress? How do we soothe? Most of us haven’t  been taught to soothe ourselves with any acumen. We don’t soothe, we numb. And we numb with food. Highly processed, sugary, salty food. Of course we do! Companies have been working for decades figuring out flavours and ways of processing that get us in that back of the brain craving. They know exactly what we want in the most pre-verbal animalistic kind of a way. They make the food so that we will eat more of it and crave more of it. They know exactly what they are doing and they do it extraordinarily well. They are masters at this. 

A Queer personal trainer in Toronto signs off for now…

In the next instalment I will pull this all together and talk about what we can do to take some ownership back. Until then, be well!