Ed. Note: This article focuses on the benefits of eating together for families with children. I believe that families come in all shapes and sizes; I just chose families with kids for today’s article. Thanks for reading Almost Fit - I really do appreciate it.

With the pace of life building at an ever increasing rate, for many of us, sharing meals at the dinner table is becoming a lost art. Often times if families eat together at all, it is in the car after having placed an order in front of an illuminated board of “value” options, yelling through a cheap microphone, trying to make it to the next activity only a few minutes late for once.

For a while we were sucked into this vortex of squeezing meals in between the “more important” things (as if meals were not critical to life!). Here’s an example. Read the rest of this entry »

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Ed. Note: This is a reprint (with a few changes) of an article I wrote a while back as a guest post for the guys at GetFitSlowly - Mac and J.D. are some of my principle inspirations for writing about this process, and their site is highly recommended. I’ve had several requests to repost the article here, so I am doing so today. If you enjoy it, please give it a vote via your social networking tool of choice, such as Digg or StumbleUpon. Thanks. Oh, and if you’re new here, welcome to Almost Fit. Please leave a comment and introduce yourself.

When it comes to food, exercise, and our obsession with obesity, the French appear to break all of the rules of Western thought. By and large those who live a traditional French lifestyle eat for pleasure and satisfaction, they often smoke (arguably a stereotype), and they drink regularly. Despite a diet proportionally high in things like saturated fats, the French have remarkably low rates of heart disease and obesity. Welcome to the French Paradox.

On a visit to Paris with my wife and our 7-month old son, I experienced this firsthand. When you walk the streets of Paris, you are tempted with the most sensual culinary delights imaginable: Delicately handmade pastries, beautiful chocolates, freshly baked bread from ovens that have been used for sometimes hundreds of years, full fat, unpasteurized cheeses, and fresh crepes. And that’s just what you can see in the window displays. When you see overweight people in Paris, they are almost never Parisians; in fact, in my experience it was the easiest way to identify my fellow Americans!

Those who practice a traditional French lifestyle seem to break our most commonly accepted dietary notions. They typically:

• Consume 60% more saturated fats than we do in proportion to our overall intake, primarily through dairy. This includes rich cheeses, real butter, whole milk, and yogurt.
• Do not eat low fat products or use or chemically derived sugar substitutes.
• Eat fresh bread daily that is made from refined white flour.
• Regularly consume both lean and fatty meats including pork, duck, beef, chicken, and a few others (someone hide Mr. Ed), as well as fish.
• Drink alcohol with lunch and dinner, and the alcohol is often unregulated. Meaning, where we have a soda fountain, they may have a cask of wine available for refills.
• Smoke cigarettes. As I mentioned earlier, this is a bit of a stereotype since the French typically smoke less than several other European countries, and only a few percentage points more than Americans, on whole. That said, we found in Paris that the smell of cigarette smoke was abundant, yet for some reason we didn’t mind (neither of us are smokers).
• Eat late at night, much later than we do - Often eating heavier foods for supper at around 9 or 10, followed by a dessert course.
• Do not go to the gym or exercise much more than we do (the reasoning being why waste your life in such a way, when you could be enjoying it?).
• Do not obsess about the chemical composition of the foods they eat, and they do not rely on science and industry to tell them what is good or bad. That is what Mother is for.

With all of this dietary rule-breaking, the French simply should be dying off like flies from heart disease. I mean after all, high fat foods? Simple carbohydrates and sugar-filled deserts? Cigarettes and alcohol? No Stairmaster for 3 hours a day? According to our experience, our industrial and governmental science, and our gigantic devotion to every miracle-cure product and approach we can turn our eyes to, their collective hearts should all be congealed, seized up like French-made Peugeot diesel motors full of hardened, varnished sludge.

The truth is that the French typically live 3 years longer than we do, with only an 8.3% rate of heart disease, and a low occurrence of obesity (though sadly this is increasing as Western ways infiltrate French daily life).

So how do they do it?

According to folks like Dr. Will Clower, Michael Pollan, and Mirielle Guiliano (and place me squarely in this camp, by personal experience), it comes down to this: The French simply eat real food in moderation. They eat good food, just less of it (they eat until they’re full, and then they stop). They generally don’t eat the overly-processed, low fat, low carb, hydrogenated chemically substituted well-preserved food-based products that we do. Dr. Clower’s catchphrase: “If it’s not food, don’t eat it.” Michael Pollan? “Eat food. Not Too Much. Mostly plants.”

How to eat rich foods and not gain weight

How can you implement the French approach? What do the French do that allows them to eat what they want, when they want, and still not gain weight?

Here is a list based primarily on the writings of the three authors cited above. Of course, their books provide much more detail on the scientific (and anecdotal) evidence that supports the effectiveness of these ideas, and provide specific techniques on how to implement them. Here’s a sample of the guidance they provide:

• Identify honestly what you eat, think about it, and make changes very slightly and gradually. Remember that you are changing these dietary habits for the span of a lifetime, so they have to be simple, livable adjustments. From Mireille Guiliano, “The answer to weight gain is never dieting.”
• Eat only real food, not processed food alternatives, “faux foods”, or food-like products (particularly high fructose corn syrup).The good news is this means you get to eat butter, bread, and chocolate again.
• Eat for the pleasure of eating, rather than as a means of fuel. Treat your mouth more like a sensory tool and less like a Flux Capacitor.
• Eat at regular times. In France, they maintain a social stigma against between meal snacking. In fact, many of their cars do not have cupholders.
• Eat seasonally, locally, and shop several times a week. And as Michael Pollan says, don’t buy your fuel at the same place you buy it for your car.
• Don’t rely solely on “Nutritionism” to tell you what is good for you; use common sense, and eat real foods. If Great-Grandma wouldn’t recognize it, don’t eat it. This is a simplification here; read In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan for a much deeper explanation of the dangers of relying on science and industry alone to tell us what we should eat.
• Your dietary emphasis should be on green leafy vegetables, or animals who are fed those vegetables.
• Eat fat! Just the right kinds, particularly dairy and naturally occurring fats in plants (think avocados not corn oil). In fact, the lack of fat intake may actually be one of the root causes of many of our health problems like heart disease and diabetes.
• Quantity does not equal quality. Buy the best you can afford, and be willing to spend a little more (although I’ve found that the cost levels out when you’re eating less).
• Train yourself to eat less by enjoying your food more, eating slower, putting less in your mouth per bite, and eating for sensory pleasure. Realize that portion size has grown 3 times what it was 50 years ago!
• Don’t eat mindlessly or be distracted when you’re eating by things like television or the computer.
• Incorporate wine into your diet in moderation.
• Don’t stuff yourself. Learn the often forgotten feeling of fullness with practice and patience. For example, eat half of what you normally would, and wait for half an hour. If you’re starving, you know it wasn’t enough. If you feel physically good, that is the feeling of being full. Practice identifying that feeling, and it becomes second nature with time.
• Try to get all of your nutritional needs met through whole foods rather than supplements whenever possible (there is an ongoing, raging controversy as to whether supplements actually have much benefit out of the context of the whole food from which they were derived. [Update: After reading further, personally I believe that they DO have benefit, but only the right kinds. Industrially produced, synthetic supplements are not only worthless nutrition-wise, they can be dangerous. Whole food multivitamins, on the other hand, are a proven source of nutrition. For the “real” thing, and to gain a better understanding of the issues involved, see Robin’s blog, Whole Food and More.]).
• Learn to cook, and make time to do it. We often say that we don’t have time to cook, but in reality in the last 15 years most of us have somehow made 2-3 hours time for other things like surfing the Internet. It is ultimately a matter of choosing our health as a priority.
• Make ethical choices in what you eat. Develop a relationship with what you put in your body, understand how it affects you, and recognize that your choices impact the environment. This is an interpolation of the French diet in a sense since it is not a conscious concern of theirs, generally, but in a world of genetically modified foods and questionable shortsighted farming practices, it helps you to identify “real food.” The French concept of the Terroir reflects a profound respect for the land that provides the good things in life - it is a principle that helps when trying to make wise choices.
• Don’t view your weight or your choices as a pass/fail situation. View it as a commitment to improving your life over the long haul.

All of these steps, for me, boil down to this: Eating real food in moderation simply works. It may very well be the solution to the French Paradox.

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This is part three of the series, “How I quit eating fast food”. If you enjoy this post, please consider receiving AlmostFit articles in your inbox. Thanks.

In parts one and two of this series, I described how I’ve quit eating fast food using 3 basic steps: Educating myself, Deciding to quit, and Acting on my convictions. In this final part of the series I’m describing the actions I’ve used to successfully break the fast food habit.

20 tactics to kill the fast food habit

1. Start out with a ridiculously simple goal - So simple that you can’t fail. Leo Babauta’s book, Zen To Done, (an excellent book by the way), highlights this concept. If you start out excessively simple, you can build on that success to reach your goals over time. Here’s an example: I first realized that soda, regular or otherwise, is bad for me for one specific reason: in the end, even diet soda simply perpetuated my desire for the stuff. I realized that I could easily give up soda if I wanted to - it never tastes the same at a fast food place anyway, and I always drink too much of it. It was simple and attainable. And the more I did it, the more “power” to change that I felt.

2. Treat the decision to quit fast food as a habit, not a lifelong commitment. The idea is to make it your habit to seek out real food, at the expense of spending time and money on fast food. It doesn’t need to be a lifelong political position. You want healthful choices to become second nature. That way when you do give into that impulse desire, which you likely will at some point in the future, you will not have “failed”. Take it slow, and be proud of your many small accomplishments that will lead to a bigger success of building a healthy habit of eating.

3. Make yourself as publicly accountable as possible. Blog about it. Tell your friends that you are doing it. Use that concept of peer pressure to your advantage by putting pressure on yourself to stick to it. Everyone you know should be shocked if they see you walking out with a weighted paper sack with an ever-expanding grease spot on the bottom where the fries are trying to dig their way to freedom.

4. Don’t buy into the “healthy alternatives” concept that fast food is trying to sell to you. This is basic marketing 101, and is one of the greatest “dupes” since the famous Roman campaign for the healthfulness of lead cups (OK I made that up - but it sounds plausible). The basic idea is to find any way possible to get customers into the store. That is the hardest part. Once customers are in, add-ons are the name of the game. Want that salad? Bundle it with a cheaply sweetened fruit cup and a large diet soda.

“And ya know, since it’s better for you, well, it is going to cost a little more. But that is the price you’ll have to pay for a “healthy” choice. . .”

Sound Fishy? It should. It is malarkey.

Let me put it to you this way: Using basic common sense - If Add-ons and upselling didn’t work, no one would bother to do it.The truth is, IT WORKS. The answer? Don’t enter in the first place.

5. Don’t enter in the first place. This deserves repeating (See the previous tip to understand why). This is hard to do, without question. It may take a while before you can make that a habit, but think of it this way: If you suffered from an addiction to alcohol, does common sense say it’s your best move to buy your groceries at the liquor store? It is common sense, no matter how we try to rationalize it. Believe me - I’ve tried.

6. Reduce your exposure to fast food advertising. This is going to sound crazy, but if you watch less commercial TV, you will be less inclined to eat fast food. Why? Again, common sense. Big Industry pays hundreds of millions of dollars a year trying to find ways of convincing you in a 30-second spot that eating their new sandwich will change your life for good, forever. And their tactics simply work. If you are exposed less, you will be influenced less. Exposed to more - influenced more.

That said, does that mean I have to give up watching Top Chef? I don’t think so. If you want to see who gets voted off the island this week, go for it - but DVR it if you have the option, and then skip the commercials. Of course, if you want to go hardcore, just give up TV altogether. It’s almost guaranteed you will be less influenced if you reduce your exposure.

Want scientific proof? It’s simple: Corporations are all out for one thing: MONEY. If gigantic ad campaigns, which mean repeated exposure, didn’t actually work, do you think they would spend their money on it? Trust THEIR money-making science - they truly do know exactly what they’re doing.

7. Be a cheapskate. Don’t confuse quantity with value, throwing your money away because it is sold to you as a “good deal”. Fast food depends on the idea that you will be foolish enough to believe that a big pile of garbage has more value than a little pile of quality food. Stick with the quality food. Learn to cook. Make enough for leftovers. Lather, rinse, repeat.

One other thing on being cheap as a method of motivation: Remember that when you eat a pile of junk food for $5.00, the one thing you are NOT getting is decent nutrition. Nutritional deficit may be the single greatest cause of all classically Western diseases. So in the end, you’re going to pay for it anyway. And in the mean time, the fast food CEO will be using his $18,000,000 dollar salary to eat excessively well at your expense. Read the rest of this entry »

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“64 oz. soda? Does it come with a chance to win Boardwalk? Well then hit me Brutha!” - Metroknow, 26 lbs heavier

About 6 months ago, I completely quit eating fast food. For me, this was no minor feat. In the first part of this two-part series, I’ll tell you about my relationship (yes, relationship) with fast food. In part two, I’ll tell you exactly how I’m doing it, and how you can too.

I am definitely a card-carrying member of the fast food generation. I don’t know how many times I have made the decision on the size of a combo at McDonald’s based on which of the larger sizes included the most “extra” Monopoly game pieces, which generally led to winning - you guessed it - MORE fast food. I never won that extra-heavy Hummer with the dual 40 gallon fuel tanks.

Why do did I like Fast Food?

Like it or not, here’s the truth: fast food sells - in a BIG way. For me, here’s why:

1. Availability. In many parts of the country, we are simply overrun with fast food and junk food options. In L.A. suburbs, Portland suburbs, and most small towns, when you drive through the business district it looks like this: McDonalds, dry cleaners, cellular phone store, Jack-in-the-Box, stereo store, Starbucks, Taco Bell, KFC, cheap shoe store, Burger King, Wal-Mart, and then McDonalds again.

Repeat that cycle every 4-6 blocks, throw in an Olive Garden, a gas station, and a few 99-cent stores, and you have a drive across America that repeats itself like a Politician stumping from town to town, from sea to plastic-bag-filled shining sea.

Yes, fast food and dry cleaners are everywhere. And I’m not sure which one is more toxic. Someone oughta’ just get it over with and combine dry cleaners and fast food joints. After all, their prices are comparable, which leads me to… Read the rest of this entry »

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This week I’ve been working on tuning the look, feel, and direction of Almost Fit - The new design is not ready for prime time yet, but it’s getting there. As part of this process, I’ve been looking through my posts, analyzing the areas of focus that seem to really interest people, and trying to approximate the shape of Almost Fit in the coming months. I’ve had some reasonably successful articles, a couple of big hits, and in truth, some real dogs.

Hibernating, possibly catatonic dogs.

With that in mind, I’m going to share both the good and the bad - but there’s a catch - A little question or two for the readers of this site:

What would you like to see covered on Almost Fit? Which articles do you find most interesting? Which entries bore you to tears? Go ahead - be brutal.

Here are a few ideas to get you started. I’m going with a margarita theme today, as the sun is out after weeks of gloom, and I’m feeling like kicking back on the deck with a salt-rimmed glass and a pitcher of goodness.

The high fructose corn syrup “a little better than sleeping pills” margarita articles

11 ways to lose weight using good table manners: Personally I kind of liked this article. From the comments, I was fairly alone in that opinion.

30 days to form a new habit? On the moon, maybe: I didn’t think this was too bad, but it was definitely a sleeper if the comments are any indication…What do you think?

The House Margarita with the cheap tequila articles

23 benefits of eating real food in moderation: I enjoyed writing this one, and the facts still hold true.

33 tips on how to lose weight without dieting: This article stimulated a fair amount of discussion here and elsewhere, which was great.

The Cadillac Margarita with the Patron Reposado articles

Can you make artisan bread like this? In only 5 minutes? This article is by far my most read. It was picked up by Reuters among other sources, and is far and away my most widely distributed.

Did Cereal make me fat? You decide: I think this is one of my better pieces, though it is not read nearly as much as I would have thought. I think it’s a problem with the title. What do you think?

The French tradition - Give us our daily baguette: This may be my favorite article, as I got to indulge my love of Paris even if only for a few paragraphs.

—

I just wanted to take a moment to thank the readers of Almost Fit. So far this process has been thoroughly enjoyable. In particular, I’ve met “virtually” so many interesting, passionate, and intelligent people all working toward a similar goal. If you have suggestions on articles you’d like to see, or improvements, I’d love to hear your suggestions. Please feel free to leave them in the comments, or contact me via my contact page.

Thank you again.

Metroknow

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When it comes to our cultural obsession with quantity equaling value, I have a personal story that has helped me to see our portion size problem from a slightly different perspective.

My sister’s close call

My youngest sister was a server and bartender for years at a successful restaurant. She loved the place, but eventually decided that she wanted to get a job at Claim Jumper, a rapidly growing restaurant chain. Claim Jumper paid a little better since the bills for customers were typically a little more, primarily due to their famously oversized portions of American comfort food.

Shortly after she made the job change, disaster struck. Driving home by herself after a concert in Eastern Washington (which is primarily farm country), in the darkness she drifted at high speed into a steep drainage ditch and then bounced through a fence, into a field. She rolled her car end for end 4 times, traveling a couple of hundred feet into the field. Although she had a case of beer in her trunk (she was in the middle of camping for a week with friends), she hadn’t been drinking - she simply fell asleep. When the police arrived, they assumed the worst, considering that the entire crash site smelled like alcohol.

The photo to the right shows what her car looked like after it was retrieved from the field. Read the rest of this entry »

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This post is a personal account of how advertising that is directed at children had a direct impact on me. If you like this article, please consider giving it a Digg or subscribing to my feed. Thanks.

Growing up, I loved cereal. I craved the sweet, satisfying taste; I loved the temperature of the cold milk mingling with the cereal; I savored the crunchy texture; I enjoyed the way the milk absorbed the sweetness and the color of the cereal. I just loved it.

I also liked the assumed feeling of commonality with other kids across the nation who were eating the same thing. It made me feel like I “fit in” in some odd way.

Of course, our Mom insisted on the non-sugary stuff, so products like Cheerios were the staple rather than the sweeter options (more on the effectiveness of that strategy later).

When I moved out on my own lo’ those many years ago, the three things that I had in my “pantry” (the closet in my studio apartment) were: a) One case of macaroni and cheese (thanks Mom), b) One case of ramen packages (complete with those delectable silver packets of MSG and who knows what else), and c) One box of Cap’n Crunch Crunchberries - my personal favorite at the time. Or, Lucky Charms, if I wanted to “get my greens.” Gotta’ cover those food groups.

So when money was tight (as it always was), which food did I choose to replenish? Hand’s down, it was the fun-lovin’ Cap’n, that crazy happy go lucky Leprichaun, or the I-don’t-even-know-what-he-is-but-I-like-it Coo-Coo for Cocoa Puffs dude, who won the priorities crown. When it came down to it, it was pretty obvious who was going home from the scratch-and-dent grocery store.

In fact, when money was really tight, I may have tried to eat cereal with water out of desperation.

I strongly discourage it. Read the rest of this entry »

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Ed. note: This entry is about the benefits that I’m experiencing as a result of focusing on eating good food in moderation. If you would like to know more about how I’ve lost nearly 15 lbs in 2 months while still eating the foods I love, and without medication or supplements of any kind, consider subscribing via RSS. Thanks.

I’m now approaching the two month mark of trying this completely new approach (new to me) to losing weight and improving my health, and I must say, its going really well. I had no idea how easy it would be to make some of the minor changes, nor how effective it would be to lose weight this way, sanely.

In embarking on the journey of making the switch to eating real food in moderation, here are some of the benefits that I’m already experiencing:

1. I’m losing weight slowly, and when I do occasionally partake of less than ideal food, it is not reflected in a rapid weight jump
2. Heartburn is much less frequent
3. I still crave the old fake foods somewhat, and I occasionally indulge on social occasions (which I don’t feel bad about), but by and large the cravings are lessening
4. I’m now eating good foods like real butter, croissants, and avocados, which I had previously banned at times
5. I’m starting to develop an enhanced sense of appreciation for wine, and it is becoming an increasingly important part of closing a meal
6. I’m getting used to the idea that eating late is not a bad thing - as long as I’m not stuffing myself.
7. My ability to taste the subtleties of my food is returning, now that the salt and sugar levels are reducing
8. My functional eating habits are slowly changing. I am getting more comfortable with smaller, more meaningful portions; my bite size is smaller; I’m eating slower and savoring each bite; and I’m not eating in front of the television or computer (or both), or at least not as much.
9. I’m seeking out better quality food in defiance of the huge ad campaigns that tell us to do otherwise
10. I’m eating at home more, and almost always at the table, with my family
11. I see clearly that the quantity equals value philosophy is one of the major reasons that I’ve struggled with weight gain my whole life
12. I’m eating the most decadent ice cream I can find and late in the evening - just less of it. And I’m still losing weight.
13. I care more each day about things like where my food is coming from, what it is made of, and where to get fresh vegetables and meat locally
14. I am really getting into the technical aspects of cooking foods that I’ve never eaten on a regular basis before
15. Things that are sweetened with high fructose corn syrup I am starting to find sickeningly sweet
16. I have not started to exercise regularly, but that is my “ace in the hole” — I am excited to start exercising moderately, as I think it will only speed up the process of overall health improvement.
17. I am not going crazy with feelings of deprivation or the usual emotional strain from “enduring” a diet regimen
18. I’m enjoying the sense of being content but not “full” at the end of every meal (trying to find the 80% full sensation of hari hachi bu)
19. I have not had to risk major injury or heart attack to lose weight
20. I’m developing a real, honest taste for vegetables
21. I went on vacation, and didn’t gain any significant weight back
22. My wife and friends are very supportive of the idea, which gives me some great motivation
23. I’m enjoying the process, unlike every other diet I’ve tried.

And this is just the start. So many of these benefits are just beginning to take shape. At the end of this month, the proof will be in what the scale says. My goal for this month was to hit the 15 lb mark for the year, and I think I’m in right on track to do just that.

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