The Bad News, But Not Hopeless

Dr. Arya Sharma has a brief post today about "Why Diet and Exercise is Not a Treatment for Obesity."  In brief, heavy people who lose weight must work much harder to keep it off than do those who are naturally the lower weight.

It's true for me that I have to eat like a person who weighs dozens and dozens of pounds less than I do to maintain my current weight at nearly 15% below my highest weight.  And I still have a long way to go.  But I'm not giving up: although I'm currently eating about 1200 calories and losing nicely, I'm much more satisfied with those calories as nutrient-dense foods than I could ever be with that number of calories in Special K, aspartame-sweetened yogurt, Lean Cuisine, and Slim Fast.

My typical day looks like this:

Breakfast -- 1/3 cup (dry) oatmeal made with one piece of fruit and 1/2 oz nuts

Lunch -- giant salad of mixed greens and other veggies with 1/2-1 cup beans, 1/2 oz nuts, and one fruit

Supper -- different cooked veggies, usually one serving of starchy vegetable or rice, either beans alone or 1-3 oz of fish/poultry/meat, a fruit

Snack or Dessert (sometimes) -- a couple of fruits in a smoothie with flax and kale, or a slice of Ezekiel bread toast with peanut butter and a little homemade jam, or just some fruit

A Refreshing Approach to Weight Loss

I have always appreciated the work of Arya Sharma and Yoni Freedhoff, two family physicians who really "get" the challenges of obesity management and educate the public through their blogs.  The Canadian Obesity Network, of which they are both members, has developed a great tool for physicians, and I wanted to note it here for my own reference as well as for others.

In particular, the "tool" of the 5As of Obesity Management recognizes the difference between ideal weight--what the charts call for--and "best weight"--what a person can sustain while still enjoying life.  The tool notes that 5%-10% weight reduction can make major differences in quality of life, shows the difference between classes and stages of obesity, and ultimately makes me feel more a success than a failure.  I've sustained a 10%-20% weight loss for the last five years, and though I still have a long way to go, with ongoing diligence on many fronts and course correction as needed, the work of these physicians gives me contentment with what I have accomplished even as I work for more.

Thanks, guys.

Wisdom From Dr. Sharma

I really appreciate Arya Sharma and Yoni Freedhoff, two Canadian doctors who work with compassion and realism in weight management.  Dr. Sharma posted this today:  Core Principles of Obesity Management.  In my own struggle over the years I get real encouragement--not just pipe dreams--from this.  I've achieved some of these aims, briefly had some of them, and look to them again as I manage this thing.

(I'm finishing up an intense academic year and hope to be posting here again this summer.)

The Happy Rehab Doc: Best of the Blogosphere From the Last Week!! Holiday Meal Ideas, Bon Appetit's Best Vegan, Gluten Free Blogs & Health Care Savings!! AND, the Recipe of the Week!

How fun!  I just found this blog yesterday and was reading through some recent posts this morning, and what do I find?  A link to my own Nutritarian Recipes blog, as the Recipe of the Week!  It's a sign.  I really do need to get back here, for many reasons.  Stay tuned . . .

And now for the particular post from "Dr. Cat":

The Happy Rehab Doc: Best of the Blogosphere From the Last Week!! Holiday Meal Ideas, Bon Appetit's Best Vegan, Gluten Free Blogs & Health Care Savings!! AND, the Recipe of the Week!

A Bit of Wisdom

In describing how her life used to revolve around doing a Martha-Stewart-type holiday season, Emily Boller shared some wit and wisdom I should keep in mind as the school year approaches:

Overachievers need a lot of food to keep them going! 
I like to focus on 'being' now instead. It removes the overachieving insanity.

How about you?

Real-Life Survival and Celebration on Vacation

Hubby and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary (today!) last week with a wonderful trip to the Boston area. We had five full days of eating out in one form or another, and I thought I'd cover some things that worked well for me without mentioning too much about getting off-track from nutritarian eating.

In my carry-on I had two clementines, two apples, a sandwich bag of almonds, and a sandwich bag of several types of dried fruit, plus a small bag of green grapes.  When I returned I had one of the apples in the car on the way home from the airport, and the other is still withering in the bag.  We had the citrus the first day, and most of the grapes (discarded the others), and a few pieces of the nuts and dried fruit through the days.  I liked the feeling of knowing I had these things for when other choices weren't good ones.

We found a grocery the first evening and I bought some nice peaches and a box of Hodgson Mill muesli, plus some strawberries, I think, plus a little jar of peanut butter and I think some crackers to put it on (we had such a good time I've forgotten!). I also got sugar snap peas and carrots combined in a little bag, and I kept them on ice. Even without a fridge in our room we had a little coffee maker, and for breakfast three days I added hot water to a little muesli and a cut-up peach and was good to go for many hours. The fourth morning our hotel (Best Western Plus Plymouth) provided breakfast (and I was out of peaches), so I had their lovely untreated melon fruit bowl with a boiled egg and a slice of whole wheat toast.

Don't trust the waitress or the chef. In one family-type Italian restaurant I ordered a veggie-strong chicken dish (and it did have a lot of veggies) but asked that it be prepared with as little additional oil as possible. No go. It was covered with sauce (kind of a garlicky one, but not an Alfredo). On the other hand, at Sam Diego's Plymouth I ordered a vegetarian burrito and asked that they omit the cream cheese inside and the cheese on the outside, and the chef took the clue and also left off the sour cream, giving me extra guacamole, I think. A nice touch!

Fish is often the best choice in a restaurant, if you can get it without added oil or as little as possible for the recipe.  At Legal Sea Foods at Long Wharf in Boston I had a deliciously light luncheon-portion Cajun-spiced pollock with diced mango, pineapple, and jicama, alongside asparagus and some jasmine rice.   Yes, I noticed that Legal Sea Foods had a "vegetarian box," but I was at Long Wharf in Boston on the first day of my anniversary trip! :-)  At The Franklin Cape Ann (which we kind of stumbled into when another great restaurant we'd enjoyed 18 months ago seemed to have disappeared) we shared the amazing Grilled Asparagus Salad and I got the Pan Seared Atlantic Haddock.  Only now as I look at the website do I see that they have a vegetarian menu, too.  If I were visiting again, I might try anything on that menu (though skipping the mozzarella salad).  On the other hand, they have an English pea soup listed there with both crispy bacon and creme fraiche!  So perhaps they don't know what they're talking about when they say "vegetarian."  Probably my favorite find as a nutritarian from the sticks (and an hour from the nearest Whole Foods Market) was the WF directly next door to the Cambridge church we visited on Sunday morning, so I experienced the "Whole Paycheck" phenomenon with a big salad bar container that cost me $15!  I couldn't finish it, but it was delicious and about 95% nutritarian.  That was nice. Now that I've mentioned just about every other place we ate, I have to mention Rang Indian Bistro in Stoneham. Gorgeous, delicious food, including Aloo Tikka Chat for an appetizer, and I think I got the Dal Makhani.

I'm glad I'm not a "drinker."  Hubby and I shared a glass of wine at one dinner and a glass of sparkling wine at another, and we even had a first for us and each had a mixed drink in a hotel lounge one late afternoon. I'm glad to have enjoyed these drinks but also glad to have them be so special and not a routine part of life. I have enough challenges with other calorie options out there!  Weight Maven has a good post on this idea of specialness here.

My eating degenerates over the days of a trip.  I start with the best of intentions and practices, and the availability of amazing fun foods and the celebration mentality kind of get to me.  So I had a wrap (grilled veggies with some cheese) sandwich in the airport on the way home, and a donut from the airport Dunkin Donuts afterwards, then both a Diet Coke (my first of the trip!) and salty packaged snacks on the plane. My last hurrah, I guess.  The scale was up a few pounds the first day home, but I'm thankful that just a week later I'm down a pound from when I left.  I'm especially thankful that because I eat mostly nutritarian I didn't have a lot of detox to go through upon my return to nutritarian eating.

It was fun, but it's good to be home!  Our grocery stores (even in the sticks) are paradises of produce compared to what's "out there" on city streets and in restaurants and airports!

Depressing, But I'm Not Giving Up!

Dr. Arya Sharma posts this:  "Why Diet and Exercise is Not a Treatment For Obesity."

It turns out that "keeping it off" is much harder for those of us who have had to lose it.  I'm almost 20% lighter than my highest weight, but I have a distance yet to go.  But like my dad always said, "Life is not fair."  :-)

Telling final quote:  "Whoever said that treating obesity was simply a matter of ‘eating less and moving more’ (ELMM) probably also believes that they [sic] can live forever by simply breathing less."

What's in a Name?

I've been calling myself a "nutritarian," or saying that I follow "nutritarian principles," for a while now. I like the fact that the word, coined by Dr. Fuhrman, I believe, focuses on the goal of this eating style--to get in the most nutrition possible per calorie. But it's unfamiliar and confusing to people.

I've also told people that I eat "mostly vegan," but that sounds like I have an ideology that shuns animal foods. Plus, a lot of vegans eat junk--processed vegan junk food. I don't mind it that I'm contributing dramatically less to the factory-farm food industry (See Food, Inc., available in different versions on YouTube), but I have no ethical/moral/aesthetic problem with animal foods. I eat small amounts of meat and dairy and eggs when I'm eating healthy, and more than that when I'm just indulging. Michael Pollan, whose books I haven't read, seems to have a reasonable approach. 

Another term has been going around among the blogs I read, "Plant Strong."  I like that concept--it captures the idea that we should be eating mostly plants, focusing on those. But it doesn't necessarily shun animal products.  An emphasis on "whole foods" is also a good one, though that tends to go the way of people eating the WHOLE pig and such--not quite what I have in mind.

If anyone's out there reading, what are your thoughts about these terms or others and how well they describe what YOUR eating plan is?

Doctors Discuss "Best Weight"

Arya M. Sharma, M.D., and Yoni Freedhof, M.D. both deal extensively with weight management in their medical practices, and both blog on these topics in intelligent, compassionate, science-based, reality-based ways.  They've now come out with a publication for physicians to be used in advising patients about weight management.  Dr. Sharma is going to be sharing excerpts on his blog, and here is the first.  Highlights in my own words:

• A patient's "best weight" is that weight he can maintain while still enjoying his life.
• Exercise should be encouraged but not to the point of exhaustion, injury, obsession, or neglect of other important things in life.
• If there is no room for celebrations, for resting, for comfort, for pleasure, then any weight management strategy is too restrictive and cannot be maintained.

It seems to me on the one hand that these ideas make sense, and on the other hand that some of us need stricter life guidelines for weight management.  For me, eating nutritarian feels good, tastes good, and IS good for me nutritionally. And I know I have to be very careful with celebratory foods--had just a bite or two of most Thanksgiving treats last week, for example.  But I don't want to come to the dangerous place of calling foods "forbidden."  A little here and there of meat, oil, sweets, even chips is not deadly. However, it can be dangerous to me, since indulging even a little CAN trigger me into losing control.

It's always balance, isn't it, and knowing ourselves, and applying wisdom?