Quite some people told me in the past years that I am obsessed with my weight. And, convincing these people of the opposite is quite difficult for me, for example due to the balance next to my bed and the fact that I use it every day. Other things that are not helping me either include me frequently talking about losing some weight, me referring to my childhood when I was the fat kid in my class, and me putting forward my peak BMI of 24 which I reached during my pharmacy studies (which, by the way, equals my current weight, as measured this morning, plus 11 kilograms).
Well, I am not lying to you or to myself when I state that I use the balance next to my bed to maintain a healthy balance between two of my passions, namely food and sports. I have a tendency to go all-in on these passions, and I found out in recent years that I need some objective measures to prevent myself from pushing it too far. I thus check my weight routinely to prevent that I loose too much weight, particularly in periods of excessive training. I also started checking my heart rate and heart rate variability every morning using a specific app which tells me afterwards whether or not I can do sports that day. I furthermore know the calorie counts for many food products, and I can give pretty accurate estimations of the total calorie counts of my meals. Admittedly, I do try to make sure that I do not eat more than I need, but I mostly try to give my body what it needs to function properly and to perform well doing my workouts.
Taking nutrition seriously is not something I learned during my Pharmacy studies but it was triggered afterwards by my mother-in-law. Specifically, it was triggered when I started preparing for my first marathon roughly five years ago. Back then, my mother-in-law, a trained and practicing dietician, shared a comprehensive nutrition plan with me which she previously developed for a running team participating in the Roparun (NB: if you do not know the Roparun, go ahead and check out https://www.roparun.nl/en/ and please support this unique charity). This document and ensuing discussions (i.e. calls for advice from my side) really changed my view on the role of food in physical activity. Later, the corresponding insights also changed my view on the role of food in health and disease (thus setting the stage for my current research ambitions) and furthermore made me believe that dieticians should play a much larger role in healthcare than they currently do.
I might break some privacy rules here (if so, I am sorry), but I would like to take you to the house of my in-laws to substantiate my previous statements. I have been a regular visitor of this house for the past 10 years, and cannot recall one time that I did not see one or more scientific publications lying around in the living room, on the stairs, or in the office. My mother-in-law obviously adheres to the relevant regulatory standards and best-practices in her work as a dietician. Still, she always aims to be informed about the latest insights in her field, which frequently led to her being part of expert committees responsible for drafting the next versions of treatment standards to be used throughout the country, The Netherlands in her case.
I know, I am biased because I am talking about the proficiency of a family member, but I wish you all to benefit from a healthcare professional like my mother-in-law in terms of maintaining health and regaining health. And let me take it one step further, I wish it to all of you that healthcare will one day reach a point that we more frequently go to a dietician, physical therapist, etc. than to a pharmacist after we leave the general practitioner’s office. And let me take it another step further, I wish it to all of you that preventive medicine will soon reach its full potential and thus that we can drastically reduce the number of medical consults and referrals that are needed in the first place.
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