Jul

18

Diet Crazy!

Filed Under Eating Healthy, Editorial | Leave a Comment

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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May

21

Rule #2 of Healthy Eating, The 100 Year Test

Filed Under Editorial, Healthy Habits, Nutrition | 1 Comment

Thisentryis part 2 of 6 in the series SERIES - The 5 Rules of Eating Healthy

On Monday, I started talking about the five rules I use for eating healthy food. I use these relatively simple rules because It’s just too difficult to keep up with all the guidelines, recommendations and plans for eating the perfectly balanced diet. You can drive yourself crazy and still not be 100% perfect.

Today we look at rule #2, which I like to call, the 100 year rule. This is based in large part on one of Michael Pollan’s recommendation which I’ve taken and modified slightly.

What Is the 100 Year Rule?

If you were to take the food you’re about to eat and show it to someone who lived in the 19th century, would they recognize it? Would they believe you when you said it was food or would they look at you like a crazy person? If what you’re about to eat makes a 19th century person quiver in fear, run away screaming or shake his or her head in disbelief, you probably shouldn’t be eating it.

Advanced Applications

Does the food seem like something that would have been eaten in the 19th century but was prepared in some really odd way? For example, Twinkies seem like sponge cake which would probably seem normal to someone from a 100 years ago. However, if you ever watched how twinkies are made, I think you would agree with me that they simply aren’t food.

Does the food contain ingredients you don’t recognize? Take a look at that ingredient list. Are there more than five chemicals in there that have long scientific names? Is there at least one ingredient in the top five that’s nothing more than a long chemical formula? Perhaps you should put that food down then.

Was it raised in a completely unnatural way? No cow was born to live in a 6′ by 3′ pen, pumped with antibiotics every day and fed corn, grain and pieces of other cows. Sorry, that’s just not natural. You may want to remember that the next time you think about ordering a steak. Feel free to eat meat but try to make sure it was raised the way meat should be raised and not the way some factory finds it most efficient to raise.

Clarifications to the 100 Year Rule

Is it a 100 years from when I was born? I suppose. Mainly you’re trying to answer the question of “would someone who lived in a time before massive food processing and chemical engineering have recognized this food?” To me, that’s the 19th century and about 100 years ago. Your time line may vary.

Do I need to base it on the country I was born in? Not really. For example, if I showed sushi to someone who was born in my homeland 100 years ago, they would think I was crazy for eating raw fish. However, people in Japan would think I was fine. As long as someone from a preindustrial society somewhere would agree with you that this is food, you’re probably fine.

Why Use the 100 Year Rule?

Because processed food sucks. We put too many chemicals into our food, too much crap that really belongs nowhere near our bodies.

Are You Saying This Because You’re Some Kind of Anti Technology, Anti Progress Fanatic?

Not at all. At no point in my life did I wish I could live back in the days before modern medicine, modern standards of living, modern rule of law and modern technology. Heck, this blog should be sufficient evidence that I like modern technology. However, I do think we’ve gone overboard in the things we do to our food. I love that I can fly around the world. I love that I can instantly communicate with people thousands of miles away. I love that we no longer lose 1 out of every three children to disease or starvation. I don’t love the fact that my food contains more chemicals than a toxic waste dump, more antibiotics than a hospital ward and was prepared using the same process that’s reserved for refining gasoline.

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There are some things that technology does well and some things it does not. Technology can give us better food, I firmly believe that. I also believe that mass production, industrial processing and chemical cocktails are meant to give the food companies a better profit margin and have nothing to do with quality of food.

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Apr

30

Statistics and Other Lies

Filed Under Editorial | 2 Comments

I had a conversation with a friend the other day about health and why it’s important.  He’s known me for a long time and he was wondering why I was spending so much time and effort on my health.  In his mind, it seemed like a pointless waste of time.  His argument against a healthy lifestyle came down to two facts:

  • First, a healthy lifestyle does not guarantee you a healthy life.  You still have a chance to develop diseases like cancer and you can still be the victim of random occurrences like a car accident.
  • Second, he pointed to stories in the news and in our circle of friends of people who lived a long and healthy life despite an unhealthy lifestyle.

His first mistake was overestimating the effort required to live a healthy life, but that’s a topic for another post.  However, his bigger mistake was a remarkable misunderstanding of statistics.

Statistics

Let’s understand something, being healthy does not GUARANTEE anything.  Just because I eat well and exercise does not mean I have a contract with the universe that says “this person lives a healthy lifestyle and therefore they will live a long and healthy life.”  The opposite is also true, just because you live an unhealthy lifestyle does not mean you void your body’s warranty and are guaranteed to have a heart attack at a young age.  You might in fact be one of the few who smokes two packs a day, eats 2lbs of bacon every morning and still lives to a ripe old age. There are no guarantees in life but there are statistics.

Each time you make a choice in how you live your life, you change the statistical likelihood of certain things happening.  For example, if you go to college your are statistically more likely to earn a high wage.  Is this guaranteed?  Absolutely not.  People will always point at success stories like Bill Gates who made billions despite being a college drop out.  Unfortunately, he’s the exception and not the rule.  If anyone points Bill Gates out as a reason to not go to college, tell them their ignorance of statistics is the reason why they SHOULD go to school.  Statistically, you are in fact more likely to make a higher wage if you go to college.  The same applies to health.

Health Statistics

Are you guaranteed to get cancer if you smoke?  No, not really.  Are you guaranteed some kind of cancer immunity if you live a healthy lifestyle?  Again, not really.  However, statistically, your chances do vary based on your behavior.

Let me use a simple example.  Everyone knows what dice are, right?  Roll a standard dice and you get a number between 1 and 6.  If a person with a healthy life style rolls a 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6, they avoid getting cancer.  For a person who smokes and has many unhealthy habits, those numbers change a bit.   They need to roll a 3, 4, 5 or 6 to avoid developing some type of cancer.  (By the way, these numbers do not represent actual studies, they’re just picked to illustrate a point).

Is the person with a healthy lifestyle guaranteed a long life?  No, there’s always the chance they could roll a 1.  What about the person who lives an unhealthy lifestyle, are they guaranteed some disease?  No, they could easily roll 3, 4, 5 or 5 for the rest of their life.

However, given a choice between a dice roll where a 1 means you die and a dice roll where a 1 and a 2 means you die?  Which one do you pick?

The Statistics of Sexual Performance

Here’s another example for all you guys out there who think health doesn’t matter.  Every time you want to have sex, certain things have to occur within your body.  Blood needs to flow in order for you to be able to perform.  Improper blood flow means impotence.

So each time you want to have sex, you’re rolling a dice.  In order to avoid impotence, you need to roll a 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6.  However, extra layers of fat and a heart that’s completely out of shape are going to negatively impact your ability to perform.  So if you’re out of shape, you’re going to make your roll with a die that has the 6 replaced with an extra 1.

Sure, you might make that roll every single time and a healthy person might roll quite a few 1’s.  However, given a choice, which die would you like to roll with?  The one that has 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 on it or the one that has 1, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 on it?

Yes, Your Life Can Be Reduced To Simple Numbers

There are no guarantees in life, but there are a lot of statistics.  Not all of these statistics can be relied on and a lot of them can be interpreted in different ways.  However, what seems certain at this point is that a healthy lifestyle means your statistical chance of health issues ranging from cancer and heart disease to impotence and broken bones is reduced.  It’s not a 100% guarantee but it’s certainly worth while.

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Yes, healthy people can die and unhealthy people can live a long life.  However, on average, healthy people will have a healthier and longer life than unhealthy ones.  That’s why I choose to be healthy and that’s why you should too.

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Dec

3

Performance Improvement and Workouts

Filed Under Editorial, Exercise, Motivation | 1 Comment

Last week I published my workout spreadsheet. I had a few questions about it which I plan on answering later this week, but one theme seemed to be repeated again and again. Specifically, I saw multiple questions about performance improvement.

One reader noted that the improvement tracking portion of the spreadsheet was not complete. It was only set up to track section of the workout and the graph was set up for only one exercise. This is because I added this section to my spreadsheet workout just to show everyone how I used to do it. I no longer track my performance improvement overtime, so I actually removed this portion of my spreadsheet months ago. I added it back in because I thought it would be useful for people who are just starting out.

Why Not Track Performance?

For me, performance tracking is no longer needed for a number of reasons. First of all, I’ve reached a point in my workout routine where performance increases in either number of reps or weight are coming very slowly. Perhaps once a month I will increase the weight I am doing in a specific exercise, but I don’t really need a spreadsheet to tell me when to do this, I just do it when things become too easy.

Second, and this might be more controversial, I’m just not that interested in increasing performance these days. I’ve reached a level of fitness that I’m very happy with. I’m far stronger, faster and have more endurance than I ever did. I have no intention of becoming a professional athlete, so why do I need to spend a considerable amount of time and effort for some marginal improvements that won’t make much of a difference?

Isn’t Improvement What It’s All About?

This is where I think some people lose their way. Once they start working out it becomes all about breaking through the next hurdle and getting better, faster and stronger. For me, it’s not about any of these things. Working out to me is a way of being healthy and fit. I don’t have to do a whole set of bench presses with my own body weight to be fit. I don’t have to run a mile in under 4 minutes to consider myself healthy. I’ve made incredible progress since that day 4 years ago when I barely made it up one flight of stairs and I’m quite happy with where I am. If I do continue to improve, that’s great, but that’s not my goal at this point. Right now, I just want to be healthy, stay fit and enjoy my life.

Is That True For Everyone?

Unfortunately, that’s not true for everyone. If you’re just starting out or in very bad shape, then yes, you will want to monitor your performance and try to improve it. That’s why I added that section to my spreadsheet, because I consider that very important when you first start working out. At that point you’re really not as fit as you should be and you need to improve.

Do As I Say and Not As I Do?

No, this isn’t quite a case of me telling you to do as I say but not as I do. This is me telling you to do as I say and as I did. I tracked my performance for around three years before I got to a point where I was comfortable saying “I’m in great shape, I no longer need to strain every day in an effort to improve.”

Which Isn’t an excuse to slack off by the way. I still workout just as often and just as hard. I still eat healthy and try to stay in shape and if I notice something getting too easy, I do increase the difficulty. I just don’t focus on performance improvement as my top goal right now. Perhaps when I start training for the Hawaii marathon I signed up for, performance improvement will become a more important goal again, but for now, I’m perfectly happy where I am.

Summary

Self improvement is a very worthwhile goal to pursue. However, there’s a point at which the returns you get on your time invested will get lower and lower. That’s the point where you need to decide, “is this the primary goal in my life?” If it is, then by all means, keep working at it. If it’s not, perhaps you should just look at how to best maintain your current level and start looking at other ways to improve yourself. As for me, I’m happy with my current level of fitness. I’m healthy, in shape and a whole lot happier than I used to be.

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Nov

8

The Lemonade Diet

Filed Under Eating Healthy, Editorial, Weight Loss | 3 Comments

Someone recently asked me what my thoughts on the lemonade diet are. Well, my answer was “I have no clue, never even heard of it.” Still, they were a friend so I did some research.

We’re off to a bad start

The first site I found was a commercial one claiming to be the official site of the lemonade diet. The site promised a lot but delivered very little. It seemed to be setup mainly to sell you stuff, which is not a good sign. However, here’s what this site and a few others claimed the diet can do:

The iet consists of fasting to rid the body of toxins, created by improper diet, lack of exercise and negative mental attitudes. The purpose of the Lemonade Diet is to dissolve and eliminate toxins and congestion; to cleanse the kidneys and digestive system; to purify glands; to eliminate waste and hardened materials in the joints and muscles; to build a healthy bloodstream; to maintain optimal blood pressure; and to what you all are waiting to hear... to lose weight. As a reducing diet it is superior in every way, reducing fat at a rate of about two (2) pounds a day for most persons, without harmful side effects.

I don’t know about you, but anytime I hear a list of benefits like this, I get a bit suspicious.  So I dig a little deeper.

The plot thickens!

Turns out that the lemonade diet consists of the following:

  • Drink a lot of laxative tea
  • Drink a lot of saline wash (water and salt)
  • Drink a lot of lemonade

Are you kidding me?  This is your diet?

Wake up call

Yes, if all you consume is laxative tea, salt water and lemonade, you will lose weight.  Heck, you can reduce that to just drinking the lemonade and I bet you’ll still lose weight.  I just don’t see how this can possibly be beneficial.  None of the sites I found had any sort of science backing them.  They all just talked and talked about how this will “cleanse” and “reduce” and provided no real facts.  They also all tried to sell me something, which really tends to set off some alarm bells in my head.

Should you do the lemonade diet?

No, absolutely not.  Are you crazy?  Did you not just read the above paragraph?   I’ll be dead and insane before I even begin to think of a regimen of laxatives, salt water and lemonade as a healthy diet.  Hey, how about the heroin diet while you’re at it?  I hear heroin addicts are real thin!  I just don’t understand why people buy into these “insta solutions” without really looking at what they’re doing to their bodies.

You want a healthy lemonade diet?  Here’s one.  Eat healthy and balanced meals.  Exercise on a regular basis and drink some natural, unsweetened lemonade after your work out.  There you go, a healthy lemonade diet.  Of course, you could remove the lemonade and still have a healthy diet, but shush, no one needs to know that.  We’ll call that the “super duper 60 in 3 miracle lemonade diet.”  Maybe I could get Oprah to endorse it…

Summary

Stick to what you know works, healthy eating and plenty of physical activity, and stay away from “miracle” diets that promise the world and deliver only laxatives and overpriced maple syrup.

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Nov

5

REVIEW - Super Size Me

Filed Under Editorial, Nutrition, Review | 2 Comments

I watched Supersize Me last night. It’s an older movie (2004) but still very valid. For those unfamiliar with it, it’s the story of a man who decides to eat nothing but McDonald’s for 30 days. Each day, Morgan, the movie’s maker, eats McDonald’s for breakfast, lunch and dinner. His diet can include nothing that’s not on the McDonald’s menu and he has to go through every single item on the menu within the 30 days. He supersizes only if asked by the counter person. Morgan also changed his activity habits to reflect those of the average American. He didn’t exercise and only walked a half mile to a mile every day.

Professional Help

Morgan enlisted the help of a cardiologist, a hepatologist, a dietitian and a general practitioner to help track his health. They tested Morgan for a variety of things, including cholesterol, weight, heart pressure and general fitness. Throughout the 30 days, they update their findings and monitor Morgan’s health while reporting on the changes to his body.

Disclaimer

Before we go on, let’s have a moment of sanity. Most people do not eat McDonald’s three times a day. However, quite a few of us do eat junk food for most of our meals. Morgan’s 30 days may be a stunt, but they’re not that far off from many American and Western diets. Morgan rarely bought multiple items for a single meal, which many people do. Morgan did not binge on candy and soda between meals, which many people do. Morgan even had a few of the lower calorie options McDonald’s has, like fish or salads. Never mind the fact that many of these options are almost as bad as a Big Mac. So while Morgan’s 30 days are not exactly an accurate representation of the American Diet, I personally think he’s not that far off.

Results

As expected, Morgan’s health and body crash at an alarming pace. In 30 days he puts on more than 20lbs. His cholesterol levels shoot up to a dangerous level within two weeks and his doctor is warning him of permanent liver damage 20 days into the movie. I think we all could see this coming, but it is a bit frightening to see it happen at such a rapid pace.

Obvious Lessons Learned

  • Fast food is bad - The obvious one is that fast food, and McDonald’s specifically, is bad for you. I think we all knew that one already.
  • Calorie Counts - Listen carefully to what the dietitian is saying. Morgan’s diet of three McDonald’s meal deals per day provides him with 5000 calories. FIVE THOUSAND! I don’t think most people are aware of just how many calories are in those meals. If you’re going to have one, at least don’t drink those giant sodas and forego the fries.
  • Sodas - Again, most people don’t think about these but they come up again and again during the movie. At the end of the movie, the dietitian shows Morgan just how much sugar he had during those 30 days and it’s a scary sight. Most of it came from sodas. In fact, she even asks him repeatedly during the movie to stop drinking them.
  • Exercise Is Good - This movie is mostly about what we eat, but note that one of Morgan’s life changes for these 30 days is limited his activity level. Remember, it’s not just about your diet, it’s also about getting and keeping your body moving.

The Less Obvious Lessons

  • Parenting Tips - If you’re a parent, get involved in your child’s diet. They’re getting bombarded by advertisement at home, at the movies and even at school. Get their school to start offering healthier meals. Eliminate junk food from your family outings. There’s quite a bit of evidence that shows healthier eating means better test scores, less behavior problems and better long term health.
  • Political Issues - Yes, politics does enter into the picture. I dislike people who think the government should regulate everything. I believe in personal responsibility and allowing people to make their own decisions. However, at the moment, our government is doing all it can to make things easier for food companies, not us. Get involved. Educate yourself about the issue and drive towards change.
  • Fast Food Is Addictive - This is true of most bad food. Our bodies get addicted to it and make it very difficult for us to quit consuming it. Your body is quite literally addicted to the sugar, fat and caffiene in those fast food meals. Admit it and then do something about it. And don’t tell me you can stop anytime you want. If you could, why haven’t you? Get help, get a plan together, get whatever it is you need to but do something. You know you have a problem so start working on solving it.

I’d highly recommend this movie to anyone interested in health, diet and modern American culture. It should not be used as a scientific study, but it’s interesting nonetheless.

For more information on it, look here. If you wish to purchase it, here’s the Amazon link: Super Size Me

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Nov

2

5 Ways To Reduce Your Cancer Risk

Filed Under Editorial, Health, Healthy Habits | 6 Comments

I don’t usually like reposting information from other sites on 60 in 3. It seems lazy to me, like I’m stealing material from someone else and using it as my own. However, I recently read an article from Real Age and I felt like this was important enough to copy and link to on my own site.

Full Credit

Before I move on, let me give you the link back to Real Age since they’re the ones who deserve the credit for this article idea. I couldn’t figure out a way to link to the article itself, so here’s the link to their site. The authors of the site have put out several books on personal health which I have found to be tremendously useful. I reviewed one of them a few months ago and you can find the review here.

Personal History

My family has a history with cancer. I’ve watched loved ones battle with various forms of the disease and thankfully they’ve all come through it with their health relatively intact. The same cannot be said of the millions of families who lose loved ones to cancer and heart disease every year. So this topic has a lot of personal meaning to me.

That’s why, when I first read this headline on Real Age it piqued my interest. I really wanted to see what these methods were that could reduce the risk of cancer. I thought they were going to tell me about drug regimes, new vaccines or medical treatments. Instead, here’s what they had:

  1. Don’t smoke (a no-brainer).
  2. Limit red meat, alcohol, fat, and . . .
  3. Eat fruit, veggies, and whole grains — lots of them!
  4. Exercise regularly.
  5. Watch your weight.

At first I felt a bit cheated. Was this all there was? Then I understood. Yep, this is all it takes to significantly reduce your chance of cancer and heart disease. It’s not complicated, it’s not hard to understand, it’s just basic healthy guidelines that we all already know.

That’s why I felt like I should repost this. Anyone out there who’s struggled with cancer or who’s seen loved ones struggle with the disease knows what a horrible toll it takes on people. You know how brutal the treatment can be and how much it takes out of people. Even those who come through it with their lives and bodies intact live in fear of the day the cancer might come back.

So it seems important to me that we all recognize that these five simple changes to your life can make a huge difference. I’m not talking about making you look better or fit into those jeans, I’m talking about preventing you from going through one of the most painful and horrible experiences a person can go through and possibly dying.

Yes, even if you do adopt these changes, you may still get cancer. These are not a vaccine nor are they a cure. However, these five simple things will significantly reduce your chances of developing cancer or heart disease. Just as an example, every 1.7oz of processed meats you add to your daily diet adds 21% to your chance of colorectal cancer.

Remember this when you’re talking to other people about why health is important to you. Too often people look at healthy habits as something superficial, something we do just to look good. The truth is far deeper than that, and if you’re looking to convince someone to start living a healthier lifestyle “I love and want to spend many healthy years with you” works much better than “your ass is too big”.

Summary

Sometimes we lose sight of this. We think fitness and health is all about losing weight, looking good, being stronger and running faster, but the bottom line is healthy habit will quite literally keep you alive and improve the quality of your life.

Update

Quick addition to today’s post. Another article that discusses the link between cancer and eating healthy.

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