Eating Numbers, Not Food

I urged my friend Elias to share his thoughts on some recent frustrations about eating healthfully. We had a gritty discussion about eating FOOD again.

Here’s his take:

My Feelings on Food Statistics

I have always considered myself to be generally health conscious. I have some bad habits, but my good ones balance them out. Luckily, my body tends to agree with me. This system of checks and balances with a dash of chance has gotten me through life without any serious issues that can be traced back to my lifestyle choices. However, I am turning 29 in a couple weeks and I feel my luck is running out. My father had trouble staying fit around my age. He has only recently gotten back on track by making significant changes to his diet and activity levels. I want to start now.

This week, I began tracking my food consumption and activity level with an app that my father and sister use to assist them in their pursuit of a sustained healthy lifestyle. I have been surprised about how quickly I have adopted it and look forward to the challenge of making it a part of my daily life. I am usually quite a skeptical fellow when it comes to changing my lifestyle. Naturally in the process of eating it all up, I found a few bones I have to pick with all of this “healthy” stuff. I will start with my Number 1 problem: Numbers.

I know it will get better. I have taken the first step by becoming aware of the numbers. I know I will eventually start to see the patterns. Even though I see them on every package I peel back to eat something, I have never really needed to know anything about these poly-mono-saturated-globulites before I started tracking my food consumption. Suddenly, I feel as if I am sitting in a high schooler’s desk failing a biology midterm, when I was just trying to make my life better. Yesterday while rushing to work, I caught myself in the precarious setting of a pizza shop trying to translate menu items into nutrition facts. My app was right there to tell me that it was the worst meal I have had since I started tracking. I know there is a big step missing there.

This morning, I, wanting to make up for my horrible consumption yesterday, concocted another joyful mixture of fruits and veggies in my wonderful and new tradition of My Morning Smoothie. My smoothie is very important to me because it was the first thing I saw as a portal to good health. I can pack in fruits, nutrients, and a even few veggies into one quick and easy, just-about-to-run-out-the-door meal. I have gotten very good at making a wide variety of smoothies over the past seven months. My bowels sing the praises of the increase in fiber and starting my day with a liquid meal kickstarted my day’s hydration. As you can deduce from what I have said so far, I haven’t had one all week and I was very excited to receive all the praise bound to be coming at me from my app once I logged all of the ingredients.

Halfway through humming through my purple solution, just as the level was getting well below the picture on my glass of Spock saying “Live Long and Prosper” (yes, I have gone that far with my love for my smoothie); my app shows me that I am already creeping over my limit for sugar today. What’s worse is that I could stop now, waste the smoothie, and not make that red number get bigger. There is not a lot that I have learned so far by using this app, but one thing is abundantly clear: I eat too much sugar. I thought that abstaining from soda would get me off the hook. It appears that story was too sweet to be true.

Nearly in tears over the betrayal coming from that slosh in Spock’s vessel, I texted Tara with a screenshot of the ingredients and nutrition facts. She identified the 2 cups of pulp-packed orange juice as the main culprit. I have added the extra pulp OJ to reach that perfect fluffy smoothie texture you usually only get with ice cream smoothies (the pulp teams up with the nearly green and frozen banana I put in there). Once the dust settled and I stopped thinking this was another earthy-crunchy conspiracy to drain all the joy from food, something became very clear. We discovered that I had begun eating numbers and stopped eating food.

Despite my stress-fully revealing experience this morning, I look forward to the makeup blending that will be happening tomorrow morning. By Tara’s recommendation, I am going back to using coconut milk as the primary liquid ingredient. After we talked about how the orange in the juice is not the problem (the problem is the sugar manufacturers add to make it marketable to Americans), I had the idea of adding a fresh orange to the smoothie. I am also going to go for a bike ride to make up for my sugary transgressions. Most importantly, I am going to be looking out for moments when the numbers about my food count more than the infinite rewards I will reap from a healthy lifestyle.

By Elias Bouquillon, guest blogger and Tara’s friend that will eat fruit & not drink it from now on.

Stressful times call for healthful eating

In this crazy westernized world we live in, stress abounds us at every corner. Some handle it better than others. Some handle it by using food as a way to cope. If those foods are unhealthy, our bodies end up taking the grunt. Eventually stress catches up on us, many times in the form of chronic disease brought about from years of slow accumulation of damage. As I write this post I am faced with an impending stressful situation myself – cramming for an upcoming exam, the single exam that cumulates my entire education. No pressure, right?

I’m learning to deal with the life’s pressures by focusing my energy towards health and wellness. I try to fuel my body and mind with the best foods possible. While studying, I directly feel the power of a wholesome meal in terms of longer attention span and focused concentration. I love food and cooking, so it is natural for me to use it to deal with stress. For example, instead of gobbling down packaged snacks (which adds guilt-stress) I choose to prepare a fresh meal, taking time and letting my mind wonder as I chop, stir, and mix up the ingredients. I use everyday cooking as therapy to release and reflect.

Because everyone is different, here are some other ways to reduce the stress in your life:

• exercise
• journaling
• meditation
• praying
• deep breathing
• healthy cooking
• music
• art

Foods to soothe the mind, packed with antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals!

• whole grains
• fresh fruit like oranges or berries
• dark leafy greens
• fatty fish like salmon
• nuts and seeds
• chamomile tea
• spices like turmeric
• dark chocolate

So the next time you feel out of control, take a deep breath and grab a wholesome snack.

By Liz Schneider, guest blogger.

Thoughts on The Heavy: A Mother, A Daughter, A Diet by Dara-Lynn Weiss

Dara-Lynn Weiss is a NYC mother who writes of her experience raising a young daughter with obesity. This intense memoir is a front seat personal navigation of the challenges that face anybody trying to lose weight. The added controversy of childhood obesity is perhaps captured best here:

I knew how universal this quagmire was, how uniquely helpless parents feel when they see themselves as having to choose between denying a child the joys of childhood or letting them barrel toward bad health.  

Read this book. At times you’ll be downright angry at what appears to be an uptight, overbearing control freak of a woman with a history of eating issues of her own. I was. But, perhaps she’s really on to something as she portrays a brutally honest view of the tenacity that must be consistently employed when making lifestyle changes necessary for ongoing weight loss and maintenance.

Losing weight is easy. Keeping it off is next to impossible unless you make defensive & mindful eating a priority. Actually, it has to be the #1 priority for many. In the end, I applaud Ms. Weiss. She did everything (sometimes too much) to protect her child from a statistically bleak health future. She put her foot down.

As with other tricky areas of parenting, there isn’t one right way for a parent to guide an overweight child. Support, knowledge, resources and education are all essential components but it seems to me that consistency is the key ingredient.

Childhood obesity is anything but cookie cutter.

Your thoughts?

By Tara

The power of taking a stand.

This post is comes to light from recent political events that involve food and nutrition: the passing of the farm bill by the House of Representatives – a version that purposely neglects the SNAP or “food stamps” section. Real-life hunger games anyone? Obviously the president will never sign such a bill; it’s simply the result of political drama. And for those who rely on food stamps, while they may be frustrated – it’s good to know that the program will run as usual regardless of this bill being passed. The bad news is that it weakens the program, making it more vulnerable to budget cuts in the future.

Leaving out the food stamp section is a blow to the face to millions of Americans including farmers. For me this whole ordeal is maddening. The farm bill is supposed to be the authority on food policy; it’s a blueprint of how we feed ourselves. How can we improve our food system if we waste all this time and energy in a political battle?

This is where public policy comes into play. One of the most important things I’ve learned in nutrition is the power of speaking up and advocating for what is right. Whether it be voicing your opinion in a lecture hall or climbing the stairs of the state house – being heard and taking a stand in something you believe in is powerful.  And it feels pretty awesome too!

As a nutrition student, it was easy to find opportunities to advocate. I could watch and learn from others how to make a strong case on a particular issue. But for many health and nutrition professionals, day-to-day life makes it difficult to (a) gain knowledge of the issues and (b) take that extra step to advocate. For all of you who have thought about getting involved in public policy in the past, now is the time to take the plunge.

Tips and resources needed to take a stand on food and nutrition related issues:

• Food Politics by Marion Nestle – a great blog and resource written by Marion Nestle, author of Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health. Marion provides real information in an easy-to-understand kind of way.
• Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) is the leading national nonprofit organization working to improve public policies and public-private partnerships to eradicate hunger and malnutrition in the United States.
• Action for Healthy Kids – a non-profit organization dedicated to improving children’s nutrition and physical activity by collaborating with stakeholders to advocate and promote school health initiatives. Check out the website to volunteer and inquire about legislative breakfasts at your state’s capitol!
• Eat Drink Politics – Michele Simon a public policy lawyer and author of Appetite for Profit: How the Food Industry Undermines Our Health and How to Fight Back. Michele writes about policy solutions to food industry and political dilemmas with the goal of improving public health.
• Center for Science in the Public Interest – CSPI’s goal is to educate the public and advocate government policies that are consistent with scientific. Make sure you sign up for their “nutrition action” newsletter to stay up-to-date on the latest nutrition and policy news.
• Public Policy Workshop – run by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics this workshop is for all you dietitians and dietetic interns out there. A 3-day intensive learning experience that culminates with “hill visits” to speak your mind and share your experiences with US legislators.

Empower yourself by learning about nutrition and food policy, then go out there and speak your mind!

By Liz Schneider

Review of the FitBit One

The FitBit One is a wearable fitness tracker that I’ve been using for about a month now and I love it. The FitBit One measures and tracks your daily calories burned, steps taken, distance traveled, stairs climbed, and even your sleep activity.

Reasons why I love the FitBit One:

• The small and sleek design. The FitBit is tiny and comes in a nice silicone case that can be clipped to clothing like jeans, sneakers, or even a bra.
• Long lasting charge. Even though the FitBit is worn all day long (and all night if tracking sleep) it only needs to be charged every week or two. It charges fast too (within a couple hours) via USB connection to your computer.
• All you have to do is wear it. FitBit connects via Bluetooth and uploads your usage data automatically to your own FitBit dashboard. Your data can be accessed online, on your smartphone, or even fitness apps like MyFitnessPal.
• Easy user interface. The FitBit dashboard produces straightforward charts and graphs to help you visualize patterns of your activity throughout the day and sleep throughout the night. You can also track food intake to compare energy in vs. energy out.
• Competing against family and friends. My family has FitBit and we are all connected online, each week we see who is “winning”. This sparks the competitive side in almost anyone.
• Way more than just a pedometer. I’ve never really thought twice about my sleep patterns but now I do. The FitBit One comes with a small soft wristband you can wear to bed. It measures the duration of your sleep, number of times you rustle, and how many times you were awakened. You can even program a silent alarm that gently vibrates to wake you up so your partner can stay sleeping.
• FitBit motivates. Digital messages pop up every so often like “Move It” or “Rock on” to encourage you to keep active. Also, a small digital flower grows according to your activity level. Nice touch.

It appears that the developers of the FitBit have thought of it all. FitBit One is a smart, sophisticated, and powerful little gadget. I love learning about my own fitness level and challenging myself and family to move more. With many other personal fitness trackers on the market these days, like Nike Fuel Band and JawBone Up – I am perfectly happy with my FitBit.

By Liz Schneider

The Forced Disconnect

As I write this, I have nothing.

No cell phone reception, no Internet access, no running water, no indoor bathroom and no sink to wash my hands.

I’ll have to post this when I return to civilization in a few days. The Internet will be waiting for me.

Stripped of ‘excess’, I feel like the happiest woman on earth. I love coming to our lakeside family cabin deep in the Adirondack Mountains where less is much more. We talk, we read, we play board games (yes, they still exist), we swim and we make  s’mores under a pitch black sky sparkling from stars that appear within our reach. I take long runs without navigation, hoping to get lost on a quiet dirt back road dotting the lake. I sleep long hours to the sound of rain dancing gracefully or angrily on our tin roof. My tense shoulders evaporate.

Sometimes it feels really damn good to disconnect. It’s the only way to connect.

By Tara

Growing your own food

Have you ever sunk your teeth into a freshly picked tomato right from your very own garden? If not, you’re missing out. Growing your own food offers many benefits such as delicious taste, cost savings, healthfulness, and the peace of mind by controlling your own growing conditions.

Don’t know where to begin? Start with tomatoes, peppers, or herbs – they are the most forgiving even for a novice gardener.  Try growing from seeds and watch your veggies sprout up from the soil or buy starter plants that have already been established. Ask your local gardening center for tips, they are the experts.

No land? No problem. Today, gardeners are using all kinds of places to grow food like containers, windowsills, rooftops, and balconies. Collect your own water with a rain barrel and create your own plant food by composting. Gardening opens the door to sustainability.

The more I grow my own food, the more I realize what it actually takes to get food onto the table. For me, gardening has become a gateway to leading a more healthy life. Growing foods in my backyard gives me the power to choose how I will fuel my body. Plus, it makes way for discovering new cuisines through cooking at home. Lastly, growing your own food is an excellent source of exercise. It takes perseverance but it is totally worth it.

Backyard gardens have the power to increase access to healthy foods for everyone. With the 4th of July approaching, why not tap into our American heritage and start planting some food this summer!

I hope this inspires you to plant your own edible garden – you’ll be rewarded with what good soil can provide if you just give it a seed.

By Liz Schneider