Eat less

I have a funny story but it’s not funny in the way that you’re probably thinking.

I went to the doctor for my annual physical Thursday morning and after all the tests, so far (finger’s crossed) the biggest problem is that I have slightly high blood pressure. We took my BP a couple of different times to make sure it wasn’t just “lab coat anxiety” and sure enough, the second reading was lower (138/96) but the doctor wants me to eat less sodium.

Personally, I’d also like to lose 8 pounds. Why 8? Because I weigh 208lbs and I like round numbers. Being serious for a minute, from what I’ve read weight loss (especially in my specific condition) is correlated strongly with a huge number of health benefits. Even a small shift, like 4% of my overall body weight, is fantastic for my body. I also think if I lost 8lbs I would be able to fit into one size smaller pants and I have a lot of brand new pants in that size sitting around here that I would love to start wearing! I also have an awesome blazer that I can’t wear comfortably right now. It’s like skin on bologna.

I already exercise at least 45 minutes every day and usually closer to 75 minutes. I am a bit limited in my exercise choices because I broke my back when I was in the Army in 1989 and in the 30 years since, I have developed degenerative disk. Worse, two years ago I had a major problem with sciatica. Under orders from my doctor (after an MRI revealed the level of damage to my disks in my lumbar) I had to quit all impact activities last year and haven’t been able to run (play soccer) or lift weights since. It took nearly a year of physical therapy to get to the point I’m at now but even walking too vigorously can lead to a flare up. I do calisthenics (pushups, etc) and have added stretching to my workouts. I think I will add cycling to work twice a week and a Sunday bike ride as well.

The point is that burning (more) calories through exercise isn’t much of an option for me. It’s going to have to be mostly about reducing intake. And there’s plenty of evidence out there that reducing intake is by far the best option anyway.

With an eye towards reduction, I’ve been actively trying to eat more fiber (and since someone will say it, more water as well) since the beginning of the year. I try to eat at least 30g of fiber every day (from whole food sources, not swirling some sawdust in a cup) and it is harder than you think. I haven’t been that diligent about counting my fiber grams but let me give you an example of what it takes to get to 30g of fiber in a day:

• Pear – 6g
• 1 cup of overnight oats (with soy milk and raisins) – 8g
• Banana – 4g
• Lil’ cutie tangerine – 2g
• 0.5 cup of cooked black beans – 7g
• Apple – 5g

The logic behind eating more fiber is simple: it’s really good for you, it’s really filling, and it gets me eating more fresh fruits and vegetables which means more micronutrients and better overall health. I’ve also cut out meat from my diet – except for a once-a-week meat meal. That puts me at about 95% vegetarian.

At the risk of sounding like I’m lecturing, I’ve always been skeptical of the exercise and diet industry. Both like to claim that we can lose weight by either “just eating the right foods” (in the case of the all-meat diets) or just exercising more. And they sell us these fantasies either through packaged meal plans or subscriptions to the gym.

This notion of endless consumption followed by hard work in the gym producing happiness and health is a huge part of the American fantasy. Exercise is good for us, without question, but working out for an hour so that you can indulge in a double-cheeseburger wrapped in lettuce instead of a bun is deeply amoral from my perspective.

Americans believe that we can consume our way to our goals. For example, “simplicity” is achieved by buying a magazine, with ads for all kinds of objects to buy which will simplify your life. Weight loss is achieved not by eating less but by consuming more, more meat – the most expensive, privileged, and planet-destroying diet imaginable. “Eat all you want!” but only if you eat nothing but this one thing.

In fact, most of these activities seem more geared toward signalling privilege and class rather than actual health outcomes. The Lulu Lemon store in the mall has an armed security guard at the door. Women on dating sites brag about “eating clean” and how often they hit the gym. Men are out there lifting wights and eating nothing but steamed chicken breast 18 times a day. And of course, there’s the whole “just go to the gym” thing: a lot of folks work for a living, some folks work more than one job, and the idea that they should just hit the gym for 2 hours every day is frankly absurd. It’s a huge sign of privilege to afford a gym membership for a family of 4 and to set aside the time for working out for 2+ hours a day.

Whew.. uhh sorry about all that. I clearly have some (dumb) ideas about heath and fitness and that whole industry.

The point here is that being the guy that I am – uhh, a guy who writes about soccer stats and an IT professional – I immediately decided that the best thing for me to do is to… create an “app” (Google forms) to count my calories, fiber, and sodium. I’m also going to write about this topic on here occasionally. If that bores you or you want to check out and not come back, I apologize in advance. But I have to be me and for better or worse, I am the kind of guy who writes about his life.

I can already say that I have found out some interesting things. The first is listed above, it’s kind of hard to eat a lot of fiber. The new thing is “holy fuck there’s a lot of sodium in everything!” I tried to be “good” yesterday and still ate 3500mg of sodium. So, it’s going to be a bit more hard work from me to get down to 2500 and then 1500mg per day. But I’ll be tracking my progress and reporting back here.

A few caveats to all of this. I know that I am privileged; I have time to make all my own bread, all my own beans, and almost everything from scratch. That takes a lot of time which I have because I have a regular ole 9-5 job that pays me very well and my daughter is a superhuman who pitches in a lot. I have a huge amount of compassion for folks who have to work 60+ hours to make ends meet and cannot possibly make bread from scratch to control their sodium intake. I’m not trying to tell you to live like me. Far from it.

I just think that all of this might be useful for my readers. I will probably highlight some of my (gross) recipes. Maybe you’ll take something away from this that helps improve your life? If not, then please feel free to ignore.

Oh and one last thing: what’s the funny part? The funny part of this is that as soon as anyone posts anything about healthy/diet/exercise the unsolicited advice FLOODS in. It’s actually funny to watch and completely predictable. It’s a lot like how there are all these know-nothing bloggers out there who try to tell professional coaches and football players how to play the game! LOL. I kid! It’s actually worse. If you’re going to tell someone to exercise more and go on a Paleo diet you should probably be their physician. If you’re not, maybe you should just say “good luck!” and let them do what they are going to do. You know, until they ask you for your advice.

Qq