Today, I'm Coming Out of the Closet

Oh Ricky. I just can't quit you.

Well, my inner gay man is coming out. I keep him hidden, because he's a little embarrassing.

I take some pride on reading good books and serious magazines. I follow independent food blogs to learn about supper clubs and artisanal popsicles. I keep abreast of fashion trends, even if I can't afford to follow them, and I prefer the small indie theater to the big multiplex.

But man oh man, my inner gay man (let's call him Lance) just insists on some good, cotton candy, fluffy, worthless, total junk food music, especially for running.

The Results Are In! Paleo Week 1 Review

From cartoonstock.com

I was talking to a friend about this blog this weekend, and about FitBit and all of the tracking and measuring I'm doing. He summarized it as "data-driven decision making", which is exactly right. 

So, it's time to review the data from Week 1 of Paleo. Care to join me as I geek out?

Week 4 Round-Up

It's crazy to me that this blog is old enough to have traditions, so it's with great relish that I am going to break with the "traditional" format of my weekly round-up.

Instead of talking about a bunch of articles from this week (and there were a number of good ones) I want to focus on just one.

Scientific American, which is a real, legit news source in my book (sorry, Shape) ran a story this week in which the author looked at the rules of the Paleo Diet-type diets (also called primal eating, or ancestral) and compared them to what is really known about what people ate in the Paleolithic era.

This could not be more dead-on what this blog is about, so I'm going to devote the whole post to talking about it.

The Meat Sweats

Yesterday morning, I went for my usual little 3 mile run, and I felt absolutely, truly terrible the whole time.

I woke up tired- which is a super awesome feeling, by the way. Just love that one.

There's no mystery to it though- it's been a big week at work, so I've been working like crazy and staying up late.

On days like that, when it's so hard to get up, I make a little deal with myself. If I just get up and dressed and run for 10 minutes, if I'm still totally miserable, I can come home.

I have run a lot of really miserable miles in my life, and I have never come as close to quitting and heading home as I did yesterday. The only thing that kept me going was the fact that it was a gorgeous morning, and we're headed for another heatwave- there won't be another nice run day this week.

When I finally dragged myself home, I had a terribly sour stomach and a headache, and I felt awful all morning. When I pulled that damn casserole out of the fridge to pack it up for breakfast, I almost lost it.


I was officially suffering from the dreaded Meat Sweats. 

You Can't Food Shame the Shameless

Me too, buddy. Me too. 

You know, dieting is a lot of work. I spent 5 hours on Sunday grocery shopping and prepping our food for the week- cooking Chorizo and Sweet Potato casserole, grilling chicken sausage, hard-boiling eggs, washing and chopping veggies and fruit for salad and snacks.

And then Monday morning (Day 1), I remembered that I had planned to go to a book signing with a friend during lunch, and so I didn't bring any of the food I'd meticulously prepared the night before.

I went to work, heated up my casserole surprise, and opened up my calendar for the day to find...that the book signing is next Monday, which meant that I was now without lunch plans OR my Paleo lunch. Sigh.

Ode to Chorizo

Mise en place des hommes des cavernes

Pre-Paleo Diet, my typical weekday breakfast was either Kashi cereal with fruit and yogurt, or oatmeal- both a veritable Paleo catastrophe.

On the weekends we typically make scrambled eggs on at least one morning, but we barely get ourselves out the door with our pants on during the week. I shudder to think what might occur if we threw cooking into the mix.

Let the Games Begin

Thas a whole lotta meat.

First up, the meatathalon!

So it's FINALLY time to actually start the Paleo Diet and...what? You doubted me, didn't you? I am hurt.

Ron and I braved the P Street Whole Foods on Sunday afternoon and stocked up. I think the guy at the meat counter was a little weirded out- it's awkward to have to keep asking a stranger for little more of that sweet, spicy sausage- but I have a feeling we are going to be gooood friends by the end of this. 

Week 3 Round-Up

Week 3: July 13-19

Week 3 done! Each day seems so long but each week is so short.

I am ready to start Paleo next week- I'm looking forward to starting the Experiment fo' realz. I am looking forward to eat salmon steaks for breakfast, testing out new recipes, and losing a little weight. I'm looking forward to reporting on some results, too.

The Fitbit has been a great success- it's already given me some interesting insight, and it's motivational. I'll do a full report when I have a little more experience with it, but so far, I love it.

A lovely weekend to everyone!

Top Story of the Week

The article: Weekends in the Kitchen with My Fat Dad. Dawn Lerman, NYT, July 19, 2012.

What it says: The author has written a series of articles about growing up with a morbidly obese father. She spends a couple of weeks with him at a weight loss spa, and taught herself to cook as a way to deal with her fear and conflicting feelings about him.

Why it's interesting: Lerman explores the impact of growing up with her father's self-destructive behavior, her family's unhealthy food habits, and establishing a healthy relationship with food for herself. It's a really interesting discussion of how our families impact the way we see ourselves and our world, and about learning from your history and using it as a tool to set your own path, rather than allowing it to trap you. 

To Meat, or Not to Meat

From washingtonpost.com

Did you know pigs wiggle and wag their tails like dogs when they're happy? This horrifying detail was mentioned in the first of a series of 3 articles in the Washington Post, about a couple in the DC area who is planning to raise, and then slaughter and eat, 3 piglets.

In the article, the woman who is raising the pigs describes getting their living area ready and then picking them out and bringing them home. She describes naming them and worrying about their well-being- clearly, this woman is taking good care of her pigs. The little piglet in the picture above is in fat piglet heaven- until November, when he will be divested of his mortal coil so that it might be turned into a delicious pork chop.

Comparing Apples to...Rib Roast

As I'm gearing up for this project, I thought it might be helpful to review the different diets' rules and restrictions, to make the comparison between them a little more straightforward. The table below lays out the 6 different diets I'm planning to test out, and their basic rules about various food categories. 

I didn't include fruits or vegetables as a category because consumption of these food groups is almost totally unrestricted in all of these diets. Some of the low-carb diets, like Paleo, caution against eating too much fruit, and dried fruit is meant to be limited, but otherwise, you're free to go to town. No one ever got fat eating too many carrots.

One caveat here: I haven't researched all of these diets in detail yet, so some may be off. If you see something that needs to be changed, please let me know and I'll fix it.

Diet Comparison Chart

These diets share some similarities- the chart below makes that a little easier to see. The green boxes show food categories that the diet doesn't restrict at all, yellow boxes show food categories that a diet allows with conditions, and the red boxes indicate food categories that the diet rules out entirely. Verbotin!

He's Jewish like Olive Garden is Italian

Book Review: "Drop Dead Healthy" by A.J. Jacobs

 

My Jewish guilt wants me to make clear that "Jewish like Olive Garden is Italian" is not my line- it belongs to A.J. Jacobs, the very funny, nebbish-y, Woody Allen-y author of Drop Dead Healthy.

He is an editor at large for Esquire, and previously wrote two fairly well-known books: The Know It All, about improving his mind by reading the entire encyclopedia, and The Year of Living Biblically, about improving his spirit by following all of the biblical tenets for a year. This book is the last in the series, and focuses on improving his body.

Next Monday: Always the Best Day to Start a Diet

On Friday, I said that I was going to start the Paleo Diet today. 

However, it has come to my attention that years of rigorous scientific research have irrefutably demonstrated that the best time to start a new diet is always next Monday.

Kidding, kidding. (Mostly).

Actually, what came to my attention was something called the FitBit.

Week 2 Round-up

Ouch.

Mike Luckovich, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Week 2: July 6- 12

Done with Week 2! Below, I've posted the best of the news of the week. If you know of anything I missed or any sites I should be checking regularly, please let me know.

Next week, I'll launch Phase 1 of the experiment and kick off my Paleo Diet. I am excited to actually get started- I have to speed read through Cordain's Paleo Diet book so I can a) figure out exactly what I'm going to be eating and b) report to you what I think of it. Until then... happy weekend!


Top Story of the Week
The article: In Dieting, Magic Isn't a Substitute for Science. Gina Kolata, NYTimes, July 9, 2012.

From Chicago-Hearald-Tribune

What is says: The article profiles an interview with an obesity researcher, Dr. Jules Hirsch, responding to a recent JAMA study which showed that, "after losing weight, people on a high-fat, high-protein diet burned more calories than those eating more carbohydrates."

Dr. Hirsch spends the rest of the article poking various holes in the study, including the fact that there were only 21 participants- not nearly large enough to draw conclusions. He also brings up what I think is essentially the Law of the Conservation of Energy, or at least the dieter's equivalent of it. The Law of Conservation of Energy is a physics principle which states that matter (i.e. energy, i.e. calories) can neither be created nor destroyed. That is, calories going into a system (your body) will always equal calories leaving the system. Therefore, it doesn't matter what form you eat your calories in, you're not going to get rid of extra calories (ie, stored fat) without creating a calorie deficit by burning more calories than you put into your system, either by reducing your calorie intake, or increasing your energy output through activity, or a combination of the two.

Why it's interesting: The question of whether a calorie is just a calorie is really the key issue for every single diet. On one hand, I took physics; I understand the principle and, you know, I'm not really ready to take on whatever genius came up with it. On the other hand, I can't quite believe that my body will really react to 250 calories of Doritos in the same way it might react to 250 calories of blueberries. That's what this blog's about- finding out for myself! One other note: Loren Cordain, who wrote the Paleo Diet book, would argue that a high-fat, high-protein diet like what was studied in the JAMA article is TERRIBLE for you. Paleo is a VERY high protein, moderate fat, low carb diet, and he would argue that that is a significant difference.

Bonus:  Someone suggested on Twitter yesterday that the staff at NYT must wander around with "If you like Gina Ko-la-ta, getting caught in the rain..." stuck in their heads. Ha! That must kill them.

A Word about Motivation

In most areas of my life, I am a highly motivated person. When I really, truly want something, I go after it, hard.

In grad school, when the rest of my classmates were building pit latrines in Africa, I wrote the Department of Health in Hawaii, told them I was coming and to please find a job for me, and showed up on their doorstep a few weeks later for a paid internship in paradise.
  

He's sorry you missed it too.

Image by Chevron McIntyre

Sidenote: Most international development experts will not respect this as "field experience". This is because they are sad and bitter that they spent their youth building pit latrines instead of drinking Mai Tais all night and watching the sun rise over the Pacific with hot Australian surfers.

Exercise and Weight Loss

Yesterday, I talked about how important running is to me, for my physical, spiritual and mental health.

However, for weight loss, even running is not enough. It is necessary, but not sufficient on its own. I've learned this through some seriously painful trial and error.

On the upside, I didn't poop my pants.

Image from blog.opentable.com/tag/tori-tsu

I trained for and completed the 2008 Marine Corps Marathon while about 20 lbs overweight. My sweet husband Ron jumped in to run with me at mile 18, to try to encourage me on. "You can do it, babe!" he cheered, just as I was hitting the wall. I couldn't even reply- I was just holding it together. "Babe?" he asked, concerned that perhaps I was experiencing some sort of exhaustion-induced deafness. "Don't be so nice to me right now," I croaked through a tear-tightened throat. "I can't handle it."

Running is My Religion

     Forrest Gump, Patron Saint in the 

Church of Runnin' Fools

Not really. I'm Jewish.

But I love to run.

I recognize this will make me somewhat suspect to a large number of people, and I recognize that running can be the absolute worst. If you're not in shape, or if it's too hot, or if you didn't drink enough water yesterday or drank too much wine last night, or if it's too hilly, or not hilly enough, or you ate too much dairy at lunch or WHATEVER, it can be absolutely awful.

It's really hard to write about what's great about running. One of my favorite authors, Haruki Murakami, gave it a go with, "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running." And it's good. Really.

But it still doesn't quite capture it for me, which makes me fairly certain that it can't be written about well. I suspect it's because it's just something that's too intensely personal, and that each person's experience with it is unique to them.

Ironman Cozumel 2011

Hi! We're about to become Ironmen! Yay us!

This week, I'm going to talk a lot about exercise and how it fits into my overall health. In planning things out, I realized that the topic of completing the Ironman triathlon with my husband Ron last year is going to come up repeatedly.


Honestly, I'm pretty proud of this achievement- I can work it into just about any conversation.


Example:
Them: "Did you hear Kim Jong Il died? They're installing his son as the new dictator."
Me: "Oh, that's really sad. You know what else is sad? When my toenails all turned black and blue after I finished the Ironman." 

Week 1 Round-Up

This is neither Gary Taubes
nor Mark Bittman. Getty Images.

A quick run-through of relevant news items from the week- I'll keep a running tab of all of these on the "In the News" page, too.

Would love suggestions for other good sources for health news- please tell me in the comments if you know of one.

July 5, 2012
Chinese athletes are suffering from meat withdrawal. Or is it the lead they're missing? NPR.

July 4, 2012
Eat a hot dog! It's what Thomas Jefferson would want. Also, you know what will kill you way faster than your diet? Shooting fireworks out of your butt.

July 3, 2012
This lady can eat whatever she wants and she's got great skin too. Feel free to shake a fist. Washington Post.

Ooh, gurl, you betta werk!

The point of this experiment is figure which diet works best for me. But how to define what "works best"? I need a set of criteria to use to measure the diets against each other.


The whole blog will serve as a review of how following a particular diet makes me feel, whether or not it impacts my workouts, my skin, or my weight. 


In addition to that, though, I want to try to capture how liveable the diet is. I am only going to try each of them for a month or two; could I actually see myself working this diet into my life? These measures might change as the project goes on, but it's a start. 


Except...all of these measure how easy I find the diet to live with...Maybe I need to ask Ron to measure how easy he finds me to live with while I'm testing things out? 

The Experiment (n=1)

I love food- pretty much all of it. I love to cook, especially with my husband Ron. I love to entertain. We subscribe to Bon Appetit, Saveur, and Cook's Illustrated, and read blogs like The Kitchn, to find delicious new recipes to wow our friends when we have them over for brunch or dinner on the weekends. When we travel to a new place, we plan our trip around awesome restaurants or unique local cuisine.

I spend a lot of time thinking about how to make delicious food that's healthy, too. But recently, I've been feeling inundated with conflicting information about how to be healthy- eat less meat but more protein, less gluten but more fiber, less dairy but more yogurt, etc.