When I started FoundMyFitness, it was because I had a problem that I needed to solve. The sometimes unsolicited input I was giving others wasn't always being received well, despite the best of intentions.
"I'm concerned about the inflammatory cytokines your adipocytes may be secreting." Funny and awkward, I know. Granny just wasn't havin' it. The issue I was confronting in my social life was that I had come to realize that much of the human suffering on the planet might be avoided, or at least delayed – with the right information.
The knowledge and experience I had begun accumulating in my diverse roles as a scientist – starting as early as my undergraduate days, when I was conducting lab experiments on worms to understand the aging process – had ignited a passion to share. I needed an outlet.
Enter FoundMyFitness. When you read this website or watch our videos or listen to our podcasts, you are reaping the benefits of what has been the realization of a vision I had for empowering the people I care about to take action in their own lives to live better, happier, and even longer.
Sometimes even modest, well-informed changes can drive larger results than might be expected by functioning as building blocks that create positive action in a feedforward pattern of behavioral change.
But there is still a problem. Getting accurate information is difficult. Conflicting studies are published every day, raising difficult questions. Can I eat eggs? One day they're bad for us, the next month they're good for us, then a year later they're bad for us again. What about saturated fat? Some studies show it causes heart disease, and other studies say it may make you live longer. Sometimes perverse incentives fuel contradictions, and sometimes teasing out nuance from the scientific record just takes time.
While I don't have all of the answers, one of the unique qualities of the FoundMyFitness approach to providing information — something I feel that we offer and very few platforms can even approach — is our special focus on taking some of the scientific topics subject to scrutiny from lay journalists and backtesting the narrative against what the scientific literature actually says across multiple types of evidence, from observational studies to controlled trials to mechanistic work. Each of these, in turn, contribute their own unique part of a better story that may weather the storm of publication bias and other challenges.
If you value what the team and I are doing, please consider becoming a Premium Member.
When you become a FMF supporter, not only will you get member-exclusive content and access but you will also help us do more of the important work of FoundMyFitness: informing, sometimes even rebutting, but, more importantly, synthesizing cross-disciplinary science-focused content.
With a bigger team, we can produce and deliver even more high-quality, well-researched information and the wider public and scientific community can continue to enjoy the (almost entirely free) beneficial impact of an utterly unique idea incubator serving the fields of aging, nutrition, wellness, mental health, well-being, and more.
Thank you for considering taking part in the continued telling of the important story that is FoundMyFitness.
Rhonda
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Twice a month, I send members my Science Digest; a curated list of the latest studies we found most interesting, with notes, comments and related links.
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