Skip to main content

Are Coloradans Really Thinner?

And more importantly, would moving to Colorado help you lose weight?

A recent study suggested that some people in the northern US may be lying about having a svelte figure by fudging on their height and weight in phone surveys. The abstract of the study didn't mention the West, but all the obesity maps I've seen show Colorado as having the lowest rate of obesity in the US. I don't know whether that's accurate, but I think we're better than average.

A few months ago, my employer held a firm-wide video conference where we could see members of all or most of the other offices. We have two offices in Colorado; the rest are in downtown areas of medium and large cities in the South and the Midwest. We all work in the same industry; the employees are mostly white, college educated professionals. As far as I know, the only big difference between all of us is our locations. I'm guessing there were a few hundred people in total on screen; we saw different offices at different times.

Compared to Colorado, the other offices looked like they had a lot more heavy-set employees. If nothing else, it shows we really should eighty-six the cookie recipes at Christmas in the company magazine.

Assuming that Coloradans in general really are thinner than people from the South and Midwest, why is that? A few insights from having lived in the Denver area most of my life:

  • A lot of active, healthy people move to Colorado for the lifestyle: skiing, hiking, biking, boating, and so on. My best friend played tennis on Christmas when she lived here. With over 300 sunny days a year and winters that are milder than most people think , physically fit people enjoy themselves here year round.
  • A lot of Californians migrated here for the lower cost of living and brought their culture of health and fitness with them.
  • We don't put sugar in our tea. It gets over 100 degrees in Denver, and it's nothing to drink half a gallon of iced tea. Some recipes online call for half a cup of sugar for half a gallon of tea--sweet merciful heavens, that's 100 grams of carbohydrate! In general, low-carbers aim for no more than 50 grams of carb per day. 
  • Low-carb is easy to find here. All the 7-11s I've been to in Denver (but not San Diego) sell hot wings and pork rinds. Two big steak houses recently opened near my house. The parking lots are the size of those at big-box stores, and they're always full. I paid close attention on my commute tonight and saw several burger joints, a couple of sushi places, a few steak houses, a barbecue place, a breakfast place trumpeting its ham and bacon, and a lot of places with the word "grill" in their names. There were also a few pizza joints, bakeries and an ice cream parlor, but the point is, if you walk into a random restaurant in Denver, you'll probably be able to get a low-carb meal. (That wasn't the case in Chicago, where half the restaurants I saw were pizza and pasta places.) If you're downtown and want a quick bite from a truck or a street vendor, you'll find hot dogs, kebobs and the like everywhere, but cupcakes and ice cream are scarce.
  • Good manners. We don't try to make people eat things they don't want. You're literally more likely to see a drag queen on a commuter bus than to hear someone say, "Just have one bite--it won't hurt you!" Denver is a polite place. It's the suburbs where people get shot.

So would moving to Colorado help you if you've struggled with a weight problem? If you know what to do, but your problem is that you go with the flow, it might help. There are lots of little nudges in the right direction here. The thought of being seen without a bulky sweater on sunny winter days might be an incentive to avoid sweets over the holidays. People won't shove food at you if you don't want it. But Colorado isn't a fat farm: there are obese people here, too, and our grocery stores are full of the same junk as the ones in your home town. If you're looking to move anyway and want to lose weight, Denver is a good place to consider.
Labels:

Comments

Chuck said…
i also saw a recent study showing that people who live at higher altitudes tend to be leaner.
April 18, 2013
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thanksgiving recipes for Pumpkin Pie & Cranberries--printable!

If you'd rather read a printed recipe than watch a video, here are my recent recipes for Better than Grandma's Pumpkin Pie and Probiotic Cranberry-Apple Relish.  Hat tip to Dana Carpender, whose pumpkin pie recipe inspired this one. The cranberry-apple ferment is entirely my own creation.  Pumpkin Pie--no grains, sugar or emulsifiers Crust 2 cups shelled raw pecans 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon monk fruit powder* (or 3 tablespoons sugar substitute) 4 tablespoons butter, melted 2 tablespoons water Pumpkin Pie Filling 1 pie pumpkin 1-1/2 cups half and half (with no thickeners) 3 eggs 3-4 teaspoons monk fruit powder* (or 3/4 cup sugar substitute) 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice Preheat the oven to 350F. Stab the top of the pumpkin all the way through the flesh in a few places at the top. Place the pumpkin on a cookie sheet and bake for 1 hour. Let cool. While the pumpkin is baking, put the pecans in a food processor with the S blade and run until they are finely...
Post a Comment
Read more

Fly with Reuteri

If you're planning to travel by plane and you want to keep enjoying the benefits of l. reuteri yogurt, you might have gotten sticker shock from the price of l. reuteri probiotics. MyReuteri * costs $46 to $83 for 30 capsules, depending on the CFUs (colony-forming units, or the number of viable microorganisms). If you're thinking about economizing by putting some yogurt in a sturdy container and taking it with you, you can do that. I'll break down the pros and cons and look at some alternatives.  Photo from Unsplash . Cost Yogurt might be less expensive than probiotics, but it isn't free. A half-cup serving costs about 70¢ to make if you start with a previous batch. It contains about 90 billion CFUs if fermented for 36 hours.  This is a lot less than $5.56 for two capsules of 50 billion CFU MyReuteri, but for a one-week vacation, you'd only save $34 by eating yogurt instead. (You can freeze any unused capsules for later.)  Furthermore, the yogurt would have to go in ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Cigna is Making Progress

Yesterday as I put my lunch in the refrigerator at work, I noticed a bunch of unfamiliar people in the break room. One of them, Pepe, started in: they were there for the health fair, they would check your cholesterol, the sugar in your blood, your height, your weight, and it would just take six minutes. A coworker asked him if he'd ever considered a career in sales. Just for blog fodder, I participated. They really were fast, and one even found me at my desk (in an office nearly half the size of a city block) after the tests were finished. My HDL cholesterol was 65--up from 42 from a year and a half ago, and up from 57, where it was last year when I'd been three months a low-carb diet . A level over 60 is considered good. I haven't taken any medication to make this happen. I went on a low-carb diet and eliminated wheat. I also take vitamin and mineral supplements in addition to a high-nutrient diet. What impressed me more, though, was that the nurse (and Cigna) said that bl...
Post a Comment
Read more

30-second Fix for a Cracked Stick Blender

Use Mighty Fixit (if you still have some from 2012) or Rescue Tape (which looks like a similar product) to fix a cracked stick blender. After I fixed the attachment, I washed it in the sink and the tape held up. I also wrapped a knife handle several years ago, and it's been through thousands of washings.
Post a Comment
Read more

Grandma's Pumpkin Pie but Low-Carb and Creamier

Here's an update on the classic Dana Carpender recipe for pumpkin pie--this one has no emulsifiers and it's made with fresh, roasted pumpkin. Each one-eighth serving has 10g net carb. The original recipe is here . 
2 comments
Read more