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There’s a new study that came out recently that compared low fat, low carb and the med diets. The end results seem to indicate that the low carb and Med diets are better than low fat, which is now causing quite a few heated arguments in various health publications. Everyone is coming out in favor of their favorite diet. People are claiming the study is revolutionary while others are claiming it’s flawed. Some authors are saying the study once and for all proves that low carb is the right choice, other experts are saying it’s meaningless. What are we to make of all of this?

Does It Matter?

To me, this kind of study is meaningless.  Not just because the study itself seems flawed but also because I don’t really care.  All of these heavily structured diets that tell you exactly what to eat and how much of it to eat are way to restrictive to be effective.  I don’t want to spend my life checking nutritional info on every thing I eat.  I don’t want to spend every meal time calculating if I’ve had too little or too many carbs, too many fats or enough fresh olive oil.

What Makes A Diet Good?

First, the basic idea behind it has to be healthy.  I think low carb and low fat both fail in this aspect.  Our basic diets include both carbs and fat and a diet that says avoid one or the other is automatically suspect.  Maybe if the low carb diet was called the “avoid junk carbs like bread and pasta diet” I would like it more.  However, it’s not.  It’s the “low carb diet”, and people use it to avoid eating vegetable and eat way too much processed meat.  Hey folks, you can read as many studies as you want but it still won’t make eating tons of bacon and no tomatoes healthy.

Second, a diet shouldn’t be too restrictive.  Fad diets like the cabbage soup diet and such usually fail this one, but low carb, low fat and med diets all fail this one too.  Low fat is especially bad here since fat is in almost everything we eat and trying to restrict its intake is nearly impossible.

Third, a diet should be sustainable.  That means you should be able to keep it up for the rest of your life.  Remember, a healthy diet is not a temporary thing, it’s the eating plan for the rest of your life.  Personally, I don’t feel like restricting my food for the rest of my life to just Mediterranean cuisine.  So again, all three diets fail on this one.

A Good Diet

A good diet is simple and unrestrictive.  It’s something you can easily follow and not feel like you’re giving up on the good things in life.  Otherwise, you’re not going to follow it.

The best quote about this study came from the Chicago Tribune.  It said:

Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University, was not in involved in the study.

It has not changed her basic approach: “Eat less, move more,” she said.

That’s it right there folks.  You want good, healthy eating?  Focus on that.  Eat less, move more, and my own little addition, eat healthier.  Stop counting carbs and fat calories and stop worrying about whether or not your food came from an Asian cuisine, an American cuisine or a Med one.  Just apply some basic rules to what you eat, eat in moderation and be physically active.  The weight will come off and you’ll feel much better.

If you want to read more about this study, check out Discover Magazine, The Chicago Tribune or the Wall Street Journal.

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Eating doesn’t have to be a complicated science and it shouldn’t feel like a battle, it should be simple and enjoyable.  Stop focusing on specialized diets and start focusing on being healthy.

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i’ve talked about Michael Pollan’s book The Omnivore’s Dilemma before, but since I recently reread it, I thought I would officially review it here on 60 in 3.

What Is This Book All About?

The Omnivore’s Dilemma is a book about food.  It’s not a diet book, it’s not a nutrition book and it’s not a healthy eating book.  It is simply a book about food, where it comes from and how it gets to our table.  The book seeks to make you aware of what you’re eating and why it’s on your plate.

What Is The Omnivore’s Dilemma

First off, what the heck is the title supposed to mean?  The omnivore’s dilemma deals with an issue faced by all creatures who can eat a variety of foods.  Simply put, faced with many choices, we’re left wondering which is the best one.  That’s not a problem faced by creatures with a simpler diet.  For example, the Koala, which can only eat Eucalyptus leaves, rarely wakes up in the morning thinking “what should I eat today?”  Carnivores, who eat only meat, usually don’t have a problem picking out a proper dinner dish.  It’s us omnivores who need to make decisions each time we eat.  For humans, that’s especially bad since we’re faced with an incredible variety of foods, many of them bad for us.

What’s In The Book?

The book is divided into three sections, each of which follows a different food chain from raw materials to consumption of a meal.  The first section looks at industrialized food and how it goes from corn field to finished product.  The second section follows the “organic” food chain from farm to plate.  Finally, the third section looks at a meal completely foraged and collected by the author, with all components being personally obtained.  Each section includes a lot of information on why this food chain exists, how it came into being, what the various issues or problems with it are and what kind of impact this food chain has on the world around us.

The book is very personal by the way.  It is not scientific nor is it cut and dry.  In each section the author digs in and really gets involved with the food chain he’s examining.  Whether it is by working on a corn farm in section one, slaughtering a chicken in section two or going foraging for mushrooms in section three, Pollan gets up and close and personal with his food in every possible way.  That’s part of what makes this book so great, it takes a process which is often impersonal and alien and puts it into terms that are meaningful and easy to understand.  It makes us relate to our food, which I think is an incredibly valuable endeavor.

Section 1 - The industrial food chain

Pollan starts this section at the most logical point, the corn field.  Corn is the foundation on which the American industrial food chain is built and Pollan follows it from the field where it is grown and harvested to the place where it is most commonly served, the American fast food restaurant, McDonald’s in this case.  Pollan includes quite a bit of history on how corn came to dominate the American culinary landscape and what the impact has been on our wallets and waistlines.  Along the way, he visits a factory beef farm to show a bit about modern meat production.  It’s clear that Pollan is not really fond of this food production chain and he makes a very good case for how it hurts us in a variety of ways.  If you’re not angry at your government by the end of this section, you may want to go back and reread it

Section 2 - The “organic” food chain

Here Pollan follows organic food from field to plate.  I put organic in quotes because Pollan makes a point of saying that the term organic is a bit loose.  It can refer to a gorgeous little family farm in the middle of the woods or it can refer to a very industrial facotry that’s almost like the processed food chain he examined in section 1.  Again, Pollan presents a lot of background material on how this organic food chain came to exist and how various parts of it function.

Section 3 - The foraged meal

This final section was the least practical but also the most interesting.  Here, Pollan talks about a meal he foraged himself.  He grew the vegetables, he foraged the mushrooms and yes, he hunted the meat, specifically, wild California pig.  Pollan gets philosophical in some areas of this section, talking about animal rights and the morality of being a carnivore.  By the way, Pollan himself is not vegetarian, nor does he advocate it as a lifestyle, he’s just discussing the topic as yet another thing to consider when you eat.

Of all three sections, I enjoyed this one the most.  Sure, it probably didn’t have a lot of information I’m going to use in the future, but it really made me think about my food, which is the point of the book.  This is the most personal of the food chains, one in which you are the entire food chain and nothing stands between you and your food.  What you gather is what you eat.

So Why Is This Book Important?

Because we’ve forgotten what food means.  Too many of us see food and but don’t actually see everything’s that’s gone into that food.  We’ve forgotten or never knew how that food got to us.  We don’t think about all the work and effort that went into making the food and getting it to us.  We don’t think about the impact of our decisions and we fail to consider how a simple choice like what to have for dinner can have wide reaching consequences on the world around us.

Food is 50% of health (the other 50% being exercise).  Something this important shouldn’t be ignored.  We focus too much about nutrition and calories but we’re never really aware of what food is and where it came from.  We think of the differences between meat and vegetables but we don’t really think of the difference between this tomato and that one.  We worry about the amount of carbon our cars put out but we don’t think about the resources it took to put that steak on our plate.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma doesn’t try to get you to go vegetarian, it doesn’t tell you to start growing your own vegetables and it doesn’t preach about proper nutrition, it just wants you to be aware of what you’re eating.  The books seeks to make eating a conscious decision rather than a mindless activity and I think it’s a spectacular success.  After reading this book I can no longer walk into a McDonald’s without thinking about corn.  I can no longer look at a package that says organic without questioning the meaning of the word.  I don’t even think of hunters the same way I did before and, for the first time in my life, I have a real desire to learn how to cook.  In all possible ways, Michael Pollan’s book has made me more aware of what’s on my plate, which to me is the whole point.

If you’re interested in your health then you should be interested in your food, and if you’re interested in learning more about your food, then this book is a must read.

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There are very few books that have affected me as much as this one.  If you’re interested, here’s the link to Amazon.  Buy it online, check it out from the library, find it at your nearest used book store or borrow it from a friend.  Whatever you do, go and read this book.

Amazon link:

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I usually try to use my weekend roundups to link to other sites with useful articles. Sometimes though, I find something that I’m so impressed with that I just want to give it a bit more spotlight. Today is such a case.

I forget how I stumbled onto this site.  In fact, I think I did use Stumble Upon to get to it.  Quick plug - If you like any 60 in 3 articles, don’t forget to Stumble them! Anyway, I found it quite randomly but I was amazingly impressed by what I saw.  It’s such a simple idea and yet very powerful.  What the author has done is take picture of 300 calorie servings of various foods, from fruits and vegetables to meat and dairy.

Why So Impressed?

Because it’s great to talk about portion control and serving sizes but it really doesn’t sink in until you see it visually.  For example, the difference between 300 calories of apples and 300 calories of bacon is easy to understand but seeing it in pictures really drives home the difference in what you’re eating.  Even better, these pictures can take differences that are a bit less obvious and make them clearer.  For example, compare the 300 calories of grapes to 300 calories of raisins.  It’s hard for many people to see the difference between eating grapes and eating raisins, and this sort of visual aid really makes a difference.

But Wait, There’s More!

Not only did the author include all the weight measurements used for these pictures, she also included the prices.  Now some of these might not be accurate for your neighborhood, but it’s still useful information.  For example, it’s easy to see why so many people eat too much meat, it’s cheap, something you can chalk up to our government’s misguided farm policies.  300 calories of beef cost less than 300 calories of tomatoes, which is just crazy.  I should probably get off this topic before I go into a full political rant!

How To Use This Information

This isn’t meant to be a reference guide.  I don’t think you should come to this site and check out the pictures every time you’re going to eat.  Just take a good look through this link.  Spend some time and get to know your typical food serving.  Come back a few days from now and do it again.  Basically, I want you to educate yourself so that, when faced with real food, you know how much is too much and how much is just right.

Without Further Ado…

Here’s the link:

Health Assist

And a similar link only this time to 200 calories servings:

Wisegeek

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Actually, I’m not actually in NYC right now, I’m in Princeton, NJ.  However, I will be in NYC on Tuesday and will stay there until next Sunday.  This is all part of my graduate school program and I’m really looking forward to it.  Speaking of which, I still have some stats homework to do!  So I’ll keep this brief and move right to this week’s interesting articles:

Mississippi is the heaviest state in the US.  More than 30% of residents are obese and less than 30% are a healthy weight.  So I found this piece from the Mississippi Daily Journal interesting.  It describes one woman’s quest to regain a healthy weight and some of the obstacles she faced.  Note how most of the article is devoted to social factors like eating habits and cuisines.  I am a firm believer that our society shapes us just as much as we shape it.  If we want to be healthy, we really need to live in a healthy society.
@The Daily Journal

How many times have you seen a study that says something is healthy only to immediately here a different study saying the very same thing is unhealthy?  It’s confusing sometimes and it can lead us to disbelieve everything we hear and go on with our unhealthy habits.  Here’s an article from Reader’s Digest that talks about this issue.  It looks at a study that came out recently which sought to examine the benefits of the low fat diet.  It’s a great piece which shows just how flawed some studies can be.  And remember, you don’t need a lot of fancy rules to eat healthy.  Take a look at the following series for some simple guidelines on how to eat healthy.
@Reader’s Digest

From the Washington Post comes this article about the benefits of omega 3 and Omega 6 fatty acids.  This is a good primer for people interested in these nutrients and their effects.
@The Washington Post

And let’s wrap today’s post up with this excellent article from the NY Times about muscle health.  It’s a wonderful introduction to muscles and all the great things they do for us.  It’s also god some valuable information about how to care for your muscles so they can care for you.
@The New York Times

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It’s Friday and the weekend is about to start.  For most people, that means a couple of days of rest and relaxation.  Unfortunately, the weekend also means many unhealthy habits for people.  People tend to eat more and be less active on the weekend.  So how about ending this week right with a few ideas for a healthy weekend.

Go Outdoors

The weather is beautiful in the San Francisco Bay Area.  If it’s this pretty where you live, how about finding a fun outdoor activity?  This could be anything from hiking and biking to playing frisbee in the park with friends.  It could even be something as simple as finding a friend or loved one and taking a long walk through your neighborhood.  Whatever it is, outdoor activities tend to be healthier than staying indoors.

Work On The Yard

If you have a yard, why not spend some time working on it?  I don’t just mean mowing the lawn, although that’s a pretty decent physical activity right there.  I mean plant a few things, especially vegetables or fruits.  Planting a garden will provide you with physical activity for months and with fresh produce at a cheap price.  It’s the best of all worlds!

Lay Off The Beef and Grains

The majority of what we eat is meat and grains.  How about changing that for a weekend?  No, you don’t have to go vegetarian for the weekend, but how about sticking to healthier meats until Monday morning?  That means fish, chicken, turkey and so on.  No beef, no pork, especially not the overly processed varieties.  Also, stay away from breads this weekend.  So no pizza, pasta or breads.  Commit yourself to doing this for just a weekend and see how easy and tasty this sort of healthy diet can be.

Go Dancing

Dancing is a wonderful workout which most people don’t consider a workout.  If you’re part of a couple, why not invite your partner to a night out at a dance club?  If you two have never danced before then find your nearest dance lesson or hall and go try it out.  There’s always beginner nights.  If you’re single, what better place to meet people than at a dance hall?  That’s especially true of you shy guys out there.  Trust me, you’ll enjoy it

Start Each Day Right

Commit to starting your Saturday and Sunday mornings right.  That means plenty of sleep the night before (you can forego the late night drinking binges for one weekend), a good breakfast and a 5 minute workout.  Do that for two mornings and see how much better you feel for the rest of the day.  Again, I’m not asking you to commit to this for the rest of your life, just two mornings.

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I hope everyone has a healthy and fun weekend.

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I saw a comment this morning on my commute biking post.  The comment mentioned warm weather and implied that this would make biking impractical.  I gave my own answer in a follow up comment but I wanted to expand on that answer a bit.  First of all, thank you to the reader for leaving this comment, there’s always something I may have overlooked and it’s good to be reminded of it on occasion.

Now, let me make what I said in the comment a bit clearer. I don’t believe that warm weather should be an impediment to biking to work. You can bike early in the morning or late enough in the evening to avoid much of the heat. Showers at work can also help for those of you who are like me, and tend to sweat. That said, exercising in extreme weather does pose a health concern and that’s what I wanted to talk about today.

Exercise And Injury

There’s always the risk of injury when exercising, that’s just part of moving about.  The more you move about the more you increase your chance of falling, twisting your ankle or straining a muscle.  Sitting on the couch has very little risk compared to jogging for example.  Still, I believe exercise and being active is worth it because the extra risk you incur is more than outweighed by the health benefits.  However, there’s a point at which the extra risk becomes too high and that’s the point at which you should stop exercising and start resting.

When Is Risk Too High?

I can think of many cases where the risk of exercise is too high.

• Strenuous exercise when you have a medical condition - If you know you have a heart condition, you shouldn’t be working out without consulting with a doctor.  You may be improving your overall health but you’re also straining your heart.  Same goes for lifting weights when you know you have some kind of joint or muscle issue.  If you have a medical condition, talk to a doctor before you exercise.
• Strenuous exercise under poor conditions - Weather is a good example.  I’m willing to bike when it’s 100 degrees outside but only if I bring water and only for short rides (less than 5 miles).  If it was 120 degrees outside, I would probably rethink my biking idea.  Same goes for the cold.  I biked to work in New England when it was 0 degrees, but I drove when it was snowing because biking in a blizzard is just silly.
• Lifting weights with bad form - Using bad form is not just bad exercise, it’s also a higher injury risk.  Those folks you see in the gym swinging weights around and getting their whole body involved in a simple weight lifting exercise?  They’re just being stupid.  They’re not getting a good workout and they’re placing themselves at a much higher risk of injury.
• Continuing to exercise when you’re injured - I’m guilty of this one.  You feel a pain and you know you should stop working out but you keep going anyway because you tell yourself to be tough and hang in there.  Guess what, that’s the wrong approach.  Exercising with an injury is going to aggravate the injury, not make it better or make it go away.  Yes, not all pains are injuries and you should learn to tell the difference between a temporary ache and pain which signals an injury, but don’t take chances.
• Too much sun - Quite a few physical activities are outdoors which means exposure to the sun, which also means sunburn.  For those of you who still associate a tan with health, I have bad news, a tan is not healthy.  A tan is a signal that you have exposed your body to too much sunlight.  A sunburn is even worse and significantly increases your chances of skin cancer later in life.  If you’re going to be in the sun for any length of time, use sunscreen if possible.  A small exposure to sunlight (10 minutes or so) is fine and can even be healthy but anything longer is bad without sunscreen.
• Bad equipment - Poor exercise equipment has been the cause of many an injury.  That could mean broken machines at the gym or poor running shoes when jogging.  Either way, if you’re going to use equipment, make sure it’s safe.

How To Judge When A Risk Is Too High?

Unfortunately, I can’t tell you that.  Sometimes it’s obvious, like jogging with a heart condition.  Sometimes it’s not so obvious, like how to tell when your shoes are bad for running.  When in doubt, check.  There are a variety of resources on exercise, from physical trainers and doctors to online sites and books.  For example, there are sporting goods stores with professionals that will help you find the right shoe for your foot.  It’s far better to check in advance than it is to spend 3 months recovering from an injury that could have been avoided, believe me, I learned that one the hard way.

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Just remember, you’re exercising for the health benefits.  If the risk of injury outweighs those health benefits, then you’re doing something wrong.

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Remember that old White Snake song? I think it went something along the lines of “here I go again on my own, walking down the only road I’ve ever known…”. Well, maybe you don’t remember it or maybe you’re trying to forget the 80’s, but either way, that’s what was going through my head yesterday morning when I tried out trail running.

I’d actually tried out trail running before.  I had a couple of friends who took my running with them a few times some years ago, but this was the first time that I had ever done it by myself as part of a planned workout and I have to say, the end result was a bit disappointing.

Why Did I Go Trail Running

First, because I like trying out new things.  Anyone who reads this site knows that.  I enjoy finding new ways to challenge myself and work on my physical fitness.  Second, because I heard trail running is an excellent workout due to the uneven nature of the surface you’re running on.  However, I also wanted to see if this was a way to make running more fun.

I think everyone who ever jogged is familiar with the problem of boredome.  Simply put, jogging isn’t the most interesting thing in the world to do.  You’re basically running and that’s all.  Now you can overcome this problem in a number of ways.  For example, bring a friend and chat as you run, bring an iPod and listen to music or you can even watch TV if you’re like me and run on a treadmill.  Whatever it is, you want to do something that relieves the monotony of running and running and running and running…  Well, I thought that trail running might be a good option.  After all, I love hiking so isn’t trail running like hiking only faster?  Well, that didn’t quite turn out the way I thought it would.

What Happened

So at 8am on a Sunday morning, I drove to a nearby park, figured out what trail I was going to follow and took off running.  It was a trail I had already hiked before, so I knew it rather well.  However, I found that running the trail is no where near as much fun as hiking it.  Because I was trying to work out, I didn’t have the time to stop and enjoy the surroundings like I do when I hike.  I couldn’t stop an admire the view or try to see if the sounds I was hearing were a deer.  It was like watching my favorite movie on fast forward.  I could recognize all the things I had previously enjoyed but I couldn’t quite enjoy them as much.

How Good Of A Workout Was It?

As far as the workout itself, it was pretty decent.  The uphills were challenging and the uneven surface certainly helped me work on my stability.  My only concern was the increased chance of injury due to the uneven surface.  Also, the constant impact from the downhills was certainly not a friend to my knees, feet and shins.

The Final Straw

All in all, I didn’t enjoy the trail run as much as I thought I would.  However, I would still go back and do it again if it weren’t for one thing, the drive.  My house is located in a relatively urban area.  In order to get to this part, I had to drive for 15 minutes.  With the price of gas being what is and with this workout adding an extra 30 minutes of prep time (driving back and forth plus finding parking), it just doesn’t seem worth my time.  I believe that one of the main strengths of a workout is being convenient and this was anything but.

Do I Recommend It For Others?

If you live close to a park or if you can bring some friends to run with you, then sure.  Otherwise, I think you’re better off sticking to the gym or your nearest track.

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It was an interesting experiment but I think I’ll stick to running at the gym and leave the hills for hiking.

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