Men's Health: Compulsive Overeating
by Ron K. Williams
 When it comes to men's health, compulsive overeating is not a commonly discussed topic. We spend many hours immersing ourselves with the latest literature on health and fitness that floods today's market, spend hours at the gym pumping iron hoping to achieve strong and chiseled bodies, and engage in various intramural sports for our recreation, enjoyment and to stay fit. But when it comes to compulsive overeating, we label that subject taboo. Why? Let's talk about it.
Conditioning
Growing up in America, we are subjected to the Standard American Diet (SAD is the acronym, think about it). We are bombarded with fattening, fried foods laced with sugar, additives and hormones. We all know this. But what you may not realize that these are also known as comfort foods. These are foods that are designed for you to run to them when you are in your various emotional states. When you are feeling sad, empty, depressed, angry, or when you are trying to be sociable. After all, you don't want to be the odd man out at the social functions you attend by not indulging in these foods, do you? You're not going to be the one called the health nut. By the way, Twinkies have the lifespan of 200 years. Real comforting, huh?
 How many times have you failed at a diet? Look at the word diet. The first three letters is D-I-E. Do you want to die to achieve your weight goals? No! Do you want to fail at losing weight? Heck no! Besides, for those of you who have felt like failures, isn't one more failure is one less you need? So what do we need? A lifestyle change! The problem is, we can't change anything until we know what to change and why. So even though we already know what to eat and drink by the proliferation of health and nutrition information out there today, do we have the will, and most importantly, why do we want to change? If the why isn't big enough, we won't do it!
Unfortunately, many times we as men won't change our ways until there is a crisis, until we are laid up in the hospital bed with tubes and an IV attached to us with our family members utilizing every minute of visiting hours to console us in our time of need. Understatedly, that's no fun. How do we avoid this? Not only do we have to change our lifestyle patterns, we must change the mentality behind them.
You may say, "I feel fine now, I'm not going to worry about it". Living for the present moment, are you? That's very good if you are an immortal (Sorry, Highlander was just a movie!) But each body ages with time, and abuse is likened to the snowball effect. The longer you abuse your body, the worse it will get over time. Whether you are 25, 35, 45, 55 or older, the time is now. Don't be fooled what your doctor tells you either. What your doctor sees is only what you have at the present time, not the long-term abuse by overeating. The symptoms don't show until later in life: high blood pressure, hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, cancer (another symptom of holding your emotions inside) and other ailments of the body. To make a football analogy, by the time you receive one of these, you're in the fourth quarter, time is running out, you are behind on points, and you have to score just to get into overtime!
 Join me next month as we'll look at the "vulnerability factor" and a couple of things you can to decrease it's harmful effects. Until then, check out the AGBM fitness links.
Contributing writer Ron K. Williams is a certified group fitness instructor and personal trainer currently residing in Baltimore, Maryland. To arrange confidential consultations, please email your questions and comments to him at wheresthemic@yahoo.com.
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