On Saturday I decided that it was the right time to try intermittent fasting (IF). As I explained in part 1 (“20 hours without eating: the intermittent fasting experiment“), IF is essentially giving your body a break from food for a set period of time, and then eating the calories and nutrients you need during a specific window. If you are trying to lose weight, the key is during your eating times you take in the appropriate nutrients while maintaining a reasonable and healthy caloric deficit.

In my case I chose to fast for 20 hours, starting at 9PM the previous evening and having only water (and a cup of coffee) until 5PM the next day. I also asked my wife to make dinner for the family to be ready at 5 or so, just so that when the fast was over I could actually eat something substantial and more importantly, planned (in my mind, no plan might equal disaster food-wise). I also asked her to make something extra tasty .

Of course, I wasn’t sure if I could even make it that long mentally. Could I actually last 20 hours without giving in to cravings of, well, anything? How would I do physically and more importantly, emotionally? I decided to go for it, knowing that if things got too out of hand I could always stop. The results were pretty surprising.

Play by play experience of 20 hours of intermittent fasting

These are some of the highlights of how I felt throughout the day. To be fair, I did write this after the fact, but this is what I remember.

9AM: The morning went well, but I discovered right off that bat that the smell of toast makes me instantly hungry. Even burnt toast, which is what happened when I was making some toast for my 5-year old. However I resisted the urge to make a piece for myself and moved on. Small victory, but victory nonetheless. Other than the momentary desire for buttered toast, hunger was no problem. Reasonable energy, and my head was on straight.

10AM: Stomach was definitely starting to grumble a bit, mostly stimulated by the breakfast we made available for the kids (papaya slices, apples, and whole grain toast). Emotionally I was doing OK with it; no desperation for food at all. But I also realized I needed to get busy with the day’s work to take my mind away from food.

11AM: Definitely starting to feel hungry. Oddly I had forgotten until this point that I was allowed to drink water, so I had a large glass and that instantly helped the hunger. Emotionally I was definitely starting to get grumpy, but to my surprise the water also helped with that almost instantly.

Noon: Hungry, but staying busy and drinking water. A little bit of sweating, but I believe it was more from the work I was doing than from blood sugar, though I could definitely feel some jitters from either the cup of coffee I had (first thing in the morning before I decided to fast), or from lack of food – truly not sure. Energy was good otherwise. The rationalization head games tried to take hold (“just one cracker?” kinds of thoughts), but I just kept moving and drinking water.

1-2PM: Similar to noon, but I remember clearly thinking a lot about the fact that I only had 4 hours to go until I could eat. Having a solid goal helped quite a bit. Energy was fine, and emotions had settled a little. No desperation feelings surprisingly.

3PM: Feeling a bit lightheaded once or twice. A little foggy mentally, but not bad (it could be that I was simply more focused on it – I’m probably foggy normally ). Energy was up however, and a perceived feeling of calmness was also very distinctly present. I had to run to the local home supply store to pick up a few things, and was able to navigate the checkout aisle with no interest at all in the junk food that normally tries to jump into my cart (another small victory).

4:00PM: Time for my run. Energy was excellent – I would go as far as to say abundant – and motivation was high considering I only had an hour to go before eating (I was definitely looking forward to that).

The run (4:15-5:15 or so): Before running I wondered if I would experience any physical effects from having not eaten all day. Cramping, lightheadedness, lack of energy? None of the above. In fact, the run went really well. I finished and did a handful of crunches and push-ups for good measure.

5:30PM: Time to eat. I gave myself a one hour window to eat for the evening so that I didn’t overdo it, and that seemed to work. I had promised myself that I could eat as much as I wanted at dinner as long as I started with a large salad. Fortunately my wife was prepared with a great salad of greens, dried cranberries, her excellent vinaigrette, a little blue cheese, and some chopped hazelnuts. Salad never tasted so good. And that was actually a good point – my lack of food all day really sharpened my enjoyment of the salad – I had two servings. After that, a family recipe of thick cut lean pork chops (from a local sustainable farmer) with vegetables was dinner, with a small glass of white wine and a large glass of water. Finally I had a cookie for dessert – and although this was refined sugar, it was a limited indulgence.

by 6:30, I was finished eating for the day, I was stuffed, and felt a strong sense of accomplishment.

Evening/Post-fast: On a normal eating day, by suppertime I am generally really, really tired. I sometimes feel like I could fall asleep at the table. Today it was the opposite. In fact, by 7:30 I had exceptional energy – possibly from the run, and possibly from the experiment – I can’t be sure. I did the dishes and was energized to write this post.

All in all a great day.

Takeaway on IF

This was certainly not easy, yet not nearly as difficult as I thought either – especially on the emotional front. Hunger was there without question, but the water really helped. A few mental tricks also worked (like keeping in mind that I could eat anything I wanted at 5, thinking about the positives of getting back in shape) to keep going. I was feeling so good by the end of the day that I considered doing it again the next day, but I would rather use it as an intermittent motivational tool rather than a daily routine at this point. Instead I’ll practice “clean” eating habits by focusing on whole foods for a few days – and then possibly another fast. We’ll see.

Benefits:

• True sense of accomplishment: By the end it felt really, really good not only to demonstrate to myself that I had the willpower to do it, but it really kickstarted a week of healthful eating.
• A distinct feeling of serenity late in the fast: This really surprised me, but was a tangible benefit. I felt as though I was flowing through the day rather than fighting my way through it.
• Abundant energy: I have not felt that much energy in a while, particularly without caffeine being involved.
• No ill effects on exercise: No cramping, great energy, and the will to keep running until my goal was reached.
• Greater enjoyment of the foods I ate after the fast: The foods I ate tasted incredible, from the salad to the wine. The lack of food during the day I felt really sharpened my enjoyment of the meal. Granted, my wife’s meals are always excellent, but the fasting really accentuated her cooking (yes, that was a shameless suck-up. Never hurts. ).
• Hydration was excellent. I estimate I drank easily 12 glasses of water, particularly with the run.
• [Update: I had very little soreness from the run, which is a good sign. I also did a mild fast the next day, limiting my eating window from 2-6. I also successfully said no to pizza and cake on Sunday in favor of waiting for better food later - another victory.]

Downsides:

• I will leave room for the possibility that it could have had some adverse effect on my metabolism, but I doubt it. Time will tell.
• Required mental focus: It did require a fair bit of focus to make it through, but I would say no more than it does to prepare 6 meals for a single day (a common approach to healthful eating). I also think that it had a lot to do with trying to be very conscious of the experience to track how I was doing. I have a feeling that the next time will require much less mental energy having one under my belt.
• Some occasional lightheadedness, and possibly a blood sugar low early in the day (not sure). On blood sugar however, if that was the case, I suspect that has more to do with my body expecting sugars (because I’ve trained it to expect excess sugar) than an actual need. More research however is in order.

A few things learned:

• Do NOT work on your food journal while you’re fasting. I tried this for a few moments, and not only did it make me feel hungry, but I could feel the groundswell of emotion coming up. Yikes.
• Set a goal: When fasting, use the simple strategy of reward when the fast is over. Know what time you are shooting for, as that marker will help pull you through.
• Avoid food aromas that turn on your hunger switch if possible.
• When you return to eating, take it slow. You might be inclined to scarf down your food, but don’t – it may make you feel ill.
• Likewise, when you start eating for the day, make sure you are getting the nutrients you need.
• Take natural supplements if that is right for you. In my case I’ve been taking whole food supplements from Whole Food Nation (thanks Robin), and I experienced no nausea or ill effects from taking them only with water, though your experience may be different.

Healthwise I also tend to think there is nothing wrong with occasional fasting. [Warning: Soapbox alert] In this country especially our food-obsessed pendulum really swings toward hyperfocus on eating in my opinion. The idea that the body needs to be fed all day long seems a little extreme to me, and says more about a culture of abundance than actual science (yes, them’s fightin’ words, I know). There are plenty of studies to prove either view; but for me, I don’t really want to be that food-focused with every aspect of life. Not to mention, obsessing over every crumb and calorie is an approach which for me has never worked.

Likewise I don’t subscribe to the “a calorie is a calorie” or “food as fuel” mentalities either. Food should be pleasurable, not just raw energy. It is one of the most meaningful ways that we communicate across cultures, and it says a lot about the spirit of a person and their home. When I eat a meal, I want to enjoy it thoroughly as a sensory experience that satisfies not only caloric or nutritional needs, but is a true experience in the pleasure of eating. And ultimately that is the mission of Almost Fit: figuring out how to enjoy food without it being to the detriment of health. Seems simple enough. [end Soapbox]

The bottom line? I loved it, and I’m definitely going to do it again between days of eating normally. I may also adopt a more moderate fasting style, where I limit my daily eating window to 6 hours. I’m not sure yet, but it sounds like another great experiment.

Oh and one last thing: What was the result weight-wise, considering my goal of losing 10 lbs this month? You’ll have to wait until the next post to find out.

Ed note: Thanks for reading Almost Fit. If you enjoyed this series, please consider sharing it with one of the buttons below.

And one more time with the Heavy disclaimer: Note that I am not a doctor, and this is not a recommendation as such. If intermittent fasting is something that interests you, you should do your research, talk to your doctor, etc. Fasting is certainly not for everyone, particularly people with known or underlying health conditions, eating disorders, and so forth, so use caution and think it through. Thanks again.

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Ed. note: This entry is about working toward lifelong dietary goals by eating real food in moderation. The list of techniques will change over time, but this is where I’m starting from. This is actually an update from an article I wrote a little over a year ago, including my observations, corrections, and a handful of new ideas. Your constructive feedback is always appreciated. If this is your first time here and you enjoy this article, please consider subscribing via RSS. Thanks.

“Action Feeds Motivation.”

This thought occurred to me as I finished my first run of the year today, in the rain and wind. Yes, you read correctly: my FIRST, as best I can recall. As many readers have noticed, I’ve been a little scarce lately. I’ll write another post soon with my theories (and a few personal facts) on why that has been so, but for now I thought it was more important to simply do something about it. And as it turns out, that phrase, “Action Feeds Motivation” is going to be one of my recurrent themes for Almost Fit in 2009.

A year ago I was fully motivated to pursue these techniques. I didn’t need a whole lot of inspiration; I was ready to go. Over the last few months however, I haven’t been “feeling it” like I was. That tide however, is changing. So in an effort to really rekindle that fire I decided to review some of what I wrote a year ago to try to learn from my successes and mistakes, which is one of the great side-effects of writing your thoughts down in a public format like this one. For this analysis, I came back to one of my all-time favorite posts: 33 tips on how to lose weight without dieting, and one that I now think, after a year of trying out this approach to eating, needs a little revision.

As regular readers know, my focus here on Almost Fit is to do one simple thing: Eat Real Food in Moderation. No low fat this or low carb that; just real, whole foods in moderate amounts. As simple as the statement is, the principle is much harder to apply, particularly if you live in what I think of as a culture of excess. Most of us have come to accept as normal the gigantic, oversized meals that are available at every restaurant you go to, and on every food commercial or ad you encounter. We’ve confused quantity with value, and we’ve also convinced ourselves that the cost of food should be minimal – meaning it’s common to think that we simply can’t afford to eat better. I disagree; however, applying it on a daily basis is a lot like trying to light a candle in a hurricane.

In the 2008 article, I stated:

“I don’t believe that moderation in itself is the answer; eating moderate amounts of garbage still means you’re eating garbage. If I eat real food, in moderation, I am convinced that the weight will come off naturally. Changing my diet to focus on vegetables first, and then moderate amounts of high quality meat, grains, and dairy, makes sense to me. And so far, its working with little or no negative side effects including the emotional struggle that I associate with every diet I’ve ever tried, and I haven’t had to buy a single pre-packaged plan or frozen low fat dinner to do it.”

I still very much stand by these statements, and my diet and current condition is living proof. And that’s because I’m now thin, right?

Not quite yet.

In the last year I’ve managed to prove these principles from both angles – “success” in a sense, and “less than stellar” as well; I still contend that it’s not smart to view diet habits in a pass/fail context. No, I definitely proved that it does work; but lately I’ve also proven that if you take your eye off the ball for a while, the reverse is also true. We still eat well; the problem is the idea of eating vegetables first has succumbed to carb-heavy eating habits, particularly in the Winter months when our garden isn’t producing anything other than Leeks. There is plenty of room in my diet for carbs, proteins, sugars, and fats, but they need to be very secondary to vegetables as the bulk of what I eat. When I achieve that balance and combine it with reasonable exercise, Real Food in Moderation simply works.

However, when carbs, fats, and sugars begin to dominate my diet, all hell breaks loose when I step on the scale.

With that in mind, this article is intended to revisit my thoughts from a year ago, and provide new insight where it applies. And to be frank, this is somewhat self-serving; I’m putting my axiom to the test, and taking action to generate motivation.

Let the games begin.

33 Scratch that – 44 Weight Loss Tips for 2009

1. “Eat real food.” This principle is at its core, simply true – my opinion has not changed after a year of testing this out. Every day I am increasingly convinced that our poor, industrially-driven dietary habits particularly in the West are largely responsible for most of the bigger health maladies we suffer today. Real food means to me minimally processed, preferably non-packaged foods. “Good” is organic at the grocery store; “Better” is organically grown (even if not certified) from a local farmer who you can look in the eye and ask intelligent questions; and “Best” is growing your own, right in that patch of ground that used to be your front yard.

2. “Eat smaller portions of real food.” As I’ve pointed out many times before, portion size in the West is out of control. And contrary to what we are told all the time, eating more of someone’s industrial product is NOT what’s best for us – It benefits the seller, but that’s about it.

3. “Eat slower. Take at least 20 minutes for every meal. One of the best tips I’ve read on this is to divide the amount of food on your plate into fourths, and then eat only 1/4 of it each 5 minutes that passes. After a while I’ve found that you do this by nature once you get used to it.” 2009 observation: I am going to do this tonight in fact. This is one area that has really eluded me in the last few months, but I know that it works.

4. Technique: put your fork down between bites. This is another habit that is easy to let go, as I have proved over the last 6 months. Time for an adjustment.

5. Use smaller plates, cups, and utensils. No change here; still applies in 2009.

6. Cut between meal snacking – using some smart techniques. This is one of those areas that still holds true, and if you play it right can actually be a benefit of a sagging economy. Rather than throwing in that $5 dollar iced coffee drink during the morning and afternoon lull, save the money and go with the following: First, try a glass of water. Second, if that doesn’t stop the craving, a small piece of the best dark chocolate you can afford. Third, if that doesn’t work, try a small, pre-rationed handful of almonds. If I follow these steps in order, I’m generally fine for another couple of hours.

7. When you’re eating out, skip the appetizer. This rule still holds true. With the portion size of a typical entree, there is simply no need for “frontloading” your meal with unneccesary calories. On the other hand, if you want the appetizer, order it – as your meal. But if I do, I sometimes tip a little better if possible, only because my bill will be less as a result of my food choice and the server will appreciate the good will. It’s not a rule really, but it feels right for me.

8. Limit certain types of foods to a few times a month. This is one aspect that is more true now than ever, particularly with our current economic state. While I don’t apply this to fruits and vegetables, I certainly do for meat consumption. In addition to the health benefits of a diet rich in vegetables, eating better cuts of non-industrial meat is not only healthier, but more feasible financially when you eat it less frequently. And despite what those beef industry commercials suggest, not everyone has steak 3 meals a day.

9. Be aware of how much you are putting in your mouth, and keep it small. Smaller bites, savoring each one. Sounds simple enough. And, still true.

10. Understand what it means to be not quite full, and be OK with that. I don’t believe that I’ve done an article yet on Hari Hachi Bu (the art of eating until you’re 80% full), but that is soon to come I hope. What are my observations on this now? It is undoubtedly difficult. And it becomes a true mental game, where we often hear that little voice in our head that says, “But I LIKE to eat a lot”. It’s difficult to overcome that voice, but it’s possible. On this, more to come.

11. Don’t eat in front of the television. This technique has really worked for me this year, and I stand by it. That said, I do watch Top Chef while enjoying a very small dish of the best quality ice cream I can afford. The biggest trick here is not eating it straight from the container – which is deadly to the waistline when you combine it with the distraction of television. If you’re going to watch while you eat, serve a small portion away from the television. Savor it; eat it slowly; and don’t go back for more.

12. Don’t eat in front of the computer. See the previous tip – the same applies. 2009 observation: As was the case in 2008, this is still my biggest weakness. In fact, I’ve let the “emergency nuts snack” get out of control on this one – I have a jar of nuts on my desk as we speak. I’ve got to change that.

There. Done.

13. Whenever possible, eat together as a family. This is still true in my mind, however there’s one big challenge for me. Having two small children, I spend more of my focus on what they’re eating and less than on what I’m eating. I’m looking for suggestions on this one, but I still maintain it’s a good principle not only for dietary health, but for familial emotional health as well.

14. Whenever possible, in addition to your family, take your meals with friends and coworkers. We have been moderately successful at this one, but I have found that it is easy to overeat in these situations as well. I think ultimately you can truly appreciate the food more in the company of others, but it requires diligence to not get carried away.

15. “Read the ingredients list of anything in a package, but pay less attention to the statistics. The general rule should be to strive to eat things that don’t require ingredients lists, like fruits and vegetables. But in real life, this is not always practical. That being said, the key is to focus on the contents, not the scientific descriptions. You should try to eat only things that are easily identifiable as real food, not chemically processed substitutes. If you focus on eating only real food, and in moderation, the other elements become less important (unless you suffer with food allergies of course). The emphasis should be on real food and less of it, not counting milligrams of any one element.” 2009: More true now than ever.

16. Use real sugar, preferably raw, even if only trace amounts of it. Don’t use chemical substitutes. Again, for 2009, this rule holds absolutely true. I just spent a year NOT consuming chemical sweeteners, and I didn’t suffer in the least. Actually, I do have one amendment to this: I now prefer Agave syrup for most sweetening. Agave is a great sweetener, and requires very little refining. It’s also a great substitute for simple syrup for the occasional mixed drink.

17. “Eat fat – but only eat real, high quality fats. [...] the key is moderation – if you eat a pound of Brie, you’ve gone to the dark side.” 2009 observations: I still strongly feel this is accurate. However, with one caveat: Fats, specifically great-tasting ones like real cheeses, are difficult to control on the moderation front. But my theory is the French succeed here because it’s awfully difficult to eat the stinkiest of cheeses. For practical purposes, take what you want from the block of cheese, and then put it away. This helps to prevent “nibbling” on the cheese left out on the counter.

18. Don’t rely on supplements – eat the real thing first, and supplement what you need. 2009? Still true, with one bit of advice: If you do take supplements, make sure they are not synthetic. For a great resource on the subject, see my fellow writer Robin’s blog, here: http://realnutritionsupplement.blogspot.com/.

19. Focus on the reasons you are overeating, and address those first. in 2009 I did a fair bit of work here, but even after a year of self-analysis, I still have yet to control my emotional eating patterns effectively. 2009 may be the year that I seek professional help with emotionally-driven overeating, which I believe is at the heart of most of my struggles with weight.

20. Don’t eat fast food if at all possible – its not real food. This has been a great success for me, with one small exception: In Oregon and parts of Washington, we have a restaurant chain called Burgerville, which uses organic, grass-fed, locally grown products whenever possible. The bigger problem of course is it tastes really, really good. So it’s a little too easy to justify a stop at Burgerville on somewhat shaky “ethical” grounds. Granted, it’s not very often that we go here, but to be honest it’s more than it should be. This needs to change.

21. Avoid vending machines. Still true in 2009. If you work in an office or a building near these machines, it requires a small amount of planning ahead, but this is entirely possible, and entirely the correct choice.

22. “Don’t believe the “no pain no gain” philosophy. Regardless of what your gym coach told you, or what that aggressive personal trainer says, unless your goal is to be a body builder or a professional athlete, if you are practicing moderation, this philosophy is simply not true. In order to maintain health, eating should not be difficult. Exercise should be a pleasure, not a struggle. For those of us who simply want good health, if its painful, you’re not doing it right.”

In 2009, my opinion? Despite some disagreement among readers, I still stand by this statement. While pain can be a useful tool, I don’t think it’s strictly necessary. That said, there ought to be some “burn” going on; it just doesn’t have to be as painful as most “gung ho” advocates indicate. Let the disagreement begin.

23. Don’t apply the “if its not hard its not worth doing” philosophy to eating. 2009: Still true. This statement stemmed from a “diet counselor” who was clearly bitter in her feelings about diet. “Do you like Caesar Salad?” she asked. I replied, “Uh, yes I do…” She said, “Well get used to the idea that you’ll have to give that up. If you want to lose weight, forget eating Caesar salad again.” That diet, of course, didn’t work. And hopefully my embittered “counselor” moved on to a new career, perhaps in Credit Collection.

24. Learn to cook. Over the last year this has become, its fair to say, an obsession. My wife and I are systematically working our way through Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I truly think this is key, particularly if you want to wean yourself from the industrial food products that many of us are used to.

25. Educate yourself on the diets of cultures that live longer and are generally in better health. 100% true. I would add only that if possible, it’s best to go visit those cultures, which we hope to pursue further in the coming years.

26. Reduce your coffee size to enjoy real cream – not “creamer”. I absolutely believe this is true, but I must admit: working at home as I do, it is terribly easy to “overdo” it by drinking coffee throughout the day. In 2009, I am considering eliminating coffee in favor of Yerba Mate tea, which I also enjoy, and for which I don’t need cream.

27. If you are a coffee drinker, develop an appreciation for espresso. I am hopeful that in 2009 we’ll be able to pick up a quality espresso machine. I am a little particular on this and have my eyes set on one that I of course cannot afford, but with some planning and saving hopefully we’ll be able to pick one up sometime soon without breaking out a credit card.

28. Avoid packaged juices. Juice is one of my biggest weaknesses, because it feeds my inate and powerful sweet tooth. I find that when I drink juice, I stimulate sugar cravings terribly for the rest of the day. I really try to limit juice intake, even going as far as asking my wife to refrain from keeping it in the house. That said, there are a few juices that I do enjoy on occasion, including pomegranate juice from POM. I like the flavor, and it’s expensive enough that I rarely can justify the expense – a built-in moderation feature.

29. Buy the best food you can afford. After a year of doing this, I have to say that it is the most important aspect in my opinion of eating in moderation. A food budget is a balancing act. For the more expensive cheeses that we buy, we have reduced our coffee and packaged foods (we still eat a few) budget. This year we will continue to grow our own produce, which also reduces the overall cost of food for us especially with a family of four. I am hopeful that this year we will have a better handle on our food budget (and our budget in general) – once I find out exactly how much we’re spending, I’ll share the information.

30. Retrain yourself away from the “breakfast is the most important meal of the day” mindset. 2009: THIS one, I think needs a little correction. After reading many, many arguments in favor of eating breakfast, I think I missed the mark on this one in some ways. My original reasoning was that if you overeat at breakfast, you’ll just overeat later. I still think that is true; however, I took it to the extreme and started skipping breakfast altogether, which is a big mistake. I am not entirely convinced of the metabolic reasons yet only because I think this is a matter of conditioning (considering the lack of heavy breakfast in many “lighter” cultures); however I am sure that if I reach lunchtime and am starving, I make bad choices. Better to start out with a whole, light breakfast, than to skip it only to be desperate for anything to eat later.

31. Eat at regular times. This is still true, though I am admittedly not good at it. I tend to eat breakfast sometime in mid-morning, lunch somewhere in mid-afternoon, and dinner at a regular time. I think this is one of my problems, and I need to work on a better morning and afternoon eating schedule.

32. Keep junk food out of the house. To me, this one is obviously true for 90% of us. If you are one of the lucky few who don’t have this weakness, good for you. But for me, this is a necessity.

33. Don’t be in a big rush to lose the weight. This is for me, in the top 3 lessons that carry the most, ahem, weight. I lost 25 lbs or so last year, which is what I would have shot for in a month on some of the crazy diets I’ve tried. Rather, I’m very happy with those results. This is a lifelong process of health improvement; not to mention, it took me 37 years to get to this point. It’s madness to think it will turn around, permanently, overnight.

NEW FOR 2009:

34. Skip the afternoon snack – in favor of afternoon tea. I think our friends across the pond have this correct – afternoon tea time seems to me to be a great idea. I did this today in fact, and it satisfied my slight hunger until dinner. Give it a try. Make the tea time an opportunity to sit quietly and contemplate where you’re at. Enjoy the moment – be present for your life, which will be one of the themes this year for Almost Fit.

35. Focus on broadening your tastes in food. There are so many cultures that eat incredibly healthy foods, often out of necessity. Broadening your taste can lead to tremendous, healthful discoveries. This is something that we are also passing on to our children, who these days will eat pretty much anything – a fact for which I am convinced is at least in part due to exposure.

36. Develop a better understanding of the ethics of food. Foods as they are presented by the food industry are just nice, tasty products that we shouldn’t worry our pretty little heads about – just trust the food industry and surely we won’t go wrong. Unfortunately, this is why we have an obesity epidemic, and quite bluntly, family tragedy from things like poisoned peanut butter – our misplaced trust in a) the marketers to tell us what we should eat, and b) the government to look out for us. Neither is even close to a good source of information on what we feed ourselves and our kids, as they always have an agenda that puts consumers squarely in the last position.

37. Use tools, like social media, to your advantage. I am an active Twitter user and have been for some time. One of the benefits? I follow a number of great health bloggers, inspirational/motivational writers, and generally just good people. I find great inspiration and motivation in their suggestions throughout the day. One great example is a Twitter user I follow posts “nudges” throughout the day to remind followers to get up and move around a bit, or grab a glass of water. This is useful for me, particularly working by myself.

38. Be careful with the calories in wine. I have found that surprise surprise – when one glass of wine at dinner is good, two glasses is often a little better. It’s easy to overdo it – not in an alcohol/sobriety sense necessarily (though that is certainly a reasonable concern), but in the unwanted calories in particular. One glass is usually all I need; I just need to remember that especially after a hard day.

39. Consider (as in think about) trying moderate fasting. Many, many cultures use fasting as part of their dietary regime. I am currently fascinated with this, and plan on trying it sometime this year as an Almost Fit documented experiment. But for me, it is fasting moderately; I don’t intend to go more than a day on a fast. But it’s definitely something I think may have health benefits beyond weight loss.

40. If you make enough for leftovers, pack the leftovers first. When you make a meal, before you serve it, set aside the leftover quantity you intend to eat the next day. I’ve read this tip in numerous places, and it really both makes sense, and works.

41. When possible, only bring to the table what you plan to eat. For me, if the bowl of pasta is on the table, it’s much easier to eat more than I need. If I serve myself in the kitchen, it’s one step more difficult to overeat on seconds.

42. Find the stress relievers that work for you – other than food. With the economy in the current state of disrepair, this for me is of critical importance. I will be exploring this over the coming year on Almost Fit, and welcome suggestions.

43. Don’t go to bed too late. This one is one of my most difficult habits to break, but one I’m set on accomplishing this year. When I stay up late, I eat more. Simple as that. If I go to bed early and rise early, I rarely eat much if anything before breakfast. This may be different for you, but I have a feeling that late night work sessions, or #afterhours as we say on Twitter, are not great for a healthful diet.

44. Action Feeds Motivation. I think the best thing you can do on the weight loss front is simple: get up and do something about it. It sounds simple, but I know for me, I spent an awful lot of time trying to find motivation to exercise, often with mediocre results. This year, I’m hoping to turn this on it’s head on a personal level – rather than waiting to be motivated to do something physical, I’m going to focus on getting up and doing it as a means of creating motivation. It’s a subtle distinction, but one that I feel is worth making. My intention is to feature great sources of motivation that focus on taking small, immediate actions that you can do with minimal planning. Plans are great. But action is what is always needed if you want to get anywhere.

Thank you for reading. Here’s to another great year of working together. Your comments and suggestions are, as always welcome and maybe more importantly, appreciated.

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readers, both long-time friends and new acquaintances. I will be posting a "Best Of" article shortly, but I think you'll agree that this letter was already plenty long enough. Thanks for reading, and thank you for hanging in there with me in my recent absence. UPDATE: I dozed off last night, so this is now a Saturday post. A day late - but that's what you get for blog dollars ]

Tonight is the one year anniversary of a mild obsession: testing whether eating real food in moderation can actually work to lose weight and achieve better health.

And the principle corollary: Is it possible to live moderately in a culture of excess?

No low fat this or low carb that (both of which I had previously tried, exhaustively, to no permanent success); just eating real, whole, and at times decadent, foods – the key of course being to keep the quantities in check.

Before I get started, let me just say that it’s been a long day; I slept about 3 hours last night before heading out at 5AM for a 4 hour drive to Seattle for a business meeting at 9, and then turned around several hours later to drive 3 1/2 hours back home (don’t ask me where the missing 1/2 hour went). I’m admittedly exhausted, but some things simply cannot wait, things for which any devoted writer knows sleep deprivation is no match.

In honor of this anniversary I am sitting down with my laptop and a stiff margarita – ice, fresh squeezed lime juice and a healthy dose of tequila – evaluating as honestly as I can whether this year’s changes have been worth the effort. So if things get a little squirelly, you’ll know why.

Where did I start?

It has been 365 days since my first post on Almost Fit (“Welcome to Almost Fit – Almost Who?“). So what have I learned through this first year? Am I miraculously thin as a result of this “revolutionary” idea of eating less (hmm…eat less to lose weight? What?) ? Have I left all of my old bad habits for good, happy to eat only truly local, sustainable, whole foods, perhaps donning hemp shoes and opting not to shower for weeks on end? The truth is, if you ask my pants, not only will they stare back at you blankly, but inside they will concur – I’m certainly not thin – not yet – and I don’t own any hemp shoes. That said, this year has marked some of the biggest changes in my diet, how I feel about food on an emotional level, how I feel about taking social responsibility for what I eat, and what I expect from this approach.

A year ago to the day, here’s what I had to say about my condition. At the time, I was:

• “An average guy who’s weight is driving him crazy, and has done so for most of his life
• A card-carrying member of the TV, Coca Cola (second only to Dr. Pepper), and fast food generation
• A food lover, bordering on “foodie”, thanks to my wife’s cooking and mutual love of food
• In my mid-thirties with two children, and at my heaviest weight ever
• In my mid-thirties, at my heaviest weight ever, and tired of it. The whole thing. From carrying several extra useless sandbags-worth of weight every day (I don’t think the near-term global forecast is pointing toward temperatures dropping dramatically, where I’d need this extra layer of fat for warmth) to trying things that work, but don’t last. I am tired of being out of breath when I take a flight of stairs. I am tired of being hot when I should be comfortable. I am tired of being uncomfortable with how I look in horizontal stripes or clothes with any color other than brown or black. I’m tired of being in mild degrees of pain when I crawl around pretending to be an elephant with my kids (oh don’t think for a second I don’t see the irony there). In other words, I am ready for a change.”

Some things have not changed, including:

• Still an average guy in most ways: I still put my talking pants on one argument at a time
• I still watch television – in fact, I am putting off watching a DVR’d Top Chef episode in favor of writing tonight;
• Still very much in a hot and steamy relationship with both my food and, might I add, my smokin’ hot wife ;
• Still in my mid-thirties (which I plan to claim for at least another oh, 9-12 years) with two wondrous and beautiful children;
• Still carrying extra weight - though less of it.

Over the previous 6 years, I had been steadily gaining weight despite a lot of boxes of low fat cookies, losing weight and gaining it back thanks to South Beach, Oprah’s diet guy, and just about every chemical product or supplement that the food industry could throw in the feed trough. I ate it up, and it showed. I was gaining an average of nearly 10 lbs each and every year – even having run my first 10k race and a 1/2 marathon in the 5th year. That’s right: 6 years and 60 lbs later. And quite frankly, with no end in sight, other than the one that wasn’t fitting in the mirror.

Perhaps more importantly, when I started this experiment there was one very large fear on my mind: I was staring into the headlights of all sorts of health complications with which I was all but guaranteed to collide. I felt strongly that if I continued on the path I was on, I would certainly be setting myself up for blood sugar management and degenerative cardiovascular problems that go hand-in-hand with my family history. These elements, I am convinced, always loom in my DNA, but their onset is sped up rapidly by poor diet and lack of exercise. Sounds like common sense to me. Ultimately my hope is that doing what I can will help me to outlast the diseases until science finds a reasonable solution.

Where I’m at today

Here’s the short answer: For the year, I’ve lost 22 lbs (as much as 27 before the holiday season – more on that in a bit). And equally as important, I have not gained the 10+ lbs that I was on track to add, if history was any indicator. I’ve also had some pretty big challenges over the last few months, but those are finally starting to settle down.

So in a sense, you could say that all in all I’m down 32 lbs from where I would have been, but I’m choosing to only view it as 22 lbs down for the year. And how do I feel about that? Is that enough for a year? What did I learn? And where am I going with it?

10 things I’ve learned from a year of moderation

Changing my diet to real, whole foods has been a learning experience to say the least. Some successes, some failures, and some revelations. Here’s a list of things that seem clear to me after a year of giving this a shot.

1. It is hard to learn to NOT diet, if you are a career dieter. Since my early teens I had been off and on dieting, buying into the low fat/nonfat craze that swept my generation (and ultimately did not work), trying things like diet shakes, diet vitamin pills, and every edible diet product out there. None of them worked in the long run, and most of them tasted like cardboard with a Xylene chaser. But more importantly, it is the cycle of dieting that I had to break. When I would lose weight, I found that my strong inclination was to essentially starve myself trying to speed up the process, because that always worked before. On a diet of rich foods in moderation, it does NOT work, at least not for me.

2. Dietary choices do not have to be a “religious” choice. In the course of changing my thinking on food, I’ve had to work hard to overcome the desire to “preach” about it in polarized right and wrong terms. When you start to make food decisions based on social or moral principles, it can be easy to come off as judging others who don’t make the same choices. And while I know I certainly do that from time to time here, on my site, in person I have worked hard to avoid sounding too preachy, or even condemnatory of others. And I’m comfortable with that; after all, if you don’t care to hear it on a blog, you are free to move onto something else that resonates. When it comes to food, sometimes changing our dietary habits can become like we’re signing up for a “food religion”, requiring exclusive devotion, evangelism, and the use of “sin” or “guilt-free” metaphors. I don’t think this is necessary, and I’d like to think I’ve proven that over the span of this year. But it required a conscious effort, and learning from a mistake or two.

3. Just because you eat good food doesn’t mean you end cravings for “bad” food. My wife has never been much of a junk food eater – she has always eaten well thanks to some deep rooted family dietary traditions, her thoughtfulness and intelligence, and just plain good taste. So for folks like her, she has a hard time understanding why a KFC commercial would make me want something that makes me feel ill. ME on the other hand…I still, to this day, crave fast food when I see ads for it. Still. Even after a year primarily without. Do I feel bad about that? No. Do I act on it anymore? Almost never, but on occasion, in a pinch, I have succumbed to convenience. So just because I eat decadent cheeses and chocolates does not negate a lifetime of dietary bad habits. It took 30+ years of eating fast food and high fructose corn syrup to get here; it’s not going to change overnight.

4. Overeating is a cultural norm that is beatable – but it’s not easy. On whole, my opinion of our American cultural eating habits is in general, we simply eat too much, and thanks to multibillion dollar efforts of food manufacturers, the wrong things (there I go preaching again). Abundance and immediate availability have led us to consider as normal a portion size that several generations ago would have been considered enough for two or three. It takes real effort to ignore the sense of “this enormous plate is what everybody eats” both in the home and on the town, but it’s possible.

5. Exercise continues to be my weakest link. I openly admit that I am a fair weather runner these days – and even when the winter weather is fair, I seem to find it enormously difficult to get out and really get going. This, I must fix, in part because in life, eating moderately does not always happen. But more importantly because I am better off mentally and physically when I’m engrossed in a regular exercise routine.

6. I have to be OK with slow progress, lest I go mental. Like most of us, I want my weight to be ideal immediately – so when it starts working, I often fall into the “no pain no gain” mindset, where losing weight becomes less about eating right and more about a controlled experiment in denial, pain tolerance, and endurance until the trial is over. In other words, I tend to get a little nuts about it, ultimately to my own detriment. 22 lbs for the year should be a great number, but I struggle even still with the idea that I wanted that to be 50. I still have work to do.

7. I am an emotional eater – this I know. Eating is my response to happiness, sadness, stress, and especially frustration. When I get upset, I go for the cupboards. This too requires additional work. Thankfully there are many folks ahead of me in solving this one, and I think with some education I will beat this.

8. It is possible, though not always fun, to sense 80% full. I am pretty sure that I have yet to do a detailed post on this (hari hachi bu, specifically), but I have read numerous comments on other blogs that suggest that you can’t really know what 80% full feels like, so why try? Well I disagree based on my own experience. I know what it feels like; I just don’t always like it. But it is tangible, and it does work – it just requires retraining a mind that is conditioned to get pleasure and emotional satisfaction from overeating.

9. Eating well requires preparation and time – and believe it or not, not necessarily more money. This subject has been a big question surrounding the suggestions of folks like Michael Pollan that we should all eat better quality food than most of us typically do. While I concede that for some, this is definitely going to be more expensive, I’ve found over this year that you can trade off the cost by using additional time. And in many cases, that additional time is only a perception. It often does not take longer at all; we just think it does. It DOES however require a little more effort and some planning. But we’ve actually saved money this year by eating well.

10. The more you know about where your food comes from, the better you eat. That said, sometimes that rule goes out the window. In general, focusing on education as a means of motivation has worked. When I go to the grocery store, I really do put things back on the shelf if they are made or grown outside the U.S., and often if they’re not from the states in my immediate region. I also avoid anything with ingredients I don’t recognize, and especially foods with chemical additives that I DO recognize, like HFCS. I never eat diet processed foods, and I have worked for the past year to find locally grown or raised alternatives with great success.

All that said, there are certainly times when I make exceptions to eating seasonally and locally. Coffee being a prime example. We don’t have shade grown coffee as a native crop here in the Pacific Northwest (at least not as far as I know), but I still drink it. And I think that is OK. Like I said, it’s not a religion; it’s choosing to live moderately and, I think, reasonably.

Biggest lesson of all

If I step away from the minutia of eating real food in moderation, the biggest lesson I’ve learned I think is this:

Life circumstances, like it or not, help to determine the success or failure in changing your diet. And despite what the gym Nazis may tell you, that is OK.

When I started Almost Fit, I was in a good place. I had a reasonably stable job; our second child was approaching the 1-yr mark (which meant better sleep); I was and continue to be married to a wonderfully supportive and knowledgeable mate who shares a passion for food; I found an online community of support; I live in a region of the country that leads the way in sustainable food practices; and maybe most importantly I was mentally ready to commit.

I started off in a very good position, and made great progress. I was running much more, and eating very purposefully. But as life has a way of doing, things changed later in the year. Most notably when a) I quit my job and then the economy tanked (coincidence? ), and b) I started a new job as a response to the first point, and c) we had an unexpected death in the family. Over the last few months I have not exercised to any great degree, and my eating habits have slipped. In particular, when I was on a 2-week business trip in November, I definitely succumbed to old eating habits including some really awful fast food choices. I also chronically over-ate at family gatherings, which was rather mindless at the time, but shows on the scale.

January on the other hand, feels like things are finally getting back to normal. I feel the original zeal I had starting to return, and a much stronger awareness of making time to eat better. We shall see.

With that in mind, I have definitely met numerous folks this year that are simply not in this zone. They are nowhere near the mindset that is ready to make changes like this. But you know, That is truly OK. I feel now that if you’re not ready, there is no forcing it. You’ve got to have the circumstances to make it happen, whether that means you create them or you stumble into them. Either way, we often get the message of “there’s no time like the present” to make life changes. Well I disagree with that too. If you don’t have the circumstances, and do not have the power to change that, then now is NOT The time to start. That would work if this were a temporary fix; but it’s not. If you want life changes, do it when life gives you the best chance of succeeding.

Anybody who says different is likely selling something.

Where am I going with all this?

This last year has proved the old cliche: The more things change, the more they stay the same. It’s been a great first year at Almost Fit. I’ve met literally hundreds of people who impress me to no end with their desire to do whatever they can do to improve not only their own health and circumstance, but the world around them. I’ve exchanged numerous emails and rounds of comments with people I never would have had the pleasure of engaging were it not for this site, or the choices I’ve made. And for these things, I am grateful.

So what are my goals this year? What am I changing?

You’ll have to wait until another post, coming very soon, to find out.

Thank you, and the very best to you,

Metroknow

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A few months ago, I went to the local higher-priced grocery store to pick up some chicken. This particular trip to the store however, I got more than I expected: the chicken came free with a side order of attitude and the ever popular “shoulda’-said” chaser.

Here’s the scene: a local favorite shi shi fru fru store in Southeast Portland. The fluorescent light flickers slightly above a stainless, freshly hosed down meat slicer. The smell of fresh salmon and dill permeates the air like the aroma of a wet dog, only fishier and more dill-like. The butcher stands behind the counter, seemingly annoyed by my perplexed-but-friendly stare into the 8-foot glass case, his fingers twitching in preparation for the imminent smoke break or opportunity to slash something, I can’t be sure. (I swear there is a light saber somewhere in this story.)

The characters:

• Me. Played by a young and dashing Harrison Ford, circa 1982, as Rick Deckard, a.k.a. Blade Runner
• Butcher. Played by Ian McDiarmid, a.k.a. Emperor Palpatine, visibly annoyed and very possibly, ready to Rock

The song, “My girl likes to party all the time, party all the time, party all the tii-iiime” is on the overhead.

“Excuse me – do you have organic free range chicken?” I asked, politely.

“We have all natural chicken, if that’s what you mean.”

“No, I mean free range – do you have that?” I replied, again with nothing but a cheery, please-like-me-Mr.-Butcher-man-with-the-long-knives-and-a-disconcerting-familiarity-with-blood smile.

“You mean like did it run around a yard and peck at stuff before they killed it? I don’t know, I wasn’t there.” The butcher had that restrained, “I want to punch you in the face” look that the librarian in Junior High School had when she wanted to scream but couldn’t because, well, we do have rules against that.

Now let me pause for a moment and say that this was one of those moments in life where I thought of all kinds of witty, cutting things to say to this guy – an hour too late.

“Are you really giving me crap about this?”, or, “Is it worth risking your job to deal with your customers like that?”. And then there’s the old stand-by: “What’s your name? I’d like to talk to the manager pronto, Pal-O-Mine!” Or maybe, “You want the truth? You can’t handle the Truth!” (not sure how that last one applies, but it comes into my mind whenever I’m angry.)

But what was my reaction?

“Uh, OK. Thanks anyway.” Because THAT, unfortunately, is how I roll.

Yes folks, I , am, SPARTICUS.

[Ed. note: I can't help but think that by posting this admission, I just got called a bunch of immature, denigrating names that are often hurled at an umpire at a sporting event, that in some parts of the world imply awful things about the denigratee's mother.

I think this because as I wrote it, I heard my own interior, ever-present adolescent voice call me similarly awful names. And the fact that I used the phrase, "sporting event" seals the deal. And all that the adult me could say back to adolescent me was, "Why don't you say that to my face?" - but I kind of did. Resuming article.]

So what did I do about it?

Although in truth this exchange had very little to do with my eventual decision, I have to thank the grumpy butcher guy for pushing me one step forward on the real food track. I certainly didn’t buy chicken from their meat counter again (ha-HA, Butcher guy! Feel the Burn!!! (Wow this is getting sad.)). And that, among other things, got me looking for alternative resources for chicken and beef. In my post-wimpification state, I was highly susceptible to the suggestion that maybe buying from the grocery store wasn’t my strongest move.

We started out looking to the vendors at Farmer’s Markets, but ultimately it was a bit too pricey. I support the farmer’s market, but $4.00-$4.50 a pound for chicken is a little on the, “are you kidding me?” side. [Ed. Update: Just to clarify, I am talking about whole chicken prices, which are significantly less than individual cuts.]

Besides, if I want to pay those kind of prices, I’ll save it for a date night at Whole Foods, where I can overspend, sit down, and have sushi floating along beside me on a conveyor belt while I pocket some spare napkins for the glove box.

An activity, incidentally, which I am told is a common occurrence – the date night part. A friend who works at the gourmet foods counter says that foodies who get a night out sans children often skip the movie theater and head straight for a dinner of Whole Foods cheese samples, followed by a dessert course of knife and cast iron cookware shopping at Sur la Table. Count me in!

(Incidentally, does anyone know – can you buy your own conveyor belt? Because conveyor belts are almost as cool as light sabers, considering light sabers don’t exist. In this sector of the galaxy, anyway.)

Anyway, rather than paying these prices, we decided to take our next step in seeking out real food: we are eliminating the purchase of meat and poultry from grocery stores by going directly to the farmer, where there is even less chance of getting punched.

In fact, we have now placed an order for 30 whole, bug-eating, grass-plucking, pasture-hanging-out, stress-free chickens, the majority of which will be ready in September. 30 Chickens! In fact, our first 5 arrived this week – which you’ll see in tomorrow’s Friday recipe.

This whole “real food” thing seems to be getting a little out of hand, don’t ya think?

Stay tuned for part 2 where I explain, how to save money if you can’t find a farmer near you. And you forgot your light saber.

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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.

“Would you like to super-size that, little man?”

When we sold our house to move to Oregon, we were between homes for a couple of months. We traveled and vacationed quite a bit, staying with friends and family, and then living in a temporary rental until the deal on the new house closed. As a result, we ate fast food much more than we normally would. And this began to rub off on our 2-year old son (my wife was 7 months along with our second at the time).

One day, in the drive-thru line at a ubiquitous coffee stop, my son asked me to roll down his window so he could talk into the microphone.

In his tiny toddler-sized voice, he lowered his tone and loudly said, “Uh yeah ok…I want a cheeseburger, ansom’ french fries, and a coffee, and uh yeah, OK.”

My toddler, barely able to speak, knew how to order drive-thru.

Oh Boy were we making the grandparents proud.

Should you eat together, at, you know, the dinner table?

In a word, YES.

In a study that was published in 2004 (Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, January issue), children at 31 Minnesota schools were asked questions on how often they ate together as a family, how connected they felt to their family, and to describe their general eating practices. They also recorded their body mass index (BMI) measurement and tracked their progress over 5 years. The study showed significant benefits to gathering together daily for mealtime.

Recent studies published in the Archives of Family Medicine and in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association broadened the list of reasons why a focus on the family should include eating together.

For adolescents, the following benefits, among others, were observed:

• Fostered better nutrition and encouraged healthier eating habits. This included greater overall intake of fiber, iron, calcium, and vitamins B6 and B12, C and E. Children also tended to consume less overall fat.
• Decreased risk substance abuse
• Decreased risk for eating disorders such as bulimia and other unhealthy weight loss practices
• Consumed more fruits and vegetables
• Consumed less prepared/packaged snack foods
• Improved school performance

Obviously, this short list of benefits alone makes it worth the effort. No one wants their kids to have any of these challenges growing up. Eating together is of course no guarantee, but if it helps to increase our chances of simplifying the teen years even slightly, I’ll take it.

Good for the whole family – not just the kids

Eating and cooking together also establishes a family food culture.There are many cultures globally that have made the concept of family synonymous with eating meals together. In my experience, Asian families, Latino families, Italian families – all great examples in general of cultures that have fundamentally incorporated eating together as a family as a culture standard. And there are many, many more. I’d love to hear your experiences as well – please feel free to leave a comment!

Here are a few benefits for the family as a whole:

• Cooking meals together gives you greater control over what you eat and encourages healthy eating habits for all (if you are conscious of those habits for your kids’ sake)
• Trains your children on and how much “normal”actually is, vs. learning this from ad campaigns
• Prompts parents to set the example, which benefits both the kids observing and the parents (if they strive to set a good example)
• Creates your own unique family food culture that builds unity
• Encourages a broadening of the palate and a desire to try new things (in my opinion)
• Creates lifelong memories of eating together that you and your children will cherish later
• Trains children the value of table manners, and reminds parents to use them too (believe me, our 4-year-old watches us like a hawk!)
• Helps kids to be involved with each other lives, building the family unit and familial loyalty, which can be in short supply these days
• Trains children to be gracious when they are away from you: For example, a very “gracious” thing to do is to offer to help to cook or clean up when you share a meal at someone else’s home. If your kids are trained at home, they will know “how” to help.

Food activities you can do as a family

So where do you start? Each family determines there own practices of course, but here is a short list of 10 starting points:

1. Cook together! Young children love to be part of the process, and you will build habits and a closeness that may help later in the “harder” years. In theory, working together with your kids shoulder to shoulder can help to build a strong bond later in life.
2. Teach your kids how to set the table
3. Do the dishes together. Don’t make doing the dishes a punishment – make it part of “what we do” as at mealtime
4. Keep meals simple – cook healthy and easy family meals and teach your kids how to cook them
5. Plan ahead for the days when you don’t feel like cooking. Cook a double batch of a meal, and then freeze the rest so that it can be reheated later. During the preparation, explain the concept to your “helpers”
6. Don’t treat meal times with the TV Dinner mentality. When you eat together, share the same main dishes.
7. Save the discipline and correction for outside the dinner table. Mealtime should be a “safe” time for the family. Dignify your kids by respecting their opinions and ideas.
8. Be consistent! If you are consistent on eating together, it’s not nearly as difficult to convince your kids to sit down together.
9. Be realistic: Your toddler may have a pretty tough time sitting for a half hour at a meal. The important thing is to establish the routine of eating together at the table, even if it is only briefly. In our case for example, with our 3-year old we trained him to sit with us at the table by rewarding him with playing a game of flash cards together after we were done eating. He loved it!
10. Be focused: Time at the table should be treated as a time to really focus on building your family’s culture. Focus on your children’s interests and daily activities. Focus on working together to make the food that you are going to eat, together. You’ve heard it before: Focus on the family.

Big huge disclaimer – “family” doesn’t mean “kids required”

Although this article focuses on families that include children, I firmly believe that you can have a family culture even of only one or two in a household. I think that many of these benefits and healthful practices apply to us as individuals and as couples, children or not. Taking time to eat in a sit-down setting, creating an atmosphere that honors meal times, eating a meal that you have prepared either by yourself, in the company of a partner, or friends and extended family, all yield a greater sense of unity with others globally. More on this in a future article.

Personal note: Some of the most memorable and important meals of my life were had in the company of my extended family, meaning my closest adult friends. April and I will never, ever forget the soulful, life changing evenings of hours spent eating, drinking, laughing, and feverishly debating with those closest to our souls. Spending these moments in the company of our soulmates had a profound impact on me – in fact, those times were part of the inspiration for starting Almost Fit, where I learned what it really meant to enjoy your food on every level, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

J., S., P., and S., we miss you terribly! You know who you are!

Now it’s your turn: What is your family’s food culture?

I’d love to hear from Almost Fit readers on what the portrait of your family eating habits looks like. Please leave your thoughts in the comments.

• Do you eat together as a family?
• What do you define as your family?
• What does eating as a family mean to you?

Thanks again for reading. If you enjoyed this article, please consider subscribing to Almost Fit. Thanks.

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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.

8. Find inspiration in others. I read a LOT of blogs on the subject of diet and exercise. Why? Partly because this blogging community is becoming my community, but of equal importance is the inspiration I receive. Be inspired by the successes of others. Be supportive yourself – it’s contagious.

9. If you do go to a fast food restaurant, use it as a stop gap. Don’t eat your whole meal there. There are times when fast food feels like it truly is the only option. For example, that 24-drive thru on a road trip, when it’s 2:30AM and everything else is closed. Let’s face it: There are times when fast food feels like it is truly the only choice. That is OK. That is why I focus on the habit of eliminating fast food, not viewing it as a lifelong commitment. That said, if you DO go through the drive thru, try to treat it like it is only a stop gap until you can get “real” food. Usually just a few bites is all you need to “get you through”. You don’t need the double whopper with extra mayo and double bacon, upsized to gargantuan.

10. Have a contingent plan. Be prepared so that you prevent “starvation mode.” By Starvation mode I mean the feeling that you are too hungry to make good food decisions – you feel like you just need something – ANYTHING. This is a common suggestion, but it works: Bring a pack of nuts with you wherever you go, just in case. Something that will provide sustenance for those “in between” times when you might normally default to the convenience of a double whopper.

11. Recognize that you are being duped by fast food chains, and let that feeling fester for a while. No one likes to feel like they are that guy who bought the “too good to be true” timeshare in the Florida swamps. Well that is what happens each time we buy into the advertising campaigns of major food industry corporations that tell us we are part of modern culture if we just buy their product. We are being played. We are made to be the fool, and that CEO is “loving it”. How does it feel to be the sucker? Run with that feeling the next time you “want it your way”, and maybe you’ll think twice before you buy in again.

12. Take responsibility for your own longterm healthcare expenses. At the risk of getting slightly political here, we spend an awful lot of time in this country sitting back, waiting for someone else to fix the healthcare system. “Oh if only this elected official would fix this, or if congress would just pass that”… blah blah blah. The fact is, the power to prevent the vast majority of health problems sits squarely on our individual shoulders. If everyone took responsibility for their long term health by eating better and exercising, do you know what I think would happen? Health care costs would decrease naturally, over time, simply because demand for care would decrease. With what result? Health care would focus on things we can’t yet prevent, rather than fixing up problems that we could have avoided by changes earlier. Which ultimately means the quality of care would improve. Problems like severe complications from diabetes are mostly preventable by making changes earlier in life. Heart disease? Almost 100% preventable.

So if you’re still healthy, take ownership of your health, and stop waiting for someone else to fix the broken system.

That might sound harsh, but every time we sacrifice our health for the sake of “convenience”, we are individually contributing to the problem.

13. Improve the quality of the food you eat, but offset the cost by eating less of it. We are chronically overfed in this country by nearly any anthropological measure. We eat constantly, from snacking all day long, even being told that we have to eat at least 6-8 times a day just to maintain a healthy metabolism. What is the result? We simply have to buy more to accommodate the quantities we are told we need. Sound familiar?

If you train yourself to eat good quality food in smaller portions, you begin to expect that standard everywhere. And fast food, sorry to say, does not meet the quality bar. If you train yourself to eat better, and less, your desire for fast food diminishes because your standards increase.

Remember the whole goal of fast food is to get you to buy – and EAT – more. More is better. More of everything. More more more (thanks Mr. Idol). Even if it kills ya.

14. Learn what “real food” tastes like. Many of us think that beef that tastes like a lump of stained cardboard is simply what beef is supposed to taste like. In reality, this is just basic conditioning, and not true. If you start to eat better, you can train your tastes to recognize garbage.

15. Question the way you view cheap food – it is costing us more than you think. Have you ever wondered how in the world you can have a complete double cheeseburger for just .99 cents? I mean, even just the beef – all the labor to raise the cattle, slaughter, fortify and process, pack, freeze, ship, receive, unpack, reship, store, advertise, reheat, and sell – who pays for that? The answer is, everyone along the line pays for it out of their livelihood so we can have it cheaper.

Industrial food production workers often pay for it with poor health and living conditions. Dock workers in this country pay for it when they face layoffs and cutbacks to save money so that our burgers can be as cheap as possible. As fuel prices skyrocket, truck drivers pay for it in their shrinking benefits and pensions (if any, these days) since food prices can’t defray that cost. The lady behind the counter at the restaurant pays for it by taking a barely livable wage with no benefits, often working two or more 30 hour a week jobs because corporations keep them just under the full time hours mark. You get the idea. Everyone else pays for it, so that we can “have it our way”. You know who doesn’t pay for it? That obscenely wealthy CEO. In the end everyone is paying him, and he is laughing all the way to the bank.

16. When you see an ad for big fast food, think about where your food comes from. Cheap food at fast food restaurants starts out in one place 99% of the time: Big industrial food producers with one thing in mind: protect the profit margin. How do industrial food producers keep costs down? They certainly can’t keep prices in check by cutting fuel costs. Rather, the quality is simply decreased. We get cheap food products so the CEO doesn’t have to settle for last year’s Maserati.

17. Buy the coolest, most useful thermos and lunch box you can find. Apple has made it very clear that if you create a product that feels good to use, no matter how much it costs, people will use it (and love it). Use that principle to your advantage. If you have a portable dining set that you LOVE, you will be more inclined to use it. It’s worth the investment, particularly where your health is at stake. Here’s a great example: the Zojirushi Classic Stainless Lunch Jar. They are incredibly useful for keeping leftovers ready to eat for lunch or on the go, and they don’t look bad either.(I WISH someone would make a Six Million Dollar Man ultra-cool lunchbox set for adults, but so far I haven’t found one.)

18. If all else fails, use the shock technique. Every once in a while a good jolt of reality helps to solidify a decision. In this case, indulge the taboo for a second and really investigate the cleanliness standards of fast food places. If you really want to know, it turns out that those sneeze guards over the salad bar are next to useless. Read this article for a first hand description of why a former fast food worker is a little skiddish about trusting a fast food chain to keep things clean. Be forewarned…it’s not for the weak of stomach.

7 Reasons to avoid fast food restaurants

Watch this famous video of Rats at a fast food joint in New York, if you’re not convinced – and note that this restaurant was OPEN the night before:

19. Go ahead – after 30 days, eat some. But make it the greasiest, worst thing you can buy and see how it makes you feel. So a word of caution on this one…It worked for me, but it MAY NOT work for you. You be the judge. This actually happened to me inadvertently, but it seemed to work. After I wrote the first article in this series I remembered that I did indeed have fast food once near the end of the first month. That said, here was the result (and why, in my mind, I didn’t count it): I bought that greasy double-bacon cheeseburger with the loads of mayo and a sliver of lettuce with the purpose of enjoying the indulgence. So how’d it go? Because I’d been eating really well, and less, it actually made me feel sick. I couldn’t finish it. I stopped myself halfway through the sandwich, skipped the fries, and tossed the soda. And this coming from a guy who’s idea of restraint was limiting myself to only ONE of those.

20. Do it for your loved ones. Fast food clearly does not contribute to longer life and better health (although the preservatives may make you “last” longer, when all is said, done, boxed up, and buried). This tactic needs no further explanation – I think you know what I’m saying.

So it’s that easy?

Has eating all of this swiss chard and quinoa purged my mind of the desire for concentrated simple carbohydrates in a bucket, be it liquid or in the form of a deep-fried wing? Far from it. I still crave fast food at times, particularly when stress comes around.

That said however, I feel pretty good in saying that I have learned to manage it. Although I don’t believe it is a mentionable physical addiction (KFC notwithstanding), I DO think for people of my generation it has become a more than insignificant emotional addiction. After all, Fast Food, my lifelong friend, my ever available and constant companion, my, “you had me at double-bacon” beacon, if you will, will always hold a special place in my heart.

Of course, that place is caked with hideous, sticky coronary plaque build-up, and is somewhere near my spleen, though I don’t have specific proof. But really, I don’t think I need it.

One last thing? In case you wondered, these photos hit close to home – I just took a brief walk and photographed the culverts on our street. It wasn’t difficult to find fast food garbage strewn about. I think the photos speak for themselves.

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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…

2. Price. If there was ever an instance of pure self-destructive dietary temptation, it has been embodied in one thing: the ever-present-well-lit-open-24-hours-drive-thru menu. Double-cheeseburger for .99 cents at 4AM, and a taco? Without even having to sit upright in my SUV? Are you kidding me? I’ll take 3! And a shake and fries too? Good lord how can I NOT buy that?

It is a miracle that you cannot buy cigarettes at a fast food drive thru windows. No really – a true Miracle, as in someone oughta’ alert the Vatican. Whatever group of senators and congress-folk that passed that law may well have surpassed Mother Theresa in lives saved.

3. Taste. Now while some would disagree that for a set of us, fast food tastes, well, pretty dang good, think about it for a couple of seconds and you’ll see why I fall in the “tastes good” camp: Big chain fast food corporations pay tens of millions of dollars to figure out what taste, texture, and temperature combination will be more than just mildly non-offensive; the foodish items have to be so taste-filled and jolly good that an otherwise reasonable person will overlook every detail on where that combination of ingredients came from (and what it started out as), how far it’s traveled (and what rat nibbled on it), who’s touched it, dropped it, sneezed on it, reconstituted it, microwaved the heck out of it, then wrapped it in a container that will take 400 years to melt into the water table.

Your food product better be darn good to get us to forget all that.

That said, I am retraining my tastes, and it turns out that the real thing – you know, real food – actually tastes MUCH better, no matter what those voices in my head tell me every time I come within 500 feet of a container of Mountain Dew. Still doesn’t mean that super sugar taste isn’t sweet.

If I had that job, the one where you decide what goes on the 99-cent menu, I would already have it licked.

When asked how to improve the salability of an item, I would simply say, “Well that’s easy, Mr. Burns, sir! Add more cheap sugar substitute of course, preferably from a corn base, and a whole bunch of salt! Throw in some preservatives and cheap coloring, wrap it in a value menu, and you’ve got yourself the next McRib runaway smash hit! And the kids’ll LOVE it!”

I would be senior management material.

What, as a child of the deep fryer, did I do about it?

I obviously have an unholy relationship with fast food. Clearly. So what have I done about it?

Since the beginning of the year, I have successfully eliminated eating fast food, as well as soda in any form. Quit cold turkey. No more monopoly pieces. No more corn syrupy goodness in a pail. No chance of winning that Hummer.

So how am I doing with that so far? 90% of the time, amazingly well. The other 10%? I think the forces that be have been looking out for me. Let me explain.

Remember that one time? At band camp?

I confess. There was a point, a month ago, that I tried to give in and grab some fast food. I had both kids with me, and it had been a tough day. The three of us were hungry, tired, whiny, and wanting convenience. For me, that spells dietary trouble. And I am REALLY annoying when I whine.

I decided to just forget it – and give in.

I first pulled into the drive thru of the local Burgerville. For those not familiar with it, Burgerville is a local fast food chain that is considered better than average because they buy locally, organic foods, grass fed beef, free range eggs, and so forth. I rationalized, “well, if I’m going to do it, this is the place.” Nevermind that my old meal of choice was a couple of cheeseburgers, with extra sauce, a fry or two, and a seasonally fresh berry shake. Yeah, not exactly in my weight loss plan.

Unfortunately, Burgerville’s fatal flaw? Their drive-thru takes forEVER. Slow fast food. And with 2 tired kids, and no movement of the line, I gave up and moved on. Home? OH NO. I was going to have some fast food, and I was gonna’ have it NOW.

Enter: Taco Bell.

[Tangent: Can I just say that only a mega marketing giant like Taco Bell could pull off having a mascot that looks not unlike a shaved rat, and STILL get us to buy a handful of tacos with unusually finely ground "meat" as it's central ingredient. But I digress.]

Taco Bell is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Surely I could eat some garbage there! Pulling up to the magic board of ordering love, I noticed that there was a little piece of paper stuck to the microphone post:

“Closed for computer problems.”

Taco Bell closed? What? This does not happen in the civilized world! I mean, if there is one thing you can count on, it’s the availability of melted cheese product at every corner of this great nation!

Being a geek and all, I must confess that I thought to myself, “In all likelihood, those are Windows computers. So did Microsoft actually just save me from myself???”

After that, I did indeed give up. And I was glad I did. We went home, made a simple dinner, and all was well.

No Fast Food.

What’s the secret? Hypnosis? Nose plugs? Pain therapy?

So how did I do it? What secret voodoo magic am I using to avoid the most prolific business in America (not scientific statement; it’s my view of the world from inside my own corn syrup glazed lenses)?

In part two, I’ll describe the steps I took to rid myself of the fast food beast. It’s not as difficult as you think.

[UPDATE 6/18/08: Here's part 2: "How I stopped eating fast food - 20 ways to end the addiction".]

If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it using your favorite social media tool like StumbleUpon or Digg. Thanks.

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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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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.

Incredibly, she walked away from the accident with no broken bones or major medical damage – just a few minor injuries, cuts, and some bruises mostly from the seatbelt that saved her life. If there’s one thing that has improved that I am eternally thankful for, it’s auto safety engineering.

Upon returning to her job, she called me a few weeks later to say that she was back working at her previous job – she had quit Claim Jumper, where she had indeed been making more money.

“Why did you quit? Wasn’t it going pretty well?”

“Well, the problem is with some of my injuries, I can’t lift the plates anymore…They’re just too heavy. The ones at my old work are fine though.”

In other words, the portions were so huge for an average order that with her injuries she couldn’t physically lift the plates and carry them to customers (much less the giant trays that servers usually carry). The first place at which she worked offered “average” sized portions (still large, but not Claim Jumper-sized), and she could do that without too much trouble.

Portion size is determined by…Us

In the years following the accident, we went to Claim Jumper numerous times, and I couldn’t help but think about my sister’s experience. I too was going for two reasons, just like most of their customers. The food tasted good, and you got a LOT of it.

As I’ve mentioned in other articles here, I do not find fault with restaurants like Claim Jumper for offering large portions. If there was no demand for it, they would have no need to give away extra food at that price. No, portion size is a cultural issue.

The good news is, its something that is within our individual control to change. It doesn’t require legislation, boycotts, angry letters, or lawsuits. Portion control requires personal responsibility, and a purposeful re-education of what a real portion size should be. It requires an understanding that too much of anything is damaging to us physically, and I would argue, emotionally.

This week I’ll be posting an article with a few rules of thumb on portion size, including a handful of tips that you can take with you without the need for an iPhone or a digital scale. I’m not planning on revolutionizing the way we measure things – I’m just going to compile a list of techniques that I’ve found useful in re-tuning what I expect out of a portion size.

One more thing, about my sister

One thing I didn’t mention about my sister’s story: When she rolled the car, she actually pulled herself out of the destroyed vehicle. She climbed through the driver’s side window and wandered to the side of the road where she sat until she could flag someone down.

In other words, helping herself was the key to surviving a potentially deadly situation. You get the idea.

Part 2 discusses what I’m doing now, every day, to determine the amount of food I’m eating – and so far I’ve lost 23 lbs doing it. Here’s the link: Retrain Yourself on Food Portion Sizes – Part 2.

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