The Skeptics Society & Skeptic magazine

Anastacia Marx de Salcedo is a food writer whose work has appeared in Salon, Slate, the Boston Globe, and Gourmet magazine and on PBS and NPR blogs. She’s worked as a public health consultant, news magazine publisher, and public policy researcher. She is the author of Combat-Ready Kitchen and lives in Boston, MA. Visit AnastaciaMarxdeSalcedo.com.

Shermer and de Salcedo discuss:

• what it’s like to get a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis at age 27
• how she created her own medical miracle by treating her multiple sclerosis through daily exercise to keep it from progressing. New research backs up her experience.
• why exercise is more important than diet
• why the obesity crisis is as much a result of our exercise policies as it is the food we eat
• how dietary studies are conducted
• laboratory animals, which in nature would run miles every day, are confined in tiny cages, which affects their baseline health — most studies (except those on physical activity, which have exercise protocols) are done on sick and unhealthy rodents.
• what “eating like a pig” actually means
• the shameful, 70-year-old truth behind our diet detour and what that’s meant in terms of reduced quality of life, shortened lifespans, and stigmatized and marginalized fat bodies.
• how this has incorrectly led to a static concept of metabolism rather than one that is dynamic and constantly cycling through resting and active states.
• What diseases can you treat, manage, or prevent with exercise?
• cholesterol and statins
• getting hot and sweaty means your body is burning fuel and creating energy at a very high rate
• releasing the excess heat from that process has many powerful anti-inflammatory effects
• What’s the best long-term psychological strategy for living with a serious illness?
• how you can have your cake and eat it, too — as long as you keep exercising.

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This episode is sponsored by Wondrium: