Category — General Musings

I don’t claim to be an expert about the slow eating movement, because I’m not. I’ve heard about it, seen occasional blog post titles about it, but I can’t say I know anything about it except that it probably has something to do with eating your food slowly.

I work at a start up company in Silicon Valley, and the people I work with are pretty quick at what they do. This of course mainly points to their quick thinking and doing their job extremely well. But it also has to do with them eating extremely fast. I have always been a fast eater, but I was in a whole new class. I’m not sure what it has to do with anything, perhaps a burning desire to return to their keyboards and compose code, or just an impatience about being around too many other people, I don’t know. But the amount of time it takes an engineer around here to clear a plate of, say, potato salad, is pretty impressive.

But for someone who is limiting their food intake to 1,200 calories per day, one wants to enjoy their food they’re eating when they have it. Since meals tend to be much smaller and lighter in nature, such as salad and perhaps a small portion of meat, if one is a fast eater, the amount of time to down your meal will be just a couple of minutes, perhaps a little slower if it contains a beverage. And if you’re eating dinner with someone else, showing impatience while watching your wife “slowly” finish her meal isn’t a good way to build up your relationship.

Just before writing this post, I made myself a tuna sandwich (two slices of wheat bread, one spoonful of tuna salad spread, mustard, lettuce, tomato and pickle) and a small glass of water to wash it down. I told myself that I would stop and enjoy each bit of that sandwich, something made easier reading the news off of my iPhone. Not only did I enjoy that tuna salad a whole lot more, I was able to actually compose a thought in my head thinking about what I was reading, thinking about family, long lost friends, you name it.  I also actually thought about how good that sandwich tasted.

I think you get my point. This doesn’t just go for people on a diet.  Slow down when eating your meal.  You’ll enjoy your food a whole lot more, and it will probably also help you not take those unnecessary snacks between meals.

Happy eating.

There’s a good article from CNN Health today for those that tend to binge on fatty foods, don’t get enough sleep and suffer from high amounts of stress. As I have written about before, as much as I stick to my routine of whatever calorie limit I have set for myself, it can be all too easy to cave into the temptation of a wonderful aroma or delicious looking food. In my experience, if my journal shows that I am well under my limit for the week, I allow myself to splurge a little bit and go over that daily limit, since at the end of the week I’ll still be under the overall limit. But it’s how I splurge is what is important. While I sometimes allow myself a hamburger and some fries, it’s important to constantly be aware of how I decide what to eat.

For example, if my co-workers decide to go to a burger joint for lunch, I obviously want to go along. My mind then begins to race on what I should order while I am there. A quick review of the actual ingredients is my first order of business, which usually includes a patty, hamburger bun, cheese, pickles, tomatoes, onions, lettuce and maybe some bacon. Taking out bacon and cheese from the order will reduce the calorie intake of that hamburger by up 130 calories, since bacon (50-60 calories) and cheese (60-70 calories) are very fatty foods, especially based on their actual physical size. The other large number of calories in that hamburger is the hamburger bun itself (around 120 calories). But what is a hamburger without the bun, and you certainly don’t want to make a scene eating a hamburger with a fork and knife and no bun. As long as you keep the raw vegetables for the rest of your hamburger, it’s not such a bad lunch. Hold off ordering the basket of fries and make do stealing a few from your co-workers and you’ll do just fine. Perhaps go for a walk after you get back to the office to burn off a few more calories to even out a little bit more. If you do all of that, you’ll feel that you dodged a bullet a little while still being able to hang out with your co-workers, if you like them, that is.

Some good tips for those who are looking for redemption after a calorie orgy:

Forgive yourself. “Having one overindulgent meal should not derail you from your healthful eating habits, while being too negative will make you more likely to throw up your hands in despair and overindulge at the next meal or several meals for days to come,” Elisa Zied, R.D., says.

Give yourself a do-over. Immediately start with lean protein, veggies, whole grains, and fruit, and drink plenty of water, Zied suggests.

Learn from it. Think about what triggered your overindulgence–not to punish yourself, but to choose smarter next time. “If you keep a food journal, you might see you ended up pigging out because you waited too long to eat,” Keri Gans, R.D., says.

Add on exercise. To feel in control again, simply tack on a few extra minutes to your regular walk, gym routine, etc. At the same time, “try not to think of exercise as a punishment for overindulging,” Zied says. If you do, you’ll grow to dread the gym

You can read the entire article here.

If only the aromas of a delicious barbecue were enough to quench the carnivorous desires of a hungry man. I just went to the Los Altos Farmers’ Market in downtown Los Altos, and the temptation to order a nice hunk of meat was all too strong. Had I not eaten that piece of pizza at lunch time perhaps I would have caved. But numbers are numbers, and I must obey the law of the Calorie Nazi. If only we could simply eat what our hearts told us to, there would be no need for a diet. But my brain says otherwise, as I know I’ll regret it later on, since a barbecue is a calorie’s delight.

I’ve been reading an interesting article in the New York Times Magazine this week titled “Are Your Friends Making You Fat?” It’s about a study on social relationships possibly serving as a contagion for various social behaviors such as smoking, drinking, happiness, depression and gaining or losing weight, just to name a few of the behaviors. One would think and assume that immediate friends and family have a direct impact on your behavior as well as you affecting theirs. But according to this study even friends of friends that you may not even know can be affected by your behavior as well.

In my situation, I wonder how my weight loss has affected those around me within the one to three degrees of separation that the study researches. I know that my older brother’s weight loss has had an impact on me as well as my younger brother’s weight problems weighing on me as I’ve seen him suffer some of its consequences over time. But I wonder if my weight loss has caused others to reevaluate their own situation. I can say that in my own work experience, the weight loss has been noticed and greatly admired by all those in my office. But I can’t say that it has exactly spurred those same people into action to want to do the same for themselves, even though they professed to want to do so. That would suggest to me that human will is the sole factor in embarking on such endeavors than simply watching the results of a co-worker’s weight loss in real time as I came into the office every day. I have no idea how their friends have reacted, because they may not have even said anything to them about it, or if they have, I’m sure it was in quick passing.

… co-workers did not seem to transmit happiness to one another, while personal friends did. But co-workers did transmit smoking habits; if a person at a small firm stopped smoking, his or her colleagues had a 34 percent better chance of quitting themselves. The difference is based in the nature of workplace relationships, Fowler contends. Smokers at work tend to cluster together outside the building; if one of them stops smoking, it reduces the conviviality of the experience. (If you’re the last smoker outside on a freezing afternoon, your behavior can seem completely ridiculous even to yourself.) But when it comes to happiness, Fowler said, “people are both cooperative and competitive at work. So when one person gets a raise, it might make him happy, but it’ll make other people jealous.”

I suppose then that if I were to ever fall off the wagon, I should expect larger and larger co-workers since negativity has a far greater effect than those that are positive.

Read the entire article at the New York Times.

When it comes down to it, whatever diet you choose, whether it’s a low fat, low sodium, low carbs or low whatever diet, there’s no avoiding the fact that you must always consider the number of calories you are putting into your system. If you eat foods that contain a high number of calories, you will gain weight. If you eat fewer calories than the daily recommended intake of 2,000 calories, you will more than likely lose weight. This is my diet in a nutshell.

Starting on January 1 of this year, I decided to start a diet. It’s a resolution I made in the past, but as a majority of Americans do, I failed. This time I can say I was a little more focused than in previous attempts, since in just 6 months I managed to lose 50 pounds. At the beginning of my diet, I weighed 208 pounds. When July 1st rolled around, I weighed in at 158 pounds, a weight I had not seen since the beginning of college over 20 years ago.

There were a few reasons I wanted to lose weight. My 20th anniversary high school reunion was coming up, and I wanted to go back in time as best I could (ironically, my old high school friends said I hardly changed a bit … if they only knew). The second reason was a more serious matter: my doctor said my bad cholesterol level was too high and I was at risk of heart disease, diabetes and other ailments.

For most people, the number of diets to choose from is long and complicated. There is Atkins, South Beach, Sugar Busters, Protein Power, the Zone Diet, Jenny Craig, Nutrisystem, the Sonoma Diet, the Paleo Diet, the Caveman Diet, Body Fat Solution, the Glycemic Impact Diet, Weight Watchers, The Master Cleanser, Detox, Metabolic Balance, Bridal Bootcamp, the Spectrum Diet, the Cabbage Soup Diet, the Cardio Free Diet, the Idiot Proof Diet, the Low Sodium Diet, the Oprah Diet, Slim Fast and so on and so on. I don’t deny that these diets work for some people, but the majority of those embarking on a diet eventually fail for a variety of reasons, chief among them simply being laziness. But for me the idea of paying a corporation to send me food and printed materials on a regular basis telling me how to lose weight just didn’t sound right for me. I wanted as natural an experience as possible, one where I could be more proactive and learn about the foods I was buying and eating. I wanted no processed foods, lots and lots of fruits and vegetables and smaller portions of meat.

As I will write about in future posts, I keep a daily diary of what I eat each and every day. Breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks are all recorded in my iPhone app Lose It! I remain completely honest with what I eat, even on days when I splurge and go over my limit (failure to do so would make the exercise a complete waste of time). I set a daily limit of calories per day (1,200 calories per day when wanting to lose 2 pounds a week, 1,500-1,750 when looking to maintain my weight with minimal loss of weight) mixed in with a weekly regimen of physical exercise. If on a particular day I eat more than 1,200 calories, I increase my exercise regimen to bring me under my daily calorie limit.  If I am under my daily limit, I reduce my exercise load.  The diet essentially becomes a numbers game, something that can be much easier to follow in real time than murky weight loss philosophies that are difficult to follow.

I end this post by showing you a picture of myself before and after the first 6 months of my diet: