Richard Tardif is a certified personal trainer, an investigative health journalist, an author, and a speaker on health, fitness, and diet issues.

We met at a networking event here in Montreal, and I bought his book “Still in Denial, Five Reasons for Embracing the Truth About Fitness” and I asked him to share his views with us.

Richard was involved in writing since he was in high school. He was part of the Canadian armed forces for four years.

In 1994 Richard started writing for The Concordian, the Concordia University newspaper. From there, he started writing for The Gazette, the Montreal News Paper. In the year 2000, he switched to the Eastern Door, a Kahnawake Newspaper.

Richard started to gravitate towards athleticism. He was also into the sport. At one time he was in shape until he started working long hours and living an unhealthy lifestyle and he was not in shape anymore.

Obesity epidemic

We are living an obesity epidemic. As more and more obese children become obese adults, the diseases associated with obesity, such as heart disease, cancer, and especially diabetes are growing.

Richard started gaining weight. He went from 225 to over 300 lbs.

In an effort to find out why he and millions of others were gaining weight, he put on his journalist’s hat and started investigating the reason of his weight gain, and decided to write his first book “Stop the Denial.”

Journalism is a sedentary job. Many hours sitting in front of the computer, and many hours going to events where food is being served. Richard became a victim of this sedentary life, plus he stopped training like he used to do.

Richard blames the high carbohydrate, ultra-processed food as the reason why so many people are obese.

According to the World Health Organization, 1.9 billion people are considered overweight and 650 million people are considered obese.

Thank you, Richard, for coming over and spending some time with our audience.

My own comments and life experience

Wow, This is an emotionally charged subject, because many of us identify ourselves with what we eat.

My parents forced me to eat

When I was a little kid, my parents rewarded me emotionally, when I eat a whole plate of food, even if I was full before the plate was empty. I also remember I got spanked a few times for not eating the whole plate. As a child, I learned that in order to be loved, I would have to eat, even if I wasn’t hungry.

But as Richard said, it’s not only how much we eat, but also what we eat. When I was a little kid, the refrigerator in my house was always full of goodies, ice creams, cakes, processed foods, cereal boxes full of sugars and so much more. Needless to say, I was overweight as a kid. But my parents saw this as a sign of health and wealth and continued feeding and rewarding me.

Up to this day, I make it a point to eat my whole plate of food, even if I am full. I can still hear my grandmother telling me to finish it up, that there millions of people starving in Africa and that I shouldn’t waste food.

What do you think happens when I overeat and my body has used the food that it needs to continue to function? The rest of the food is stored as fat. I rather throw the excess food on my plate to the garbage than wear it as fat for a couple of months, or even years.

We have too many overweight kids because parents force them to eat, even when they are not hungry. And of course, as Richard said, many of the food is processed foods.

Kids are not having enough physical activity

I speculate that another reason why we see so many overweight kids is the lack of physical activity. I was lucky to grow up before the era of the Internet. My downfall was too much TV. But as a kid, I decided to stop watching TV and start doing physical activities like playing soccer with my friends.

So many kids, spend so many hours playing video games, and watching Netflix, sitting down on a couch, that they become sedentary before becoming adults. I think kids should be outside, running and playing in the park rather than sitting down and staring at a screen.

We are victims of advertisers

I also think that we are victims of advertising companies. In 2017 Coca Cola spent almost 4 billion dollars in advertising. And we all know that Coca Cola is water, sugar, and coloring. Pepsi, on the other hand, spent 2.5 billion dollars. They spend all that money because it works. Their advertising influences us and people end up buying more sugar water.

A few minutes from my apartment, there is a supermarket which is open 24 hours per day. This supermarket has small fruit and vegetable session, and almost the whole place is full of pressed foods, and a huge refrigerator for cool hundreds of different brands of beers. And business is good.

Our brain craves sugars, salt, and fat

Our brain has evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to crave, sweets, salt, and fats. And sometimes it’s difficult to control ourselves.

If you work in an office, tell me what happens when someone opens a box of doughnuts early in the morning? All the doughnuts are gone within minutes. And that happens even if everyone had breakfast only one hour before.

I think that one of the best favors we can to ourselves is to keep away from temptation. If you don’t want to be eating ice cream cheesecake late at night, just don’t buy it, don’t have it in the refrigerator, that way you will not be tempted to eat it.

At our club Toastmasters, there are always snacks, cookies, and other goodies. I just can’t help myself, and at every meeting, I end up eating a couple of cookies.  I know better, but temptation overrides my brain.

Meat farming is unethical and it’s killing the environment

Now, Richard said that it’s OK to eat meat. And I don’t know any science to disagree with him. From a physiological point of view, it might be ok. I know that when I eat meat, I feel that my body can afford to eat less and have more energy to last me for a longer amount of time before feeling hungry again.

But is it OK from an ethical ane environmental point of view? Do we know the amount of suffering those animals have gone through before they get to our plate? Have you ever seen a lobster being boiled alive? And we pay lots of money for those lobsters. And how about the environmental damage we are doing to the earth, by creating all the food in order to feed the animals we will kill and eat only a few months after their births.

My friend loves animals. To eat or to pet?

Yesterday I was having a conversation with a friend. She was talking about her dog, about how much she loves her dog and all the thousands of dollars she has spent on dog care. She went on to tell me how much she loves animals, the tigers, the elephants, the birds, the endangered species. She loves all animals, except cows, chicken, and pigs. For those, she supports financially, the torture, and the killing.

I can not count the number of people who love cats and dogs, treat them as little baby humans, spend thousands of dollars on them, and then have bacon for breakfast, chicken for lunch, and steak for dinner. Isn’t this a disconnect?

This is an issue of great struggle for me because I was raised as a carnivore, and I struggle to reduce my meat consumption. But I know, not to support the torture of animals it’s the right thing to do. I don’t want to continue contributing with my hard-earned money, to the torture and killing of innocent cows, pigs, and chickens.

What happens when we stop exercising

There are severe health risks that arrive very soon after you stop consistent exercise pic.twitter.com/hIGN7k3b9X

— Business Insider (@BusinessInsider) August 13, 2019

Related Posts

1. 077 Todd Henry; Don’t Wait for Inspiration to Start Creating
2. 076 Terry Cutler, Professional Hacker Explains How to Hack Computers
3. 075 Quit Like a Millionaire; From Garbage Dump to Financial Independence at Age 31