Weekly Update #2

The week started off bad with a major fail in observing the Sabbath. You would think doing nothing for twenty-four hours would be relatively easy, especially since a good chunk of the morning was spent at church. Instead, I couldn’t sit still for more than a few minutes. I worked around the house, wrote for this blog, went to the grocery and, in general, treated the designated time of Sabbath just like any other day.

What does it say about my life that I can’t take one day a week and relax? There was nothing that had to be done, yet I felt like I needed to be constantly moving and accomplishing something. The rule “I can do anything as long as it accomplishes nothing” got thrown out the window almost immediately.

As I moved into the work days things were going much smoother than the week before. I was eating enough calories, drinking my wine every night, getting my exercise in, etc. But by Wednesday, just as I predicted, the novelty of the new diet had worn off. My withdrawal from the sugar addiction had set in pretty hard and I was in a foul mood.

Wednesday evening I stopped by the grocery to pick up a few things and as I rolled the shopping cart through the bakery section I glanced over and saw the doughnuts. I shivered a bit and the Pavlov effect kicked in as my mouth filled with saliva.  I longed for boston cream, apple fritter and chocolate covered, cream filled goodness.

I paid for the groceries and drove home where I started chopping up the peppers for my veggie and bean quesadilla on whole wheat tortillas that I’d soon be eating without sour cream.

I began to curse everything and anything that had to do with this idiotic project I’d heaped on my own shoulders. I cursed Dan Buettner for giving his talk at TED that put this idea in my head. I cursed TED for inviting him to speak in the first place. I cursed myself. And I especially cursed all the vegetables I’ve been eating.

I just wanted a doughnut.

–

While I would have been hard pressed to find anything good about this project around the middle of the week, some really exciting things have started happening as a result of this new lifestyle.

Thursday night after dinner Candace, Conner, Max and I crowded around the counter to make some whole wheat bread from scratch. Candace showed us how to do everything while Conner helped me put all the ingredients together. It was such a fulfilling time and it’s becoming a regular event around the house. It’s amazing what happens when the television is turned off, the computer is powered down and the phone is on silent. You’re stuck having to spend time enjoying each others company instead of being endlessly distracted by useless stuff.

The frequency at which I forget to do things is going down as well. One evening this week Candace asked me if I had remembered to do a few things that needed to be done that day. I had done them all. This is an extremely weird thing for me. I’m the epitome of the absent minded professor yet this past week I’ve followed through on almost everything that I needed to get done.

A big part of this project is that it forces me to slow down and actually consider what I’m doing. I can’t mindlessly stop at whatever fast food establishment is close by. I can’t skip meals anymore because I have to eat the right amount of food at every meal to maintain my calorie intake without eating past 80% full. I have to think about when I’m going to exercise, spend time with my family and drink my glass of wine.

This is an incredibly satisfying feeling. Instead of being constantly controlled and jerked about by my food cravings, work stresses and distractions, I’m now making choices at every part of the day that I’m proud of. The shame of shoving a bunch of donuts down my throat in the grocery parking lot is gone. I feel good about how much I’m exercising. I feel like a good husband and father with how much time I’m spending with my family. So many things I always wanted to be a part of my life are being forced into it by this striving to live in perfect health.

If you had asked me half way through the week, I would have said I was ready to abandon the whole thing for some artery-clogging pastries. But as I step back and take notice of all the ramifications this project is having on my life, I’m seeing so many more good things that are making it worth it.

Photo by: gypsygirl09

Is sugar addicting? (this addict says yes)

It’s been almost two weeks since I’ve consumed any refined sugar. What little sugar I have consumed has been organic, in very small amounts and in food that tastes no where near as good as donuts, cake and Lucky Charms.

Addiction – ad·dic·tion – [uh-dik-shuhn] – Compulsive physiological and psychological need for a habit-forming substance

Sugar wasn’t a huge part of my three meals a day. I would regularly skip breakfast or lunch and would eat a decent dinner. My problem has always been the snacking. I could barely go to the grocery store without picking up a donut or three to eat in the car. If I was at a birthday party I would eat three slices of cake instead of one, always going for the edge pieces of course. If I bought a half gallon of ice cream it would be gone within a day or two. We’re talking zero self control. I would eat and eat until I got the sugar sweats and my stomach started to ache. I would joke it off but it’s obviously a serious problem. Why do I have to eat a whole bag of double stuffed Oreos in one sitting?

Because I’m addicted to sugar.

While there’s still some debate among the PhD’s about whether sugar addiction is real, I think there’s plenty of evidence to support it. (especially considering they’re still debating what the word “addiction” even means).

Back in the cave man days we learned to like sweet tastes because that’s how we figured out if those berries we found were going to kill us.

Bitter, dead. Sweet, live.

So we developed this appreciation of sweet foods to support our appreciation of living through the next meal. The problem is stuff that is overly sweet (like refined sugar) does weird things to our bodies. First off, it causes our brain to release dopamine. Dopamine plays a major role in the reward system of your brain. Basically it’s your body’s way of patting you on the head, telling you what you did was good and to keep it up. By the way, this is the same thing that happens if you take heroine or cocaine. One doctor in France did a study where he fed rats sugar and cocaine. After awhile he made the rats choose between the two. The rats picked the sugar.

Eating sugar tricks your brain into thinking it’s doing something good which makes you want to continue eating to keep the good feeling going.

Sounds like a “compulsive physiological and psychological need for a habit-forming substance” to me. And it gets worse.

Not only does overly sweet food effect our brain, but it kick starts a vicious cycle in our blood stream as well. Insulin is the hormone that helps maintain your blood sugar level. You’re probably already aware of insulin because of it’s association with diabetes. Those afflicted with type 1 diabetes get to inject a synthetic insulin into their belly on a regular basis because their body doesn’t produce an adequate amount of the hormone on it’s own. When we eat a bunch of sugar it spikes our blood sugar which kicks the body’s insulin production into high gear to bring the blood sugar levels back down to normal. Once our blood sugar is back to normal we start craving sugar again. And round and round we go.

So our ancestors just wanted to eat something that wouldn’t kill them and now our brain gives us a big thumbs up when we eat too much sugar. Time to check the box next to sugar as an addictive substance.

So it’s really not all my fault after all.

Manifesto Monday: Eat no meat (except for fish)

[The Okinawan's] consumption of dairy products and meat is nearly nonexistent. – Healthy at 100

As I read about the various Blue Zones around the world, there is a common thread when it comes to meat.  Eat little to none of it.  As Dan Buettner says in discussing the Sardinia diet:

Meat is a once-a-week celebration, not something you heap on your plate several times a day.

Everywhere I see it mentioned, meat is referred to as something you can have but only in moderation.  One suggestion was up to twice a week with a serving size no bigger than a deck of cards.  Seriously… what’s the point?  I’m thinking I can’t order an 1/8 pound hamburger in any local restaurant.

What about the protein?

This is the first question I’m always asked when I tell a carnivore that I’m not eating meat.  A quick Google reveals plenty of other sources of protein.  Many of which come highly recommended from the various cultures of longevity around the world:

• Peanuts and Almonds
• Soy beans, lintels, kidney beans, lima beans, split peas, etc
• Yogurt, ricotta cheese, etc

Why fish?

Besides it being another source of protein, fish contains Omega-3 Fatty Acids.  Yes, I know both “fat” and “acid” don’t usually show up on the recommended list of things to eat, but apparently it reduces the risk of cancer and cardiovascular disease while improving your immune function and brain health.

With eating too much fish there is a risk in consuming high levels of mercury.  However if I avoid certain varities and stick to fish not raised on a farm, it won’t be a problem.  Below are the FDA and EPA recommendations for pregnant women and since everybody seems to spend a lot of time keeping them healthy, I’m going to follow along as well:

• Do not eat Shark, Swordfish, King Mackerel, or Tilefish because they contain high levels or mercury.
• Eat up to 12 ounces (2 average meals) a week of a variety of fish and shellfish that are lower in mercury: shrimp, canned light tuna, salmon, Pollack, catfish. Another commonly eaten fish, albacore (“white”) tuna has more mercury than canned light tuna. So, when choosing your two meals of fish and shellfish, you may eat up to 6 ounces (one average meal) of albacore tuna per week.
• Check local advisories about the safety of fish caught by family and friends in your local lakes, rivers, and coastal areas. If no advice is available, eat up to 6 ounces (one average meal) per week of fish you catch from local waters, but don’t consume any other fish during that week.

Since any mention of meat comes with more warnings than encouragements and I can get the vitamins and protein in other places, I’ve decided to cut it out of the manifesto completely for this project.  Fish is still allowed as an extremely healthy alternative, but no cow, pig, chicken, squirrel or any other form of meat.

Weekly Update #1

This morning Candace and I decided to take the boys to an indoor play park. We knew we wouldn’t make it home in time for lunch so we decided to stop and pick up some food at a fast food restaurant. Since there are very few items on the menu that abide by the manifesto, I went for the side salad, opting for the honey mustard dressing, to hold me over until we returned home and I could eat something more substantial.

After the boys played for awhile, we sat down to eat and I pulled out my very small, very manifesto-abiding bowl of veggies. As I prepared to rip the dressing packet open, the one thing that made me okay with eating a side salad while the rest of my family enjoys hamburgers and french fries, I stop to check the ingredients, just to be sure. Then my eyes settle on the first ingredient on the list and my hopes sink: “high fructose corn syrup”

As I munched on my dry salad I began to realize… this is going to be hard.

—

I’ve done diets before.  South Beach, Atkins and vegetarian meal plans have all been a part of my life at one time or another so this first week of following the manifesto hasn’t been too painful.  Substitute almonds for ice cream and fruit smoothies for sausage McMuffins and I’m good to go.  But as with all diets, over the next couple of weeks I’ll grow weary of this and start pining for my old eating habits.  I see significant complaining ahead for Weekly Updates #3 and #4.

So I’ve dropped refined sugar and bleached flour from my diet, haven’t had a single soda or cheeseburger in over a week and am quickly burning through the vegetables that have been sitting in our freezer uneaten for months.  The other thing I’ve dropped from my diet is the amount of calories I’m consuming.  After a few days I started noticing that I was waking up refreshed but barely making it into bed at night out of extreme exhaustion.  I had a hunch that I wasn’t eating enough and after I began keeping track of my calories I found I was only consuming around 1200 a day.  Quite a bit less than the recommended 1800 to 2000 that I should be eating, especially with the additional exercise I’ve been doing.

Poor planning and laziness were the cause of my self-inflicted starvation.  There were several moments of hunger that I would skip since I had prepared nothing to eat.  Instead of taking two minutes to heat up some broccoli, I would drink some water and ignore my stomach’s soft pleas for food.

And therein lies a significant issue when switching from eating whatever is available to consuming only healthy, unprocessed foods.  Snacking requires actual thinking instead of staring into the fridge slack-jawed until I find something tasty.

What further exacerbated the problem was not planning ahead for the weekly grocery trip.  On Monday I declared my new perfect health diet and then made no significant changes to the grocery list.  So when I got hungry I didn’t have anything to eat and would just put off eating until later and try to forget about it.  Not exactly a well thought out plan.

And speaking of well thought out plans, my forgetfulness has been the bane of my existence as I try to stick to my new set of rules.  I’ve forgotten to exercise and frequently checked my email during my daily family time.  Old habits die hard.

Finally, after realizing I forgot to drink a glass of wine the night before (supposedly the easy rule), I decided I needed to do something a bit different.  On the advice of my incredibly wise wife, I started putting reminders into my calendar.  Now at 8pm every night my phone announces it’s time to eat some nuts and drink a glass of wine.  At noon my phone asks “Have you exercised yet?”.  And when I get home I turn off the computer and put the phone in a drawer to keep from absentmindedly checking in with GMail.

One thing I was hoping to report on were the results of my first physical.  The surprising issue I ran into here was how hard it is to find a doctor in my town that is accepting new patients.  After calling all of the recommended doctors in town and being turned away, it’s looking like I’ll be giving a second rate doctor a chance this week.  Hopefully have something of value to report here next week.

Fear of old age and why it’s a valid concern

“According to most studies, people’s number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two. Does that sound right? This means to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you’re better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.” – Jerry Seinfeld

My biggest fear in life is getting old.  After googling and reading a dozen “Top 10 fears” lists and not seeing anything about aging, it appears I’m alone in this.  In my mind it’s one of the scariest things we face.  It’s looming in the future for all of us and the stats aren’t pretty on the subject:

• As of 2007 there were 1,368,230 residents in certified nursing homes – that’s pushing 10% of people over 75
• 88% of those over 65 years of age have at least one chronic health condition
• Almost 20% of older Americans suffer from a mental disorder that is NOT part of normal aging
• 25% of the elderly have experienced cognitive decline (becoming senile)
• 20% of people over 65 have diabetes
• 20-25 percent of the elderly in nursing homes are clinically depressed
• Almost 60 percent of people age 70 and older experience some type of loneliness

There’s two things causing all of these statistics:

• Bad diet and lifestyle which causes the diseases
• Our culture’s dismissal and marginalization of the elderly which causes loneliness and high nursing home numbers

One bit from Healthy at 100 that stands out to me is the following:

Few of us realize that there are in fact societies of people who look forward to growing old, knowing they will be healthy, vital, and respected.

I wonder what that’s like…

“Teach Every Child About Food” – Jamie Oliver’s TED Talk

Just finished watching Jamie Oliver’s TED talk titled “Teach every child about food”.  Fascinating.  Here’s a few of my notes:

• 4 people in United States will die every 20 minutes because of the food we eat
• United States has the unhealthiest diet in the world
• Children are living 10 years less than their parents because of the food they eat
• 2/3 of Americans are overweight or obese
• We spend out lives fearing homocide while it’s one of the least likely ways to die.  The top two are killers in the United States are diet related.
• Smoking costs less than obesity
• Obesity takes up 10% of our health care costs and it’s set to double in the next 10 years
• Obesity hurts everyone
• The home is no longer the place to learn about food and it’s preparation
• Fast food and supermarkets are juggernauts in the food world and we let them teach our children
• In most schools, the food served is basically fast food.  Hamburgers, hot dogs, etc.  All processed.  French Fries are considered a vegetable.  (Not in the video, but I’ve also heard before that ketchup is considered a vegetable as well)
• The milk served in most schools has almost as much sugar as soda

Watch the video to see more and to hear how Jamie Oliver plans to solve this problem.

Pros and Cons of buying an iPhone

I’ve been considering the purchase of an iPhone since version one.  Even when Candace was thinking of buying me one, I told her to wait because I wasn’t decided.

Now that our AT&T contract is coming due soon, it’s time to make a final decision.  So in the spirit of doing something cliche, I’m going to make a pros and cons list.

I tried to be brutally honest with myself, so some of them are beyond lame.

I’m obviously leaning towards not buying the iPhone but I need your help.  What would you add to either list?

Why does religion increase life expectancy?

It’s pretty well documented that religious people live longer.  While some of them are a bit dated, there’s articles here, here and here that I found with two minutes of searching.

While this is obviously good news to me since religion has always played a role in my life, the interesting part comes when you consider why this is the case.  I’ve been mulling this over some lately, and here’s a few conclusions I’ve reached:

1. Limits your choices

Self imposed limiting of choices (which I would also lump religion in with as we choose to follow it) greatly reduces your stress levels.  To many choices clutter the mind.

AJ Jacobs, self-proflaimed agnostic and author of The Year of Living Biblically, talks about this in his interview with Tim Ferriss:

It was fascinating. I’d always loved freedom of choice. It’s why I went to a loosey-goosey liberal arts college with no core requirements. But this experiment was all about freedom FROM choice. Or at least a minimal-choice lifestyle.

By imposing a set of rules for how you live your life, you reduce the number of choices you have to make, which not only reduces your stress but frees your mind to focus on more important things.

2. Encourages you to calm down and be nice

Anger will kill you.

Love will heal you.

The “greatest commandment” is all about love and anger is frowned upon by most major religions.  If you follow the tenants of being content with what you have, not thinking too highly of yourself, considering other people at least as important of you, etc, it will reduce damaging contempt and anger and increase healthy love and kindness.

3. Allows you to unload responsibility

This goes along with what I wrote about separating effort and earning.

The belief that there is a greater power that is, in some way, in control of things is a very calming belief.  When you begin to live your life under this system it frees you to feel less like Atlas.

I see this in my 3 year old son.  When he knows that mom and dad are in control of things, it frees him to relax and enjoy his surroundings.  When the feeling of security disappears, everything immediately changes.  He becomes frantic and scared and wildly seeks the comfort of knowing that we are, once again, in control.

What does this mean to a non-religious person?  Maybe you should do some study of a religion’s basic tenants and start implementing them.  It will add a few more years to your lifespan and help you enjoy them a bit more along the way.

Instrospection: 5 things I learned from the flu

Candace and I decided our Sunday would be better spent dealing with the flu than enjoying more pleasant things like church, family and eating carbs.  Thanks to my wonderful in-laws, we didn’t have to care for the two little ones, so we spent the day sleeping (four hour nap) and watching CSI via Netflix (four episodes).

After sleeping off the worst headache of my life, I came to realize a few things about myself.

1. I am petrified of vomiting – Sure, nobody likes to throw up.  But, it truly destroys me.  I kick. I scream. I cry. I moan.  Not to mention, my body never wants to stop. I continue to heave long after I’m empty.  I will do anything to avoid vomiting.  I’d rather endure hours and hours of nausea than just give it up.
2. When I’m sick, I’m a wimp – I remember my dad’s generation when they were sick.  They’d do extra work just prove it couldn’t stop them.  “Walking pneumonia be damned, I’m gonna cut down five trees after working a 12 hour day.”  Not me.  When I’m sick I want to lay in bed and have Candace bring cold ice water with a straw and apple sauce in a small bowl.
3. I start to wonder what life was like when I wasn’t sick – Last night as I sat next to the toilet with a migraine that was teetering me close to #1, I was trying to remember what it was like when I didn’t have a headache.  Yes, if I thought rationally about it, I could recall a few moments, but there were times when I couldn’t remember.
4. I enjoy being sick with my wife – While I’d never wish the flu on anyone but my worst enemies, if Candace and I are both going to get sick, it’s nice to do it together.  With two small kids we don’t get a lot of down time together, so spending a whole day just lounging around was pretty nice.  Definitely the brightest spot in the day.
5. I love living close to family – While my parents are, sadly, eight hours away, Candace’s parents live just twenty minutes a way.  Having in-laws that instantly dropped their plans for the day to take care of our kids so we could relax and recover was wonderful.  I’m glad we weren’t stuck caring for them ourselves.

Reduce Stress by Separating Effort from Earning

In a recent TED talk entitled A different way to think about creative genius, Elizabeth Gilbert “shares the radical idea that, instead of the rare person ‘being’ a genius, all of us ‘have’ a genius.”

Back before the Renaissance, all of the great artists and thinkers were believed to have some sort of spirit that helped give them insight:

If your work was brilliant, couldn’t take all the credit for it. [...] If your work bombed, not entirely your fault.

This rings true with a recent personal struggle I’ve had of seperating the outcome of my work from the actual work itself.

Separating effort from earning.

Think through a few scenarios where assuming we’ve earned something causes problems:

• I’ve been at this company for 15 years, I deserved that promotion
• I’ve been schlepping at meaningless jobs for years trying to be an artist.  I’ve paid my dues.
• Why is that guy getting clients over me? I’m better than he is!

I’m sure you can come up with a few more.

However, if you begin to realize that your effort is far from the only thing that effects the outcome, the stress begins to melt away.  You’re relieved of a large portion of the responsibility and can therefore easily move on with the rest of your life.

You put in the effort but you don’t earn anything.

But you’re also not completely off the hook.

When I think of “effort” I think of the work you put into pushing an incredibily large boulder up a hill.

Kind of mindless.

However the definition of “effort” from dictionary.com is:

exertion of physical or mental power

The mental power here is what I want to focus on.

Your effort needs to be thought through, studied, focused and so on.  Merely pushing really hard against a brick wall isn’t good enough.

The kind of effort you put in matters.

My opinion seems to land on a kind of threshhold.  You have to put in the right kind of effort that will get you to a certain threshold of success and then from there it is no longer your responsibility.

Maybe the book you wrote was just as well researched and written, however it collects dust without ever getting a publishing deal.

Could be your ‘genius’ bombed.

My encouragement would be to do the sorts of things that will allow your ‘genius’ to act.  Put effort into becoming a conduit so when your creativity shows up, you’re ready to act instead of wasting all of your time watching TV.

Put the effort in, then detach yourself from the outcome.  You’ll live a longer more fulfilling life.