Those of you that know me even in passing have an acquaintance with my enthusiasm for snowboarding. I just can't get enough of it, and I get as much of it as I can.
This year, I went on a two week trip to Whistler, Canada. It's close to Vancouver, has gorgeous scenery and two beautiful mountains just ready for the shredding fun. That's how hip boarders refer to the activity of snowboarding: shredding. Go figure.
From a caloric perspective, snowboarding is an odd sport. If you put your body in position and go down as fast as you can, you barely consume calories. It's the slowing down and braking that makes you sweat - or the turning and twisting you'd do in trees and glades. So the more advanced you get, the less you burn.
Since I am a total geek, I ended up putting on a heart rate monitor and checking the caloric expenditure. I went up on the first lift at 8:30 and stayed until 3:30, for a total of seven hours, and I burned 2500 calories. That's like four brutal spin classes in a row, which makes snowboarding an excellent way of losing weight.
From a dietary perspective, Whistler is a good mountain. It offers the usual junk food that all snow resorts have, but there is a healthier selection, too. The big Asian community in Vancouver has left its culinary footprint in delicious noodle bowls and rice broths, and you can even get sushi on the mountain (not my thing, but really healthy).
With 2500 calories burned on exercise, though, your eating habits change. Suddenly, you have a hard time keeping up with your caloric needs. You end up eating everything in sight, especially after hours, since time on the mountain is precious.
It is no surprise that one of the most popular dishes in the lodges is poutine, a French-Canadian invention consisting of a soup bowl of French fries topped with cheese and gravy. There is more cholesterol in one serving than is needed to give half the population of Vancouver a heart attack, but the kids love it: salty and fatty, it replaces the electrolytes that smell up your clothes and gives you back the energy you just lost.
But that's not it for snowboarding! There are two more interesting facts of note:
1. Snowboarders are fit people, and typically young. So when you hang out on the mountain, all of a sudden everybody seems to be fit and young, motivating you to get in shape even more. I recall how odd it felt, after two weeks solid in the resort, to go to the airport in Vancouver and see the average population turn older and fatter. The distortion of perspective is just baffling!
2. Caloric expenditure over time is very odd: you go from the run, where you race down the mountain and spend all your energy to the lifts going back up. Typically, you board for about 15 to 30 minutes in one go, and then about as much to go back up again. You alternate sweaty periods with chilly ones, which feels really strange, especially on a cold day.
2009-02-16
2009-01-20
Recovering from Catastrophe
Ok, you've been good about your diet, have been following every step of the way, have seen your weight drop, have bought new clothes, and then - boom! - you've had a bad day. Suddenly, you find yourself eating 5000 calories, gorging on cookies and chips and chocolate and prime ribs. What do you do?
First of all: breathe slowly. It's not a tragedy. Even if on one day you bust your diet, you don't have to fear the worst. You may get set back for a while, but you are going to be fine if you just stick with the original diet. And don't even think about "making up for it." You shouldn't, or things are going to get a lot worse for you.
Next thing: analyze what led you to overindulge. Ask yourself how you got into a state where you overate, and what you can do to mitigate. This wondering is not easy, because you have to figure out two distinct possibilities:
My body learned the trick. It would keep quiet all day, waiting for the late day workout. When I'd come home, it knew it could get whatever it wanted, and it just started throwing me into fits of hunger and craving. I learned the hard way that the only way to stop the overindulging was to combine an empty pantry with a substantial snack on the way home.
The other option is that you fell into an old habit. Such old habits can come in the strangest forms, sometimes as simple as a celebration. You might be invited to a birthday, say, and just eat what you've always eaten at a birthday. How could you not?
It takes a ton of work to get over these habits, and the less frequent the event, the more likely you are going to fall back. Things are not made any better by the fact that other people fall into their habits, too. They will stack your plate with cake even when you ask them not to. They will offer seconds even if they know you shouldn't get any.
The only way to counteract habits is to create new ones. For instance, you could make a habit of bringing something nutritious to a birthday party - an apple, for instance. Eventually, people will get used to your weird new habit and will get over it.
Remember: the only effective way to get rid of a habit is to replace it with a different one!
First of all: breathe slowly. It's not a tragedy. Even if on one day you bust your diet, you don't have to fear the worst. You may get set back for a while, but you are going to be fine if you just stick with the original diet. And don't even think about "making up for it." You shouldn't, or things are going to get a lot worse for you.
Next thing: analyze what led you to overindulge. Ask yourself how you got into a state where you overate, and what you can do to mitigate. This wondering is not easy, because you have to figure out two distinct possibilities:
- your diet is too hard for you
- you got lured into habit
My body learned the trick. It would keep quiet all day, waiting for the late day workout. When I'd come home, it knew it could get whatever it wanted, and it just started throwing me into fits of hunger and craving. I learned the hard way that the only way to stop the overindulging was to combine an empty pantry with a substantial snack on the way home.
The other option is that you fell into an old habit. Such old habits can come in the strangest forms, sometimes as simple as a celebration. You might be invited to a birthday, say, and just eat what you've always eaten at a birthday. How could you not?
It takes a ton of work to get over these habits, and the less frequent the event, the more likely you are going to fall back. Things are not made any better by the fact that other people fall into their habits, too. They will stack your plate with cake even when you ask them not to. They will offer seconds even if they know you shouldn't get any.
The only way to counteract habits is to create new ones. For instance, you could make a habit of bringing something nutritious to a birthday party - an apple, for instance. Eventually, people will get used to your weird new habit and will get over it.
Remember: the only effective way to get rid of a habit is to replace it with a different one!
2009-01-19
Food and Mood
Most people change their eating habits based on the mood they are in. Many eat more when stressed, when they are bored, or when they have company. Some react the other way around, losing weight when stressing out or eating less when in a party. In general, feelings of euphoria make us less hungry, while less enthusiastic times see cravings and compulsive eating increase.
You can see this play out in a great many different places. Are you one of those that gain weight in the winter and shed it in the summer? Then your mood probably reacts to changes in the amount of sunlight you are getting. People whose mood is affected by the seasons have Seasonal Affective Disorder, something you should think about when considering a diet.
Many people have starter syndrome: they experience a sudden drop in weight in the first week of a diet, and then things go slowly. While that's mostly because the body can shed a few pounds easily, but then puts up a fight against any further reduction, a part of this behavior is readily explained by the sense of euphoria that comes with the start of a diet. As you plateau, the euphoria gives way to the diet blues, which in turn get the cravings started for good.
Another example is the sleepless circle. When you can't sleep at night, your mood tends to go down. You can manage fine during most of the day, but when it comes to the evening and night, you overeat to mask your tiredness. Eating food late, especially sugars and salts, worsens your sleep. You end up causing your own tiredness, and making it worse.
A reverse example of mood favoring weight loss is the exercise boost. When you exercise, you do three things at the same time: (1) you burn calories, (2) you increase your muscle mass and heart rate, both of which burn calories long after the workout, and (3) you cause your mood to improve, reducing cravings.
You can see this play out in a great many different places. Are you one of those that gain weight in the winter and shed it in the summer? Then your mood probably reacts to changes in the amount of sunlight you are getting. People whose mood is affected by the seasons have Seasonal Affective Disorder, something you should think about when considering a diet.
Many people have starter syndrome: they experience a sudden drop in weight in the first week of a diet, and then things go slowly. While that's mostly because the body can shed a few pounds easily, but then puts up a fight against any further reduction, a part of this behavior is readily explained by the sense of euphoria that comes with the start of a diet. As you plateau, the euphoria gives way to the diet blues, which in turn get the cravings started for good.
Another example is the sleepless circle. When you can't sleep at night, your mood tends to go down. You can manage fine during most of the day, but when it comes to the evening and night, you overeat to mask your tiredness. Eating food late, especially sugars and salts, worsens your sleep. You end up causing your own tiredness, and making it worse.
A reverse example of mood favoring weight loss is the exercise boost. When you exercise, you do three things at the same time: (1) you burn calories, (2) you increase your muscle mass and heart rate, both of which burn calories long after the workout, and (3) you cause your mood to improve, reducing cravings.
2009-01-15
Protein Bars
Have you ever gone to the supermarket on a Saturday afternoon? When the lines are long enough that you have no hope of getting out without having developed a serious craving by the time you get to see the candy bars?
Let's face it, it would be wonderful if we could always eat healthily. We should always have fresh, raw foods with us; foods rich in proteins, "good" carbohydrates, vitamins, and a good balance of minerals. Instead, we opt for the convenient, and that mostly means fats and sugars.
I learned to use protein bars as a convenient, but healthier alternative to candy bars when the craving strikes. I know some of them are billed as meal replacement, but a lunch consisting of a candy bar pretending to be healthy is not my thing. I'd rather have something cooked and reserve the protein bar for the treat segment of my eating day.
Selecting a protein bar has been tough for me. A great many of them taste terrible, are not healthy at all, and they all seem to be ridiculously expensive.
Taste
Frankly, I'd rather have a more expensive, less healthy protein bar if it just tastes good. That's probably mostly because in my case it replaces the candy bar or pastry I would have otherwise eaten - and if it doesn't match the quality of what it replaces, then it doesn't do me any good.
I've been trying dozens of different bars from lots of different places. I tend to prefer those that have a rich chocolatey coating, crunchy nuts on the outside, and caramel inside. In short, I want a healthy Snickers bar.
On that front, my clear winner is IIS Research's OhYeah! bar, chocolate & caramel. But I'll continue this thread as soon as I taste a new winner.
Nutritional Value
A protein bar is a work of science as well as of culinary art. It needs to pack plenty macronutrients in a balanced way, it needs to have a pleasant texture, it needs to have enough vitamins and minerals to supplement the rest of the crap you are eating.
Reading the labels of the bars is not amusing. The terms thrown out there can be quite puzzling and it's really hard to find the information you need and want in a quick and easy way.
From my perspective, the important things to consider are:
Total Calories
Given their status as snacks in my world, I prefer bars between 200 and 300 calories. Less than that and they keep me hungry. More than that and they are dangerously close to a meal.
There are plenty bars that are below or above my thresholds. 100 calorie bars are all the rage right now, but if my hunger can be stilled with 100 calories, I'd rather go for a piece of fruit (which contains water, which none of the bars do). You should really think about what the protein bar is going to do for you, what function it has in your nutrition, and choose it accordingly.
As an example, the ISS OhYeah! bar I mentioned above weighs in at a whopping 380 calories - but since I eat it only after a spinning class (burn rate: 600 calories) it's acceptable. I wouldn't eat it if I hadn't consumed a lot of energy before it.
Protein Calories
Many protein bars, especially the cheap ones, don't contain a lot of proteins. Ideally, you'd like the bars to have more than 30% of their calories from proteins. Balance bars favor a 30-40-30 ratio of protein, carbs, and fat calories - but I think that's too low, given you are likely to eat a protein bar after a workout.
To tell the number of calories from proteins, multiply the protein grams by 4. If your bar packs 26 grams of protein, that means 26 * 4 = 104 calories. That's the value for the OhYeah! bars, and compared to the 380 calories total, it's not a good deal.
Protein Source
Most protein bars source their proteins from soy or wheat. Animal proteins are much more expensive and hence not used for the most part. This has two side effects: (a) the ingredient lists sound like a biochemical manufacturing label, full of soy protein isolates and other unpalatable stuff, (b) the vegetarian protein mixes lack in a few essential amino acids that have to be either added back or are simply lacking in the bar. Check your labels to find out what's the case.
Sugar Amount
I have learned the hard way that common sugar (and all readily digested sugars, e.g. fructose) has a horrible side effect: it causes cravings. The theory goes that, since sugars are digested quickly, they immediately flood the blood-stream. The result is a "sugar high," followed by a "sugar crash" some time later.
That the language of sugar is not sweet but reminiscent of addiction is not coincidental, since sugar cravings are entirely analogous to withdrawal symptoms for any other drug. They come without rational explanation (e.g., you don't need to be hungry to feel them), they require immediate and compulsive satisfaction, and they tend to cause overindulgence.
I used to eat more than 100g of sugars per day, mostly hidden in pastries, cereals, and condiments (yes, check how much sugar there is in that salad dressing of yours!). At the end of the day, depending on my sugar status, the only way to get through the evening might be wolfing down a whole chocolate bar, or eating a half pound of M&Ms.
I am in an enlightened post-sugar world, now. I eat at most one pastry a day in the morning and avoid everything that smacks of readily digested carbohydrates (starches count). I avoid the pasta at Italian restaurants, leave the rice behind in Asian ones, and do without the sandwiches I love.
And for a protein bar, I would never ever touch anything that has more than 10g of sugar. It doesn't really matter how many calories the bar has, overall: if it has more than 10g of sugar, I get a high - which leads to a low.
Fiber
Many protein bars have additional fiber embedded in them. Some of them can be so rich in fiber, they can be a ready substitute for fiber supplements. Atkins Advantage, for instance, has 240 calorie bars with 10g of fiber. Considering that's about a third of my fiber allowance per day, that's a supremely good deal!
Let's face it, it would be wonderful if we could always eat healthily. We should always have fresh, raw foods with us; foods rich in proteins, "good" carbohydrates, vitamins, and a good balance of minerals. Instead, we opt for the convenient, and that mostly means fats and sugars.
I learned to use protein bars as a convenient, but healthier alternative to candy bars when the craving strikes. I know some of them are billed as meal replacement, but a lunch consisting of a candy bar pretending to be healthy is not my thing. I'd rather have something cooked and reserve the protein bar for the treat segment of my eating day.
Selecting a protein bar has been tough for me. A great many of them taste terrible, are not healthy at all, and they all seem to be ridiculously expensive.
Taste
Frankly, I'd rather have a more expensive, less healthy protein bar if it just tastes good. That's probably mostly because in my case it replaces the candy bar or pastry I would have otherwise eaten - and if it doesn't match the quality of what it replaces, then it doesn't do me any good.
I've been trying dozens of different bars from lots of different places. I tend to prefer those that have a rich chocolatey coating, crunchy nuts on the outside, and caramel inside. In short, I want a healthy Snickers bar.
On that front, my clear winner is IIS Research's OhYeah! bar, chocolate & caramel. But I'll continue this thread as soon as I taste a new winner.
Nutritional Value
A protein bar is a work of science as well as of culinary art. It needs to pack plenty macronutrients in a balanced way, it needs to have a pleasant texture, it needs to have enough vitamins and minerals to supplement the rest of the crap you are eating.
Reading the labels of the bars is not amusing. The terms thrown out there can be quite puzzling and it's really hard to find the information you need and want in a quick and easy way.
From my perspective, the important things to consider are:
- how many calories does the bar contain in total?
- how many of the calories are from proteins?
- what is the source of those proteins?
- how much sugar does the bar contain?
- does the bar have a sufficient amount of fiber?
Total Calories
Given their status as snacks in my world, I prefer bars between 200 and 300 calories. Less than that and they keep me hungry. More than that and they are dangerously close to a meal.
There are plenty bars that are below or above my thresholds. 100 calorie bars are all the rage right now, but if my hunger can be stilled with 100 calories, I'd rather go for a piece of fruit (which contains water, which none of the bars do). You should really think about what the protein bar is going to do for you, what function it has in your nutrition, and choose it accordingly.
As an example, the ISS OhYeah! bar I mentioned above weighs in at a whopping 380 calories - but since I eat it only after a spinning class (burn rate: 600 calories) it's acceptable. I wouldn't eat it if I hadn't consumed a lot of energy before it.
Protein Calories
Many protein bars, especially the cheap ones, don't contain a lot of proteins. Ideally, you'd like the bars to have more than 30% of their calories from proteins. Balance bars favor a 30-40-30 ratio of protein, carbs, and fat calories - but I think that's too low, given you are likely to eat a protein bar after a workout.
To tell the number of calories from proteins, multiply the protein grams by 4. If your bar packs 26 grams of protein, that means 26 * 4 = 104 calories. That's the value for the OhYeah! bars, and compared to the 380 calories total, it's not a good deal.
Protein Source
Most protein bars source their proteins from soy or wheat. Animal proteins are much more expensive and hence not used for the most part. This has two side effects: (a) the ingredient lists sound like a biochemical manufacturing label, full of soy protein isolates and other unpalatable stuff, (b) the vegetarian protein mixes lack in a few essential amino acids that have to be either added back or are simply lacking in the bar. Check your labels to find out what's the case.
Sugar Amount
I have learned the hard way that common sugar (and all readily digested sugars, e.g. fructose) has a horrible side effect: it causes cravings. The theory goes that, since sugars are digested quickly, they immediately flood the blood-stream. The result is a "sugar high," followed by a "sugar crash" some time later.
That the language of sugar is not sweet but reminiscent of addiction is not coincidental, since sugar cravings are entirely analogous to withdrawal symptoms for any other drug. They come without rational explanation (e.g., you don't need to be hungry to feel them), they require immediate and compulsive satisfaction, and they tend to cause overindulgence.
I used to eat more than 100g of sugars per day, mostly hidden in pastries, cereals, and condiments (yes, check how much sugar there is in that salad dressing of yours!). At the end of the day, depending on my sugar status, the only way to get through the evening might be wolfing down a whole chocolate bar, or eating a half pound of M&Ms.
I am in an enlightened post-sugar world, now. I eat at most one pastry a day in the morning and avoid everything that smacks of readily digested carbohydrates (starches count). I avoid the pasta at Italian restaurants, leave the rice behind in Asian ones, and do without the sandwiches I love.
And for a protein bar, I would never ever touch anything that has more than 10g of sugar. It doesn't really matter how many calories the bar has, overall: if it has more than 10g of sugar, I get a high - which leads to a low.
Fiber
Many protein bars have additional fiber embedded in them. Some of them can be so rich in fiber, they can be a ready substitute for fiber supplements. Atkins Advantage, for instance, has 240 calorie bars with 10g of fiber. Considering that's about a third of my fiber allowance per day, that's a supremely good deal!
2009-01-12
Calorie Counting - the Retrospective
On New Year's Eve 2007, the worst job of my life was over. I hadn't been there long, but pretty much everything that could go wrong had gone wrong, except the stuff where my team and I had control. Still, the stress nearly killed me and the ten extra pounds I gained were nothing compared to the solace provided by a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie at the end of a long day.
As the job was over I was looking for new ways to lose weight - healthier ways. All the diets I had been on so far had been clearly unhealthy and forced me to eat a particular food over and over. Admittedly, my most recent experience with a diet stemmed from the time I was fat - almost two decades ago, so I didn't quite know the newest fads.
I thought of the rational thing to do, and calorie counting seemed to be the best choice. You just determine a good amount of calories for the day, determine how many of them should come from each macronutrient, and then you adjust for extra workout.
Fortunately, in the era of the Internet, there are lots of sites that make it really easy to count calories online. The one I liked the best was caloriecount.about.com - free, with amazing features, and very reliable. The one feature it lacked that was a deal breaker was sharing of added foods, but we'll get to that later. After the deal broke, I chose a different site: myfitnesspal.com. It had fewer features, but added the critical one, so I stuck with it for a long while.
How does the day of a calorie counter look like? You can eat whatever you like, but you have to stay within the parameters you had chosen for yourself. You can have, say 2000 calories a day. These should be composed of x grams of fat, y grams of carbs, and z grams of proteins. You can additionally track fiber, sugar, water, etc.
You add the calories by selecting the quantity of the food you ate. If you ate a cup of almonds, you tell the application "1 cup almonds, raw," the site will add 800-odd calories. The problem arises when you have to add a food that is not in the database - if you are eating at Mom's, for instance, or if you are in a restaurant that doesn't spell out nutrients (hopefully a thing of the past).
The available tools seem to all have three options:
In addition to adding calories from food you consume, you can subtract calories for exercise you perform. If you have a heart rate monitor watch, then you can tell exactly how many calories you burned during an exercise session. Otherwise, you go by the calorie counts posted for various activities.
How did it work for me? At first, spectacularly well: in one month, I lost 5 pounds from my average weight, a sensational success for me. I looked leaner, more muscular, and my face looked smoother and happier. I slept better (but that was probably just the change of pace) and was overall in a better place.
Then, after a month, things leveled off. That was fine with me, since I had lost all the weight I wanted to lose and was in (for me) outstanding shape.
A little later, things started changing. There were more and more days when I'd pig out completely, especially at the end of the day. I was able to keep to my calorie counts all day, but in the evening, my body took everything back that it wanted. I ended up falling into the predictable seasonal pattern of weight gain in the fall.
The one thing that stood out about counting calories is how frequently I would have cravings for sugary stuff. Usually after a workout. Sometimes directly after it, sometimes the day after. And that's my problem with calorie counting: it focuses you on entirely wrong behaviors, for technical reasons.
First, the calories are counted towards a daily goal. If you miss your goal and eat too much, no problem. Tomorrow is another day. If you miss it by eating too little, though, your body will crave the extra calories, but the sites don't account for that. Additionally, if you have a particularly big workout in the evening of one day, you have to offset it by eating more after it - something that's really bad for you.
Of course, these are not hindrances to the diet itself, but problems with the tools you use. I would really want to see the following advanced features in all calorie-counting tools:
From a health perspective, there really is no downside. You don't have the headaches reported with other diets, since you are eating a balanced selection. The only real issue is fighting off cravings - and finding a tool that helps you reduce the risk of falling prey to them.
As the job was over I was looking for new ways to lose weight - healthier ways. All the diets I had been on so far had been clearly unhealthy and forced me to eat a particular food over and over. Admittedly, my most recent experience with a diet stemmed from the time I was fat - almost two decades ago, so I didn't quite know the newest fads.
I thought of the rational thing to do, and calorie counting seemed to be the best choice. You just determine a good amount of calories for the day, determine how many of them should come from each macronutrient, and then you adjust for extra workout.
Fortunately, in the era of the Internet, there are lots of sites that make it really easy to count calories online. The one I liked the best was caloriecount.about.com - free, with amazing features, and very reliable. The one feature it lacked that was a deal breaker was sharing of added foods, but we'll get to that later. After the deal broke, I chose a different site: myfitnesspal.com. It had fewer features, but added the critical one, so I stuck with it for a long while.
How does the day of a calorie counter look like? You can eat whatever you like, but you have to stay within the parameters you had chosen for yourself. You can have, say 2000 calories a day. These should be composed of x grams of fat, y grams of carbs, and z grams of proteins. You can additionally track fiber, sugar, water, etc.
You add the calories by selecting the quantity of the food you ate. If you ate a cup of almonds, you tell the application "1 cup almonds, raw," the site will add 800-odd calories. The problem arises when you have to add a food that is not in the database - if you are eating at Mom's, for instance, or if you are in a restaurant that doesn't spell out nutrients (hopefully a thing of the past).
The available tools seem to all have three options:
- choose a food or recipe from a list
- create your own recipe using existing foods
- create your own food
In addition to adding calories from food you consume, you can subtract calories for exercise you perform. If you have a heart rate monitor watch, then you can tell exactly how many calories you burned during an exercise session. Otherwise, you go by the calorie counts posted for various activities.
How did it work for me? At first, spectacularly well: in one month, I lost 5 pounds from my average weight, a sensational success for me. I looked leaner, more muscular, and my face looked smoother and happier. I slept better (but that was probably just the change of pace) and was overall in a better place.
Then, after a month, things leveled off. That was fine with me, since I had lost all the weight I wanted to lose and was in (for me) outstanding shape.
A little later, things started changing. There were more and more days when I'd pig out completely, especially at the end of the day. I was able to keep to my calorie counts all day, but in the evening, my body took everything back that it wanted. I ended up falling into the predictable seasonal pattern of weight gain in the fall.
The one thing that stood out about counting calories is how frequently I would have cravings for sugary stuff. Usually after a workout. Sometimes directly after it, sometimes the day after. And that's my problem with calorie counting: it focuses you on entirely wrong behaviors, for technical reasons.
First, the calories are counted towards a daily goal. If you miss your goal and eat too much, no problem. Tomorrow is another day. If you miss it by eating too little, though, your body will crave the extra calories, but the sites don't account for that. Additionally, if you have a particularly big workout in the evening of one day, you have to offset it by eating more after it - something that's really bad for you.
Of course, these are not hindrances to the diet itself, but problems with the tools you use. I would really want to see the following advanced features in all calorie-counting tools:
- new food sharing accompanied by a ranking by quality of entry; you should be able to share your newly entered food items with other people, other people should be able to combine duplicate entries and to vote on accuracy; inaccurate and duplicate entries should be removed
- calorie over- and underages should be carried over to the next day, at least partially; you should be able to say you want, say, 75% of today's excess carried over to tomorrow; there should be a cutoff to the excess calories you can carry over
- quality of food items and daily intake should be displayed; this is by far the best feature in the about.com site, and it gets you used to thinking of overall daily quality
- mobile input should be easy; you should be able to enter foods on the go from your cell phone
- food entering should take healthy eating habits into account; as it stands, most calorie counting sites allow you to enter "frequently eaten" foods more quickly, but that pushes you a little towards eating only a small variety of foods; healthy suggestions should accompany unhealthy foods
- the site should track progress towards the goal on a constant basis; you should see right away whether you are on track for the day's goal, or whether you have to slow down
From a health perspective, there really is no downside. You don't have the headaches reported with other diets, since you are eating a balanced selection. The only real issue is fighting off cravings - and finding a tool that helps you reduce the risk of falling prey to them.
2009-01-11
Low-Carb Diet
You know how some people have that horrible urge to actually do something about their New Year's Resolutions? Well, this year I was one of those annoying sticklers and I started on a low-carb diet. I had heard about them for a long while, but a life without carbs seemed hardly worth living.
A few weeks before Christmas, then, a friend who works for an Italian fitness magazine asked me about low-carb. Would I write an article about them? Italians were just starting to look into a pasta-less lifestyle and Atkins was becoming all the rage.
I spoke to a few friends, remembered the pain others had gone through, read about diets on Wikipedia. It all didn't ring true. They said things like, "it just works!" or, "I had no cravings at all!" The exclamation marks at the end of those statements, though, sounded hollow. What does it mean that it works? How can you do without a whole macronutrient and not have cravings?
I decided I had to try it out myself. I used the weeks before the New Year to gain a little weight (courtesy Caloric Christmas Crap from Trader Joe's, thank you!) and then threw myself into this crazy low-carb diet.
I was fully expecting that after day 2 or so, I would start crawling through the house to find errant M&Ms under the couch. Or that I would have to do without lunches and dinners with friends, because the sight of their bread and pasta would just do me in.
I know a thing or two about cravings. I can go on a diet and stick with it just fine if I must, but at some inelastic point, my body has enough and it rebels. If there are calorie bombs in the house, I'll eat all. If not, I will drive to the nearest open supermarket and use the credit card as my accomplice. On occasions, I have managed to eat over 6000 calories in one sitting.
Well, Day 2 comes, and I have no cravings. None at all. I look at the bread in the fridge, at the ice cream in the freezer, at the chocolate cookies in the pantry. Not interested. I look at the chicken breast in the pan, at the salads in the crisper. Yeah, but not right now, thanks.
Miraculously, this thing goes on. Day 3 is the same. Day 4 I start feeling hungry, but no cravings develop. This is a first in my life: I have associated hunger and cravings so much, I didn't really know they were two different things. For the uninitiated, here's how you tell one from the other:
It's not all coming up roses, though. So far, I saw two major downsides:
A few weeks before Christmas, then, a friend who works for an Italian fitness magazine asked me about low-carb. Would I write an article about them? Italians were just starting to look into a pasta-less lifestyle and Atkins was becoming all the rage.
I spoke to a few friends, remembered the pain others had gone through, read about diets on Wikipedia. It all didn't ring true. They said things like, "it just works!" or, "I had no cravings at all!" The exclamation marks at the end of those statements, though, sounded hollow. What does it mean that it works? How can you do without a whole macronutrient and not have cravings?
I decided I had to try it out myself. I used the weeks before the New Year to gain a little weight (courtesy Caloric Christmas Crap from Trader Joe's, thank you!) and then threw myself into this crazy low-carb diet.
I was fully expecting that after day 2 or so, I would start crawling through the house to find errant M&Ms under the couch. Or that I would have to do without lunches and dinners with friends, because the sight of their bread and pasta would just do me in.
I know a thing or two about cravings. I can go on a diet and stick with it just fine if I must, but at some inelastic point, my body has enough and it rebels. If there are calorie bombs in the house, I'll eat all. If not, I will drive to the nearest open supermarket and use the credit card as my accomplice. On occasions, I have managed to eat over 6000 calories in one sitting.
Well, Day 2 comes, and I have no cravings. None at all. I look at the bread in the fridge, at the ice cream in the freezer, at the chocolate cookies in the pantry. Not interested. I look at the chicken breast in the pan, at the salads in the crisper. Yeah, but not right now, thanks.
Miraculously, this thing goes on. Day 3 is the same. Day 4 I start feeling hungry, but no cravings develop. This is a first in my life: I have associated hunger and cravings so much, I didn't really know they were two different things. For the uninitiated, here's how you tell one from the other:
- hunger n. A general feeling of weakness caused by insufficient supply of nutrients. It is generally accompanied by queasiness of the stomach, possibly by growling of said. The body reacts to hunger by shutting down non-vital functions and by starting to break down its reserves.
- cravings n. pl. The absolute need to eat or drink something specific right then and there. Cravings are addictive behavior in that they urge irrational compensation: the body signal that something is desired is translated and amplified into an urge to overindulge
It's not all coming up roses, though. So far, I saw two major downsides:
- On the very first day, my bowels were aching. Somehow, each organ in my abdominal cavity in turn complained: the liver first, then the pancreas, the spleen, the intestines, the stomach... I am not sure that was good (but it was only temporary).
- After a few days or so, I noticed that I couldn't lift as I used to. I either had to reduce weights or reps. Instead of doing 50 push-ups per set I could do only 40, for instance. Instead of doing 20 pull-ups, I'd give up after 15. At first I thought it was just tiredness, but by now I think it's partially the body breaking down muscle mass to fuel its consumption.
Who Am I?
Hello! My name is Marco and I used to be a fat kid. Really. At age 19 and on a 5'9" frame, I weighed 240 lbs for a BMI of over 34. I was obese. The other kids made fun of me, girls would do anything not to be seen with me, adults looked disapprovingly.
Then I moved to go to college, fell in love, started eating more healthily, and lost it all. Seriously, within 6 months I had gotten rid of most of my excess fat. I underwent the probably most harmful diet since Fen-Phen, but at the end, the fat was gone.
Well, it wasn't really gone. To this day, I can gain 20 pounds in a single week if I don't watch it. So I had to learn how to manage my weight over the years. It helps that I am a very active person. It doesn't help that I have a sweet tooth.
This blog is about a regular guy and the lessons he learned in matters of weight management. I don't know it all, so bear with me once in a while. But I went through it, and I know your pain, and I've seen the light at the end of the tunnel.
Comments always welcome!
Then I moved to go to college, fell in love, started eating more healthily, and lost it all. Seriously, within 6 months I had gotten rid of most of my excess fat. I underwent the probably most harmful diet since Fen-Phen, but at the end, the fat was gone.
Well, it wasn't really gone. To this day, I can gain 20 pounds in a single week if I don't watch it. So I had to learn how to manage my weight over the years. It helps that I am a very active person. It doesn't help that I have a sweet tooth.
This blog is about a regular guy and the lessons he learned in matters of weight management. I don't know it all, so bear with me once in a while. But I went through it, and I know your pain, and I've seen the light at the end of the tunnel.
Comments always welcome!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
