Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

9 Jul

There’s an App for That

Posted by hlward in Uncategorized. Tagged: , , .

Apologies to the Apple marketing team, but seriously, there’s an app for losing weight.  At least two of ’em.  Probably a lot more than that.  These two came well-recommended by friends of the blog (FOB?  FOSD?  FOH?).

I haven’t had a chance to test-drive either of these, but both seem solid.  They both have web sites with full-featured tools for setting and achieving weight-loss/health-living goals, and they both have (obviously) mobile apps (I’m an iPhone user, as are the friends who recommended these).  The web presences are gateways, but the apps are what make these worthwhile.

Both My Fitness Pal and Lose It! are helpful specifically because they follow you around (OK, you carry them around) and make you think about what you’re doing in reference to your weight loss as your day progresses.  Both expect you to input (simply) the food you eat as you eat it (and both do a great job of indexing your choices against your goal from a nutritional standpoint).  When you eat you tell the app what and how much you ate.

It’s nice to be able to keep track, but both friends told me the real value is that it makes it a pain in the rear to have a snack.  “When I make my lunch for the next day I’ve always had a bite here and there while I prepare it.  Now that I have to enter every little bite into the app, it’s easier to leave it alone than it is to have a mindless snack,” one friend told me.

“There’s no more ‘Dr. Pepper and a candy bar’ stops at the convenience store when I stop for gas.  If I did I’d have to enter it into the app,” said the friend who uses Lose It!

I’m looking forward to trying these (my two and a half year old 3G iPhone is too full to add any apps right now), as they look solid and my friends swear by them.  But more interesting (to me) is that two friends (who don’t know each other) who are readers of this blog came to me within two days of each other, unsolicited, to recommend tools that have been helpful to them.

What I choose to take from this is that a.) this blog has value to people other than me and b.) people don’t just make random hits to this blog, they actually read it.  Both of which are mighty gratifying to me.  Thank you.

I should also thank the several of you who went out of your way yesterday to mention that you appreciated yesterday’s post about how difficult it is to guide children into a life of healthy eating.  Again, I’m glad what I’m doing here has some resonance with you, and I appreciate you reading.  All of you.

8 Jul

Maybe It’s the Sleep Deprivation …

Posted by hlward in Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , .

I’m almost as happy about having been correct yesterday as I am about being down three pounds in a week.  This morning I weighed-in at 265, which is 22 pounds in 17 weeks.  Being firmly back on the plan and emotionally in-control of what I eat makes all the difference.

But I don’t discount the extra coffee I’m drinking either.  Fighting sleep-deprivation with a three-week -old in the house is a real concern.  Maybe I’ll start a new fad diet:  “Shed pounds NOW with the NEW No-Sleep Plan!”

(I’m kidding.  Unless somebody wants to pay me to write a No-Sleep Diet book, in which case, I’m open to the discussion.)

I would have been happy to get back to 267 this week, but I’m thrilled the correction in my thinking (leading to the correction on my plate) worked as well as it did.  The plateau is in my rear-view, and … for now … I’m rollin’ downhill.

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Related to my own struggle with weight, and worth sharing with you, are the ongoing discussions my lovely wife and I have about our sprightly daughters and their current and future relationship to food.  Raising daughters to be happy and healthy in their own skins is tough business.  I don’t want to get too far off on this tangent, because it is it’s own topic, but it’s daunting to think about the horrible, unhealthy messages they’re going to face about food, weight and body-image in general.

Part of the problem is that, as a society, we no longer share a definition of what it means to eat healthy.  My lovely wife and our daughters’ pediatrician agree on a definition, and it’s essentially what I espouse here on this blog – the Michael Pollan “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants” ideal – but away from home?  It seems like everybody ha a different idea of what the phrase “healthy eating” is supposed to mean.

For some people, it means “eat whatever you want, but be very concerned about how much of it you eat.”  For others it conveys the dreaded, “fat free” concept.  For most school lunch planners it apparently means “PIZZA!”

Candy is a reward nearly everywhere for kids.  Everywhere but our house, that is.  Which is going to confuse the hell out of my daughters as they spend more time away from home.  If the reward for achievement at school (or pre-school) is sweets, and we don’t do that at home, do they perceive (subtly) that they’re not being rewarded at home?

Some of you will shake your head and think, “he worries too much.”  Some of you will think, “well, he just needs to be clear with the people his kids are around about what he means.”  Would that either of those things were that easy.  I do worry about it a lot.  Because, if you haven’t noticed, we’re in kind of an obesity epidemic.  Somebody’s got to worry about it, and it ain’t gonna be the schools.

I’m not looking for answers on this topic.  But I know many of you share the concern.  And if you don’t share it, and you have kids (or grandkids), I want to shake you up.

 

7 Jul

Feeling Good About Friday

Posted by hlward in Uncategorized. Tagged: .

Nothing substantial for you today.  No links, no book reports.  But while I don’t want to jinx things, I feel like my Friday weigh-in is going to be a strong move in the right direction.

Having regained general control over my eating habits (three large pieces of garlic bread last night notwithstanding), and having been intentionally more active outdoors with the sprightly daughters over the long weekend, I feel leaner.

Of course, that doesn’t mean I am leaner, but I’ve noticed over the years that if I feel a certain way I’m more likely to end up that way.  Simple case in point:  If I wear a tie to the office my work-product is better, both in quantity and quality.  Let’s hope this “feeling lean” thing ends up with like results.

I’ll check-in tomorrow with the news and a more substantial post.

6 Jul

Five Additives I Wish Hadn’t Been Added

Posted by hlward in Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , .

Hey, it’s Wednesday … Ready for your five things?  Standard Disclaimer:  I’m not a physician or a lawyer and I haven’t consulted either of those professions.  What you see below is my decidedly amateur opinion after a few years of reading, tasting and, ummm … processing … these five food  additives.

1.)  Inulin.  Remember chicory?  Lots of people (especially in Louisiana) add ground chicory root to coffee, mostly to take the edge off the bitterness, but in times past as a  substitute when there wasn’t any coffee to be had.  Recently something called “inulin” has been added to a whole variety of things on the shelves at the Publix.  This story in Slate from a couple of years ago notes many foods that don’t really have much fiber are all of a sudden chock-full of fiber.  Because the fine folks at Cargill decided they could grind up chicory root (and probably some other roots), dump it into your breakfast cereal (and even your marmalade) so they could slap a “Now With Fiber” sticker on it and bump the price up.  Problem is, this fiber isn’t really much good to you.  It just passes on through – like regular dietary fiber – but unlike the naturally-occurring stuff, it takes nutrition with it on the way out.  I can’t tell you what to do, but I try to avoid this stuff.

2.)  High Fructose Corn Syrup.  No matter what Big Ag tries to tell me, I don’t trust this stuff.  I do everything I can to avoid it, but it’s everywhere.  Enough people have complained about this frankenfood stuff to scare some big food producers away recently, but it’s still out there.   Even if you don’t think it’s bad for you, if you’re a soda drinker do a little taste-test.  Find a market that sells Mexican Coca-Cola, buy a bottle and compare it to American Coca-Cola.  The American stuff uses HFCS and the Mexicans use, ummm , sugar.  Guess which one tastes better?

3.)  Aspartame.  You probably know this as Nutrasweet. And many of you have seen the chain e-mail attributing all the world’s ills to it.  It’s probably not as bad as that email suggests.  It’s unlikely to kill you.  But anything that tastes that  … odd … can’t be right.  It’s a frankenfood.  It’s not naturally occurring, and I defy anyone to convince me it’s not harmful if you consume it over long periods of time.  What bothers me most about it is that, as a calorie-free sweetener, a whole lot of people are convinced it’s somehow a health food.  Please, please, please, don’t use this stuff, and for God’s sake, don’t feed it to your kids.  If you need sweetener, just suck it up and use sugar or honey.  Fake food will kill you long before the fifteen calories in a teaspoon of sugar will.

4.)  Dyes.  Blue, red, green, yellow … I don’t care which number or color, they’re lab chemicals.  I’m not even linking this with a source, because no one should need to tell you lab chemicals don’t belong in your food.  Or your children’s.  But you know what?  They’re in there.  And it’s nearly impossible to find Big Ag food that doesn’t have them.  In the US, at least.  The UK is actively discussing an outright ban on food dye.

5.)  Olestra.  Fake fat.  No, really.  This was a big deal when it was introduced back in the fat-free-mania days.  And then people discovered it’s less-appealing side effects.  I won’t describe them here.  It’s still in a few foods out there, but public outcry has removed it from most.  If you need fat in your food (and you do) just use, you know, fat.  Try not to overdo it, but fat is where the flavor is.  It’s OK to consume it.

 

5 Jul

It’s Not Quite a Movement, But …

Posted by hlward in Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , .

I walk a fine line with this blog.  On one side of that line is the original (and still foremost) reason I write here:  To keep myself accountable on my path to healthier living.  I write here to work through the obstacles I find on that path – to think things through with my keyboard.  That’s reason enough, and in the long run, the best possible reason for this blog to exist.

But on the other side of the line lies what I have heretofore seen as shameless self-promotion.  I know how to promote things.  I get paid to promote things.  But I’ve been reticent to go all-out in promoting Skipping Dessert because, you know, why would anybody want to read about my embarrassing slog from the land of the round to a better country where people live longer?

Yesterday I was reminded that it’s perfectly OK to actively promote Skipping Dessert, because two people told me my path, chronicled here, helped inspire them to start similar journeys.  I don’t claim to be leading some kind of Oprah-esque lifestyle crusade, but if self-promotion has managed to boost a couple of friends along on a path that might help improve their lives, count me in on the self-promotion train!

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For the past week or so I’ve been toying with the Twitter, primarily to promote this blog.  I don’t want ALL my Facebook posts to be plugs for this blog, but I don’t mind treating Twitter like a classified section.  You can find me there at @hlward.

Today I actually had a click-through from my Twitter feed!  So I suppose I’ll continue working that angle.  Welcome, Twitter user!

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Finally, in the “random notes” section this post has become, I want to report that I feel back on track, nutritionally.  Breakfast goes on, as it has without much of a hiccup, but I think I’m back in control of the other meals.  We have enough leftovers to feed the family for a long time to come (from the kindness of friends in the wake of sprightly daughter number three’s arrival, for those new to the blog), but now that they’re all leftovers, I don’t feel compelled to honor them the same way I did when they were brand-new offerings of culinary delight from supportive friends.  Which means I can pick a few forkfuls from them, get full and move on.

4 Jul

Because it’s a Holiday …

Posted by hlward in Uncategorized. Tagged: , , .

… and because I want you all to know I’m pro-good-food, I want to share some links to friends of mine who blog about cooking and/or baking, and do so well.  They’re both committed to quality food made with quality ingredients.  The kind of food that, eaten in reasonable quantities, is good fuel for your body.

My friend Tami hosts a fine culinary experience she calls A Bite to Eat.  She covers a lot of dining ground with clear instructions and pictures.  I can’t actually pronounce all the dishes she writes about, but they look mighty tasty.  Her blog’s almost a year old, so there’s plenty of content there you haven’t read (or cooked).

My friend Chris hasn’t been at it as long, but the dude is seriously committed to desserts that taste good and he uses quality ingredients.  He’s also some sort of scientist, which you’ll realize when you read his blog, A Good Day to Pie.

Yesterday here at Skipping  Dessert World Headquarters one of the Sprightly Daughters and I (OK, mostly I – she’s three years old) whipped up a batch of Alton Brown‘s Granola Bars.  I should have used a glass baking dish, like Alton told me to.  And I should have cut ’em as soon as they cooled, like Alton told me.  Other than that, they were good eats.

My point?  Food ain’t bad.  Bad food is bad.   Eat good food and good things have a chance to happen to your body.

1 Jul

The Dogma of Diet Culture

Posted by hlward in Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , .

You never know from where you’ll get a new perspective on a project.  I’ve been reading Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen a long essay about, among other things, the massive changes in storytelling/communications in the 20th century by one of my favorite writers, Larry McMurtry.  As I was reading along, absorbing his ideas, I bumped into this, which is completely relevant to this blog:

“… food began to make a comeback, not, however, because it tasted good or was a pleasure to eat, but as a form, I believe, of theology.  Food came back to save you, packaged now by the health food industry, whose orthodoxies are as strict as those of any faith.  First and foremost, fat – or Satan – had to be driven out.  (Visit a supermarket in Brentwood, Santa Monica, or Beverly Hills, California, and you will soon see how successful this crusade has been:  you can walk until you drop without seeing any food that will admit to having fat in it.)  Food that was just plain good gave way to food that was good for you.  The suggestion that fat-free food will save you from death – perhaps not forever but certainly for a long time – is everywhere present in supermarkets … The supermarkets themselves are more and more like churches …”

[Apologies for the length of the quotation.  One of the reasons I like McMurtry is probably that he’s even more fearlessly liberal in his use of the comma than I am.  I part with him on the use of the Oxford comma, however.]

It’s important to remember that he wrote this about a decade ago, when “fat-free” was still the current diet dogma.  But replace “fat-free” with “organic” and take a walk through your local supermarket.  Of course, he’s correct.  “Right living” used to mean “God-fearing” or at least “church-going.”  Now it means you eat what media/ad culture tell you is the right way to eat.  And those who subscribe to current diet orthodoxy look down their noses at those who don’t follow the rules the same way the Church Lady (and those who inspired her) used to look down their noses at Satan’s minions.  Buying a bag of chips elicits the same kind of shame in some people that buying a fifth of whiskey used to in the Bible Belt.

That’s worrisome to me. I do include a strong element of my personal theology in my work to lose weight – it’s a form of good stewardship to take care of the equipment I’ve been given.  But the Publix shouldn’t be confused with church.  And I’m afraid it is, in exactly the way McMurtry describes.

Health – spiritual or physical – needs to be a matter of good sense and reasoned thinking, not of dogma.  Which makes both a lot harder, but infinitely more rewarding.

 

 

1 Jul

A Self-Induced Plateau

Posted by hlward in Uncategorized. Tagged: , , .

268.  Again.  That’s 19 pounds in 16 weeks.  Creeping ever closer to numbers that put me on-schedule instead of ahead of schedule.  Which is too close to behind schedule for comfort.

I know why I’m not losing, but need some momentum to the boulder rolling back up the hill.

Here’s how I’ve ended up on this plateau:  As regular readers and other friends know, back on June 16 my lovely wife delivered a brand-new sprightly daughter.  And since then, kind, sweet, talented cooks/friends have been delivering delectable dishes to our home.  For which we are truly grateful, as it means food is something we don’t have to think about as we figure out how baby Kennedy fits into the family structure (or, perhaps more correctly, how the family fits into baby Kennedy’s structure).

The problem with that (not thinking about food) is that I haven’t been thinking about food.  I’ve been just eating food, with the intention only of satisfying my hunger.  Which, for this body, is not enough.  I have to think more critically about what goes on my plate.  The food we’ve been brought is all healthy and delicious, but it’s time for me to stop and think, “Hmmm … do I need to fill the plate or will only one spoonful of that pasta do me better?”

I have this (well-meaning, but fat) voice in the back of my mind that keeps telling me it’s somehow rude to not eat the wonderful food people bring me when they bring it to me.  It’s not rude.  At all.  None of these fine people have intended me to eat everything at once, and all this food will freeze quite nicely.  But that voice, it’s a strong presence.  I suspect some of you know whereof I write.

Rude or not, this week it’s back to responsible portions.  I need to catch up.

 

29 Jun

Five Resources That Help(ed) Me Understand Food Better

Posted by hlward in Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , .

It’s Five-Things-Wednesday …

Regular readers know I’m a veteran of the diet wars.  Along the way I’ve picked up some nuggets of wisdom from which I’m now able to piece together reasonable nutritional advice (for myself).  Here are five sources I recommend … but remember, nothing you read (except this blog) is necessarily entirely correct, honorable and true.  Not all good advice applies to all people.  Use these resources, but read them all with a critical eye and an experimental mind.

1.)  MichaelPollan.com.  Yeah, I know, broken record on my part.  Go read his stuff.

2.)  The South Beach Diet.  In case I wasn’t clear enough above, I’ll say it a different way:  Do not start the South Beach Diet.  Do, however, read the book and learn about things like the glycemic index and how different foods affect the way your body works.  It’s a quick read and it can lead you to other resources you may find helpful.  I should add that when I was “on” the South Beach Diet about seven years ago, I was amazed at the rapid results, dismayed by the (high) cost eating that way and always hungry.  And when I went “off” said diet I gained what I’d lost (and more) almost as quickly as I lost it.  I suppose if you are able to employ a personal chef and shopper and are not encumbered with a job or a desire for bread, it might work long-term.

3.)  The End of Overeating.  You may have missed my recent post on this.  Go here and read all about it.

4.)  Dead Weight.  This infographic from the fine people at good.is works as a nice motivator for me.  It reminds me that, no, a second helping of pecan pie isn’t worth the cardiac arrest it might eventually induce.  I don’t always remember, but I’m doing a better job.  Let me disclaim here, however, as I’ve done in other posts, that the BMI is just a tool, and that like all other tools it should be used in context.  Used as a blunt instrument and applied to everything health-related, it’s as helpful as a ball-peen hammer in a nanotech lab.

5.)  Common Sense.  No, not the Tom Paine pamphlet (although it wouldn’t hurt you to go read that as soon as you finish reading this post).  There is no end of good and bad information available to me on the internets, from well-meaning friends, from Big Ag, from Big Pharma, etc., about what is healthy and what is not.  It’s my responsibility to consider as much of that information as I can, critically, and within context.  What’s in the food I’m putting in my belly?  How does that food make me feel?  How does my body use it?  Does my body reject it or is it of value to me?  I inherited some genes that make food stick to my ribs (tenaciously), but my body is my responsibility.   I’m obliged to use my portion of good sense to keep it in working order.

 

28 Jun

It’s Not Just How Much, It’s What

Posted by hlward in Uncategorized.

I’m planning a longer post about how an experience years ago on the South Beach Diet led me to a passing familiarity with the glycemic index and the idea that what you eat matters nearly as much as how much you eat.  In the meantime, NPR posted this piece about a study reviewed in the New England Journal of medicine regarding weight-gain as we age.

Please take a read – at the very least it will get your mind right for my bigger discussion of the topic later this week.

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Hey, tomorrow is five-things-Wednesday – don’t miss it!

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