Female centered fitness means questioning what all these ‘studies’ are really saying…
Oof my caffeine experiment. Well all data went out the window this week because I also had my period and it became very clear why menstruating bodies are so often left out of studies. Caffeine free didn't seem to do anything because my energy was already all over the place. I will continue caffeine semi free next week. My plan is to only have caffeine the days I teach a lot and see if I notice any mood/anxiety/energy differences on the days off/on. I assume I will pretty quickly be able to notice when it would be useful to be caffeinated and when it's not necessary. This, of course, brings up a host of philosophical issues around 'necessary' since the thing caffeine really does is super charge one's mood and ability to do! do! do! Choosing to stay mellow and dreamy when everyone around you is hyped is challenging on its own...but also could be a healthier state. The experiment continues.
What I have been meditating on is that this is exactly how data gets delivered in a flawed or over extrapolated way by news agencies to make the teeniest bit of info into a large and frightening cautionary tale or gold standard rule. Take for instance, eating late at night. We have all 'heard' that eating late at night is not good for you. Do you know who said this? When? Why? I don't. I have just 'heard' this and also probably read it as part of some other data point.
After many years of reading about health this is how I now 'hear' this and similar studies: At some point some scientists wanted to know if eating late at night had a poor effect on overall health (metrics like cholesterol and everyone's favorite - weight management). They asked a bunch of ppl when they ate and some of those ppl eat late at night. I'm gonna take a wild guess that all of these people were white males. Turns out when bros eat late at night they aren't making great choices and that leads to not great bio metrics. Here's how I take that info into my own life. I don't. It's unrelated to me entirely.
If I'm hungry late at night I just eat because I'm not a random white guy who is ordering Jimmy Johns at 2am. I'm me, walking into the kitchen to eat some yogurt or peanut butter toast or munch some left over chicken and then go brush my teeth again. So few statistics are able to take into account the person's larger lifestyle, hardly any look at women in particular. I basically ignore most 'studies' that are reported in the news and wait to either read or listen to someone who has waded through ALL the studies and compared ALL the data. Which I know is hard because as we can see from the artificial sweetener scare, people take info and run with it.
I still remember an older client of mine congratulating herself on forgetting to eat breakfast till noon (after her sessions with me) since she had just read that people who exercise before breakfast are 'healthier'. I tried to explain to her that some random study that was done on a bunch of college students is not really indicative of anything related to her, her body or fitness level and it would probably be helpful for her to eat a bit when she gets up *facepalm* but thus is the power of 'studies'.
I will continue my very anecdotal one person study only because I want to know the answer for myself. I hope in sharing it you can see how challenging it is to toe a gentle line. Instead of saying I SHALL NEVER eat/drink/do x again... finding the line that best suits us is harder but should ultimately give us a life that is much more flexible and full. That's a reason to get up in the morning caffeinated or not.