Day 90 - Grow Younger Every Day Step 7: Diet Flexibility

Step 6 on my list of things to a happier, healthier life involves being a realist when it comes to dieting.

I absolutely think that if someone is looking to lose weight, they should be as absolutely strict as possible. Every single little indulgence can either slow your momentum or completely derail your efforts.

On the other hand, if you are an individual who lives a healthy lifestyle, maintains a healthy weight, and is physically active more days than not (I am one of these people), then I say have some 'junk' food every now and again.

I remember a while back when I heard Tony Horton mention his 90/10 plan. I have heard other health and fitness 'experts' use similar numbers, although I would even go as far as to say use an 80/20 plan.

What this means is that 80-90% of the time, you want to absolutely nail your diet. 80-90% of your daily/weekly/monthly calories should come from whole grains, fruits, vegetables, healthy fats, lean meats. The other 10-20% of your calories can be for junk foods. This is important to me for a few reasons.

First, having little treats here and there reminds me how important it is for the rest of my diet to be as clean and healthy as possible. If I was to have an entire 'junk day', I would physically feel like crap that day and probably the next as well. Whereas if I just have small treats here and there, they are essentially lost in the shuffle of eating so well for the rest of the day.

Secondly, by allowing myself to some junk food here and there, I never feel like I am deprived of certain foods that I love and therefore need to go on a bender because I crave them so badly. I am a sucker for homemade cookies, for example. Every once in a while, my wife will make a batch of cookies, but I always ask her to make half a batch. This way, we both enjoy a few cookies, but I would rather us share a half batch than to devour and entire batch of cookies between us!

Thirdly, let's face the facts here. There are times in life when you are in a situation of indulgence. Maybe there is cake at work for a coworkers birthday. Or maybe you have a big family and celebrate every birthday together with some sort of dessert (I do!). In these instances, I never want to feel like I have an elitist personality because I turn down dessert while others are scarfing down. No, I rarely ever care about what others think of me, but I also don't want to seem like I am sticking my nose up in the air because I have chose to skip dessert.

At the end of the day, I like to remember that there are many things to enjoy in life. Maybe your indulgence is a few glasses of wine after a hard week, or going to the local baker on Saturday morning for a fresh pastry. These little things are what makes life worth living at times. We are a very food-influenced species, we love our foods/treats. There is no reason why you can't indulge, just make sure you have your life under control and are being 'good' 90% of the time! Those little treats will keep you smiling!

Quote of the day:

"It isn't sufficient just to want - you've got to ask yourself what you are going to do to get the things you want."
~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

Day 81 - You Are What You Eat

We have all heard this term before, but don't think that everything you put in your mouth stays in your body and is digested. Just keep in mind, there are things that come out the other end - and that will be as far as I go with that!

When you eat your food, your teeth chew it up, then the juices in your stomach breaks things down further into a paste. This paste then travels through your intestines where the nutrients are absorbed through the spongy walls. For most people, however, 5-10% of this paste just keeps passing on through and is expelled as waste. 

For the most part, fat digests easily and passes through the intestinal walls quickly. Keep in mind that animal protein sources are absorbed better than plant-based sources. Then we come to carbs. Glucose and starchy carbs (i.e. chocolate, potatoes) are absorbed rapidly, whereas high-fiber carbs like in fruits, vegetables and grains take their sweet time passing through your system.

Not only that, but fiber seems to prevent your body from absorbing certain calories and can even lower cholesterol levels. Therefore, a specific amount of broccoli and chocolate may register as the same number of calories in a laboratory, but that does not mean that they act the same way in your body.

Studies have shown that individuals with high-fiber diets have close to 20% of their daily ingested calories move through their digestive system without being absorbed. Less calories this way can lead to less body fat!

Quote of the day:

"Happiness is more a state of health than of wealth."
-Frank Tyger

Day 37 - Is 'Junk Food' really cheaper than 'Healthy Food'?

Many of us have either heard someone say, or have used the phrase, "Healthy food costs more than junk food!" Well, I came across an interesting article that I came across on the USDA blog. Healthy Foods Not Necessarily More Expensive Than Less Healthy Ones. The authors of the blog discuss the differing techniques to compare prices of food.

My ERS colleague Elizabeth Frazao and I wanted to look at other price measures as a beginning point in answering the question of whether price is a hurdle to making wiser food choices.  We calculated price in three ways:  price per calorie, price per edible weight, and price per average amount eaten.  Price per edible weight is the price of the food after it is cooked, and the seeds, peels, skins, shells, and bones have been removed.  Price per average amount is the price of the average amount consumed by adults who reported their food consumption in a national survey.

Their findings were actually quite surprising:

We found that the price measure used has a large effect on which foods are more expensive.  If we use price per calorie, fruits and vegetables tend to be more expensive than less healthy foods.  In contrast, if we use price per edible weight or per average amount eaten, then grains, vegetables, fruits, and dairy foods are less expensive than most protein foods and less healthy foods.

This is not necessarily all that surprising (to some) if you actually think about this from a logical standpoint and understand the basic principles of the foods being studied. Vegetables and fruits are made primarily of water. Along with their water content, they contain large amounts of nutritionally beneficial stuff for our bodies - you know, vitamins and nutrients.

On the other hand, most protein sources, as well as what the authors are calling 'less healthy foods' tend to be very dense calorie-wise. This, unfortunately, does not always mean that those calories are most beneficial. What I mean is that just because something is high in calories does not make it nutritionally useful (duh!) and can otherwise be called 'empty calories'.

This topic can be viewed from a couple different perspectives. On one hand, you can appreciate the fact that for your dollars spent, 'healthy foods', although somewhat expensive at times, give you more bang for your buck nutritionally. Not only can their water and fiber content keep you feeling 'full' for longer periods of time, they provide your body with the vital minerals and nutrients that it craves with fewer calories.

On the other hand, some might argue that they would much rather pay more to get more, and in this case, they feel as though getting more calories for each dollar spent, is much more worthwhile.

I don't really understand the logic of some folks. They 'pay a little more' for luxury items like cell phone data plans, decadent coffees, fancy clothes, and other cosmetic material items that have little overall value, yet complain that they may have to pay a little more for an apple rather than an apple fritter.

Priorities I guess...

Quote of the day:

"Opportunities are like sunrises. If you wait too long, you miss them."
-Author Unknown