Tag Archives: diet

It Really IS All about Calories

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Stop with the fad diets already! The only ones that really work are the ones that reduce calorie intake.

As mentioned elsewhere on this blog, I’m dieting. I’m doing it for my physical and mental health. I think those are the two best reasons to get back in shape, no matter what that entails.

I started the diet on May 1 of this year and have lost, as of this morning, 19.6 pounds. I want to lose a lot more. I’ve done it before and I felt great. But then I just got back into my old overeating habits and, over the course of 10 years or so, gained it all back. So now I’m dieting again, taking my body back to 2012. I have about 40 pounds to go, so I’m nearly 1/3 there.

And yes, I did weigh “that much.” I’m 5’8″ tall and I can hide those pounds. But I still have to carry them.

Don’t Be Dumb about Dieting

When I mention to folks that I’m dieting, they immediately respond with recommendations for the various fad diets or techniques they use. It happened just this morning when I went to the clinic to have blood drawn for bloodwork on my annual physical. I had to fast so I was there when they opened at 7:00 AM. I was back home with my first cup of coffee 30 minutes later.

The phlebotomist — that’s the woman in her 30s who drew my blood — said that the only way she can lose weight is to cut out carbs. And because she’s allergic to dairy like milk and cheese, she has trouble getting enough protein.

“Are you a vegetarian?” I asked, not quite understanding.

“No,” she said, “but there are only so many kinds of meat out there.”

I was flabbergasted. This was coming from a medical professional who was certainly young enough to understand how to use Google — just in case the dozens of doctors and nurses around her all day long couldn’t provide advice. (The medical center she works for also has dietitians on staff and I suspect it would cost a lot less for her to talk to them than for me, provided I wanted to wait four months for an appointment.)

I was going to remind her it was all about calories, but then she was done taking blood and wrapping my arm with a gauze pad and what I’ll always think of as vet wrap. I was done and people were waiting. I left.

But it really and truly is all about calories. We eat food that provides energy, which is quantified as calories, to our bodies. Throughout the day, we move, sit, walk, nap, lift heavy things, climb stairs, and maybe even jog or bike or do something really active. All those activities — yes, even napping or vegging out in front of the TV — burn calories. If we eat more energy than we need, our bodies store it as fat. If we use more energy than we eat, our bodies should tap into those fat reserves and burn fat.

I will put myself out there and say this, which I am 100% convinced of: it is not possible to lose weight without reducing calorie intake or increasing activity levels to burn more calories or both. Ask your doctor. I cannot imagine her disagreeing.

Doing the Math

So every day your body is doing math for you. Well, it’s not actually doing the math. It’s just doing what it does. But you can do the math yourself if you keep track of the calories in what you eat and have some way of calculating the calories you burn — like maybe a smart watch or FitBit?


Here’s Sunday in a nutshell: calories consumed, calories burned, and basic nutritional information.

I use a calorie tracker app that’s really easy to use, mostly because it has just about all packaged and chain restaurant food programmed into it. I’m on a diet, so I’m not eating out much. I’m eating food that’s on my diet plan, mostly because its easy and its nutritionally balanced. But I’m also making my own meal once a day and I’m weighing everything that goes into it. I’d say that my daily calorie count is about 90% accurate; that means I’m only off by about 10% if at all. I’m comfortable with the margin of error.

My Apple Watch (series 3, folks; I don’t need more) keeps track of my activity levels — although I honestly think it doesn’t count flights of stairs right. (I definitely climb the stairs more in my home than my watch says I do.) It automatically imports my activity, included my estimated calorie burn, to my phone, which is where my calorie counter app lives. The app gets the data and displays it on my Food page for the day, as you can see in the screen grab here for Sunday, when I was pretty active. I’m not sure how accurate this count is, but I’d say it’s within 25% of what it reports. So if it says I burned 2000 calories, I feel pretty confident that the real number is between 1500 and 2500 calories. I know that’s a big spread, but it’s close enough for me. My goal is for my watch and health app to report a calorie burn of at least 1800 calories a day.

I’m restricting my calorie intake to about 1000 calories. I’m not kidding around here, folks. I want to lose all the weight this summer, before I go back to the boat. For those of you who think this isn’t healthy, understand that the diet plan food is nutritionally balanced — as I said above — and, just in case, I take a quality daily vitamin/mineral supplement for women aged 50+. During the first two weeks, I had occasional days where I felt a bit out-of-sorts, but I’ve been fine since then. Certainly enough energy to get my work done, including more than a few strenuous chores.

The math is pretty simple. According to many reputable sources, 1 pound of weight equals 3500 calories. (And yes, I’m aware that this “rule of thumb” isn’t a foolproof formula for losing weight. If you research this, be sure to focus on what’s said by reputable sources and not the top Google hits, which are sponsored and not reliable.) So using Sunday as an example, I took in 1014 calories and burned 2423 calories. That’s a net of 1409 — I burned 1409 more calories than I took in.

I need to add a few things about this diet that I think are important. The diet plan wants me to eat six times a day. Most meals — the packaged bars and microwavable “hearty” foods — are 90 to 110 calories each. So that’s 500 calories for 5 meals eaten 2 to 3 hours apart. The small portions are hard to keep you feeling satisfied when you first start, but within a week or two, they become enough to keep you from getting hungry until next mealtime. I really believe that spreading the calorie intake over the entire day — rather than “fasting” (which so many people are pushing these days) — prevents your body from going into a sort of “starvation mode” where it might start burning muscle instead of fat.

The final meal — which I usually have midday — is “lean and green”: real food that includes a lean protein like just about any meat in the right portion size and a salad or green vegetable. I do salad and I buy boxes of baby mixed greens and other salad veggies to make it interesting. Low calorie or “lite” dressing. The other day, I had a grilled 4-ounce ribeye steak and a bowl of salad with lettuces, cabbage, cucumber, tomato, raw mushrooms, and a nice balsamic vinaigrette dressing. So I’m not exactly suffering here.

The other ingredient to this diet is water. Drinking lots and lots of water. My “diet coach” claims that the water makes me burn fat, but I’m not 100% convinced it’s as easy as that. I do know that on days when I drink more water, my weigh-ins have bigger ticks down. I drink a lot of plain water and water flavored with Gatorade Zero, which adds electrolytes I might need from working in the heat of summer. No diet soda or juice.

This is basically the same diet I used in 2012 to lose 45 pounds in 4 months. Back then, I didn’t count calories or have a watch that monitored my activity, but I still lost weight. When I was off the diet, my stomach wasn’t expecting those big meals, so it took a few years for me to go back to my nasty, stupid overeating habits and start gaining it all back. I still can’t believe I let that happen; I won’t let it happen again.

And one more thing: could I do this without the diet plan food? Yes, but it would be a lot more difficult. I’d have to come up with five food portions a day that were right around 100 calories each. I’d have to make sure they were nutritious. I’d have to count every calorie for every ingredient in every meal to make sure I wasn’t going over the allowed amount. That would be a lot more difficult than just buying the damn food and eating that.

Weighing In


Yes, I cropped out the numbers. But you can see the trend and that’s all that really matters.

My daily weigh-in, which is also on that calorie counter app, tracks my progress and gives me a space to write notes every day. I report when I “cheat” — for example, having street tacos for lunch instead of my “lean and green” meal.

A lot of folks say you shouldn’t weigh in daily, but I don’t care. I do. It keeps me motivated. Watching the scale tick down daily — with the occasional tick back up a tad — helps me monitor my process and see that I’m moving forward.

Why Those Fad Diets “Work”

You might be wondering why the fad diets you’ve tried have worked for you. I can attest to the fact that the Atkins diet worked for me back in 2004; I lost 20 pounds back then and felt pretty darn good. Until I went off it, of course.

Did you ever think about how cutting carbs out of your diet, for example, actually affects calorie intake? Or how fasting twice a week affects the total number of calories you take in for the week? Or how the Atkins diet or Paleo diet or Whole 30 diet fill-in-the-blank diet really affect calorie intake?

And how many of those diets are actually healthy? I think the Mediterranean diet is, but it’s definitely not the kind of diet you’d use to lose a lot of weight quickly. It’s more like the kind of diet you’d switch to when you were at or near your ideal weight to stay healthy and eat right. It seems smart, to me, and, to be honest, it’s kind of how I eat anyway. (I just eat too much!)

And yes, I’ve gotten lots of recommendations about Weight Watchers. I cannot comment on it because I’ve never tried it. But I have to think that any diet that promotes healthy eating in moderation is a good diet. And if it helps you lose weight when you need to, even better.

Going Forward after Meeting My Goal

In my world, it’s all about portion control. I like to eat good food. I don’t eat junk food or fast food, but I’ll have huge portions of an excellent stew (with noodles!) or fresh baked bread or just about anything tasty. I need to eat less of what I do eat. That’s my go-forward once I’m down to my ideal weight.

I never want to do this diet again. I just want to eat smart in moderation. If I do that and stay active, I shouldn’t be in this mess again.

And don’t fool yourself — losing weight and staying fit isn’t about making yourself look good for other people. It isn’t about rail thin supermodels or societal norms. It’s about your health.

Sure, there are plenty of fat people who live long lives, but are they physically able to make the most of those lives? Do they have nagging health issues that hold them back? Bad knees, shortness of breath, stomach issues? Who wants to be like that?

I don’t.

Chicken Barley Stew with Vegetables and Kale

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A Mediterranean Diet friendly meal.

Chicken Barley Stew
Veggies, whole grain, and lean chicken. What could be healthier?

I blogged recently about going on the Mediterranean diet for my health as I’m getting older. I’ve got a few cookbooks with recipes, but after a while you get a feel for what you can come up with on your own. This quick stew is my own concoction.

Ingredients

  • 1/2 tablespoon olive oil
  • 2 ounces chopped carrots
  • 2 ounces chopped celery
  • 2 ounces chopped onions
  • 1/4 cup uncooked pearl barley, rinsed
  • 1 1/2 cup low sodium, low fat chicken broth
  • 3 ounces cooked chicken
  • 1 large kale leaf, stem removed, chopped
  • salt and pepper to taste

If you don’t have a scale, 2 ounces is about 1/4 cup; 4 ounces is about 1/2 cup. If you don’t use low sodium chicken broth, you won’t have to add salt. I buy roasted “pulled” chicken at the supermarket. (Thanks, Bill, for the tip!) I only used 3 ounces of chicken because it looked like enough and I’m trying to keep calorie count down.

Steps

  1. In a small saucepan, heat oil.
  2. Add carrots, celery, and onions. Cook for 5 to 8 minutes on medium heat until soft.
  3. Stir in barley and cook for another minute or so.
  4. Add chicken broth. Bring to a boil, then turn down to simmer and cover. Cook 30 minutes or until barley is soft. It will absorb much of the liquid.
  5. Add chicken and kale. Simmer until chicken is heated through and kale is wilted.
  6. Serve with salt and pepper to taste.

Yields one very generous serving or two small servings. Total calories is about 450. You can reduce the calories by using less barley (1/4 cup is 163 calories) or less chicken (3 ounces is 142 calories). I’m thinking I’ll make it with 2 tablespoons of barley, 2 ounces of chicken, and 1 cup of broth next time. That’ll chop off 100 calories and yield a single normal serving.

-o-

Oh, and isn’t it refreshing to read a recipe on a website that doesn’t bombard you with a million pictures and a long, boring story about making the recipe? Seriously: what are some of these food bloggers thinking? When I look for a recipe, I want the recipe, not details of the blogger’s intimate relationship with it.

Eating for Health: The Mediterranean Diet

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I change the way I eat in an attempt to head off health problems.

Last week I went for my annual check up. There was nothing new to report: I still had high blood pressure (which I’ve had for at least 15 years). I did manage to shrink a bit more — no matter how tall I tried to stand against the measuring do-dad, my height came out to 5′ 7-1/4″ instead of the 5′ 8″ on my driver’s license and elsewhere. The scale reported that I was about 5 pounds heavier with my clothes on than I had been that morning at home with my clothes off. Neither number was very good.

I chatted with the nurse about weight. As I’m aging, I’m feeling the affects of having to carry around more weight than I should. I told her about my experience with Medifast, which I blogged about here, and how I was not interested in eating fake food for the rest of my life. She told me about her experience with the Mediterranean Diet and highly recommended it. A while later, the doctor did, too.

This isn’t the first time healthcare professionals have recommended the Mediterranean diet. I’d been advised to try it before. And I did get a book full of recipes to learn more about it. But, in all honesty, I didn’t think it was that different from the way I usually eat. You see, I don’t eat a lot of processed/prepared foods and I don’t have junk food snacks in my pantry. I already have a somewhat “healthy” diet.

Mediterranean Diet Pyramid
Search Google for “Mediterranean Diet Pyramid” and lots of versions will come up. This one is from an article on the America’s Test Kitchen website; check it out to see a larger version and explanation.

This time, however, I decided to take a closer look. The Mediterranean diet isn’t about weight loss as much as it’s about developing and maintaining healthy eating habits. It tries to condition you to make good food choices so you can stick to it for the rest of your life — which is exactly what I need and want. (I’m done with lose-weight-quick diets that promise you’ll lose weight if you just eat some ridiculous combination of foods that don’t make up a healthy balanced diet.) It presents a food pyramid that’s remarkably different from the one established by the FDA — it pushes lots of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains and severely limits red meats and sugary snacks and deserts. I could eat things like bread and pasta and rice (in moderation, of course) — which are verboten on so many weight loss diets. I could also eat lots of beans, fruits, and vegetables, which I actually like. The main change would be a reduction in meat and an increase in fish — and I have to admit that I’d already eat more fish if there was a decent fish market within driving distance of where I live.

Easy Mediterranean Diet Book
I might call this book “Mediterranean Diet for Morons” since it’s so damn easy to follow.

I decided to give it a try. But because my bigger problem is portion control, I thought I’d try it with a guide that included recipes and meal plans that made it easy for me to eat the right things without over eating. I wound up with The Easy Mediterranean Diet Meal Plan, which includes four weeks of meal plans with recipes and weekly shopping lists. I bought the Kindle version, which was only $6.99, so I could easily consult it anywhere on my iPad.

After reading up on the “good food” vs “bad food,” I paged ahead to the first week’s shopping list and dutifully added all the items I didn’t already have on hand to the shopping list in my phone. Although I’d planned on going food shopping this morning (Sunday), it was a good thing I had the list with me on Friday when I happened to be in town after a trip with a friend up to Twisp; I put on my mask and braved the Fred Meyer supermarket in mid afternoon to get what I needed. I don’t think I’ve ever spent so much time in the produce department in my life. I wound up with a ton of veggies, many of which — like kale and fennel (anise) — are not normally part of my diet. I had trouble stuffing them all into my fridge.

Veggies
Here’s some of my haul from Friday’s trip to Fred Meyer. Kale, peppers, celery, and fennel were four veggies I seldom buy.

I spent Friday evening and all day Saturday trying to eat up the leftovers I’d accumulated during the week. (I hate throwing away food.) Then I went through my pantry and pulled out food items that I shouldn’t eat, just so they wouldn’t tempt me. I made two bags: one to store down in a box in my garage because I’d likely eat them again (in moderation) when my one-month trial was over and another to hand off to a neighbor because I was unlikely to eat them ever again. This process actually surprised me because I found that most of the stuff in my pantry was food that was okay on the Mediterranean Diet. (As I said earlier, my normal diet isn’t that different from this one.)

I also made the “cold cooked” oatmeal and quinoa dish that would be my breakfast for the next two days. (I ate it a little while ago with 2 ounces of fresh raspberries on top and it was very tasty.)

I discovered that all of the recipes in the cookbook made four servings. That meant I needed to cut them in half or fourths, depending on whether I was supposed to eat them for two or one meal. (Of course, this also meant that I bought too much food; I’m hoping some of it will last beyond the first week. If not, my chickens will get some good treats at the end of this week and I’ll shop more carefully next time.)

Food Rules
I should point out here that the Mediterranean Diet offers the same advice as Michael Pollan in his book, Food Rules. The main takeaway of that book is “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” I highly recommend the book if you’re interested in a quick, easy read that’ll help you eat healthier.

Anyway, the main challenge this first week is to keep my snacking under control between meals. I’m using my usual calorie counting app to keep track of what I eat and that’ll help keep me focused. Once I get into the swing of things, I should do fine. After all, I managed to stick to Medifast, which was quite difficult, for nearly 4 months. If I can do that, this should be a piece of cake.

(Or maybe a stick of celery, since cake isn’t on the list of “good food.”)

I’ll let you know how I do.

In the meantime, why not take a look at your own situation? Could you benefit from a better diet with healthier food? Or some of the other philosophies of a diet like the Mediterranean, which I didn’t even cover here: slowing down, taking time to prepare your food, enjoying meals at a table with your family and no screens? Be objective in your evaluation. Maybe it’s time for you to start thinking more about how what you eat and how you eat it affects your health. You never know.

A Personal Tune-Up

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Two new routines in my life.

I turned 56 at the end of June. (Unlike other women, I don’t lie about my age.) And although I’m a lot more active than my mother (for example) was at my age, I’m not quite as active and fit as I’d like to be. To make matters worse, I’ve discovered that Mother Nature plays nasty little tricks on a person’s body as he or she ages.

While most people would take the attitude that it’s all part of aging and there’s nothing they can do about it, I’d rather not. So I’ve set August as the beginning of a personal tune-up period and have added two new routines to my life.

Feeling Better through Weight Loss

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’ll know that back in 2012 I lost 45 pounds or approximately 23% of my body weight. (I’ll let you do the math; and you never thought you’d use high school algebra, huh?) This huge weight loss coincided with the beginning of my crazy divorce and lots of folks assumed that stress from the divorce caused the weight loss. It didn’t — although I suspect it did help. I lost all that weight by getting on and sticking to Medifast, a diet plan that two friends had used to lose 80 and 70 pounds respectively. A friend who started at the same weight as me lost just as much as I did in about the same amount of time. Truth is, by the time I got home from my summer job to face the crazy that awaited me, I’d already dropped most that weight and I managed to keep most of it off for two years.

But as you might expect from going off a strict, unsustainable diet plan — I had no desire to eat that “food” for the rest of my life — the weight crept back on. Not all of it, thank heaven. But enough to make me feel the sluggishness and lack of motivation that I felt back in the final days of my ill-advised marriage. So I decided to do something about it.

The question was what to do? Sure — I could get back on Medifast and drop all that weight in another four months. But then I’d secure my seat on a dieting seesaw I never wanted to be on. I needed a more sustainable plan, something that would allow me to eat the food I wanted without counting calories or getting overly concerned about portions.

Enter Whole30

Long story short: six different friends raved to me about Whole30. It’s apparently been around for a while. It’s a version of a Paleo diet. Food is broken down into broad yes/no categories:

YesNo
Meats, fish, and eggsDairy, including cheese (!)
FruitAdded sugar or sugar substitute
Vegetables (with some exceptions)Legumes
Nuts (with some exceptions)Grains, including whole grains and pasta
Natural fatsAlcohol, including wine (!)

This isn’t everything you need to know, of course. But it is about 90% of what the plan entails.

It’s about your health, stupid.

I have no patience for overweight people who claim that they don’t care what other people think of them or that fat can be beautiful or that society places too strong an emphasis on perfect bodies and they don’t care. These people are missing the point.

I’m not saying we should all look like runway models. I’m saying that we should maintain healthy body weight. So many ailments can be avoided or even cured by weight loss. This isn’t bullshit hearsay — it’s the truth. Not only will you look better and feel better when you get down to a healthy weight, but you’ll be healthier and have a much better feeling of self-esteem. Take it from me: I’ve been there. Stop making excuses and start taking care of your health.

The idea is to stick to this plan exactly as written for 30 days (yes, it’s the 30 Day Challenge). The authors of the plan and the book that goes with it make all kinds of claims about how good you’ll feel at the end of that month. Some of them are admittedly outrageous — like claims to “cure” literally dozens of ailments related to “silent inflammation.” I don’t believe all that crap, although I do believe that symptoms of some ailments can be greatly reduced with a good diet and healthy weight. For example, I have had high blood pressure for years; it runs in my family. When I was very heavy, it took three meds to control it. When I lost all that weight, I got it under control with just one med — and that’s where I am today.

(I might also mention here that one of the reasons I was determined to lose all that weight back in 2012 is because my doctor told me I needed to start watching my sugar numbers. Type 2 diabetes also runs in my family and I didn’t want any part of that. My weight loss took the possibility of that off the table — no pun intended.)

Whole30 BookThe Whole30 book itself is pretty funny if you read it with a mind as cynical as mine. It’s all “rah-rah” and “you’ll hate us for this but” and other such nonsense meant to encourage weak people. The way I see it, if you want to see results, you have to stick to a plan that’ll work. No amount of coaxing is going to work on someone with no willpower.

The gimmick with the Whole30 Challenge is that for the 30 days you’re following the plan, you can’t cheat. Not even a tiny bit. If you have anything to eat that isn’t allowed, you have to start over. So yes, the 1/3 teaspoon (I measured it) of sugar and half ounce (estimated) of milk that I put into my 18 ounce cup of coffee (allowed) this morning is cheating and I’d have to start over tomorrow. That ain’t gonna happen. I was warned by my Medifast diet coach that coffee, milk, and sugar weren’t allowed on Medifast and I wouldn’t get results if I had them every morning. But I did and I still lost a shit-ton of weight.

And sure, you can throw my words about willpower above back in my face, but my morning coffee is something I’m not willing to give up for a week, let alone a month. I want to find a plan I can live with, not suffer through.

Not a Weight Loss Plan?

I should point out here that the Whole30 book claims it isn’t a weight loss diet plan. I honestly think they say that so you’re not disappointed when you don’t lose weight. But in the book, they say that you will lose weight as a side effect of getting all the bad food out of your system. And although they don’t have you counting calories, they do talk about portion sizes and having just three meals a day — or at least keeping three hours between smaller meals. And that sounds a lot like Medifast.

I guess it’s all the same no matter how different it is.

You Have to Like to Cook

One of the interesting aspects of Whole30 is that because you have no idea what they put in restaurant food, you can’t really eat in a restaurant. And because you’ll likely die of boredom eating plain salad and grilled meat all the time, they have lots of recipes in the book. (There are also a ton online. Want to make a pork dish? Google Whole30 pork recipe.) So you’ll theoretically do a lot of cooking at home. I like to cook so that’s okay with me.

The other day I made their Classic Chili recipe using some of the ground beef I already had in my freezer (from the 1/4 cow I bought last year) and vegetables right out of my garden. It was surprisingly delicious. It also made enough for me to freeze two portions so the next time I don’t feel like cooking, I can grab one out of the freezer, pop it in the microwave, and enjoy.

The book also has a ton of recipes for various sauces to spice up plainly prepared foods. I made an almond- and tomato-based “romesco sauce” yesterday to top garlic shrimp with zucchini noodles. The recipe made enough for several meals, so I used some this morning on an omelet I made with eggs from my chickens and onions, tomatoes, and peppers from my garden. It really did make breakfast more interesting.

Home Made Lara Bars
With no added sugar and simple, wholesome ingredients, you don’t need to be on a special diet plan to like these energy bars.

I also found a recipe online the other day for Whole30-compliant energy bars similar to the Larabars you might find in your supermarket or health food store. I made two versions: one with dates, coconut, dried cherries, almonds, and pepitas and the other with dates, coconut, dried apricots, almonds, and flax seeds. I put half in the fridge and used my vacuum sealer to seal and freeze the other half in individual bars. I’ve been eating them for dessert and will likely take them on hiking or day trips. They’re actually quite tasty.

So I guess that as long as I can continue to make interesting foods, I’ll have no trouble sticking with it. My 30 days started yesterday and I’ll go until month-end. I’ll likely blog some interesting things I discover along the way.

But I don’t actually expect Whole30 to be the reason I lose weight over the next few months. I’ll leave that to Invisalign.

Stopping Shifting Teeth

Here’s something I never knew about aging: your teeth shift.

I’ve always had very healthy teeth — only three cavities in my life so far. They were not, however, perfectly straight. When I was a kid, my parents actually debated me getting braces for an overbite and eventually decided that it wasn’t severe enough. (They were right about that.) My bottom teeth, however, have always been a bit crooked, with one of the front ones sitting at a 30° angle to the others. Fortunately, no one sees that when I smile since my front teeth steal the show. So although I was never happy about those bottom teeth, I never saw a need to fix them.

One of the happy side effects of my divorce is that I smile a lot more now. (It’s true! I’m a much happier person!) And about a year or two ago, I started to notice that in photos of me smiling, one of my front teeth seemed to be in the shadows. I realized, with a bit of horror, that it was starting to shift backwards in my mouth and it was affecting my smile.

Now I’m not raving beauty and I came to terms with that years and years ago. But I do look best when I’m smiling so I do it a lot. I found the thought of my smile getting ugly very hard to swallow.

Enter Invisalign

Invisalign is a program with dental “appliances” to straighten teeth. It’s extremely effective in cases where not much straightening is required — like in my mouth — and it’s popular with adults because it’s basically invisible to others. The patient starts with a set of clear plastic appliances that fit over his or her teeth and gently tug them toward the desired end position. Every 7 to 10 days, the appliance is replaced with a new one that continues the positioning. At the end of the program, the teeth should be in the desired end position.

My dentist showed me an animation of my teeth moving into the proper position over time. It was very cool. I’ll see if I can track down a sharable copy.

In my case, I’ll be using 20 sets of appliances. They started me yesterday with my first one. The worst part is the placement by the dentist of small upraised points on several teeth to hold the plastic braces in place. Then they snap in snugly and go to work. I can feel them pulling, but although I thought they’d keep me up, I slept like a log last night — nine full hours!

And yes, I do have to wear them night and day. You must wear them 20 to 22 hours a day for them to work.

I’ll wear these for 10 days, then switch. Then 10 days of that and a switch. Then I visit my dentist so he can see how things are going and get the next batch. I’m hoping that they’re going well enough to do a switch every 7 days instead of 10 to speed up the program.

The net results: I should have all my teeth — even the bottom ones I’d already decided I could live with crooked — straightened within about six months.

Of course, since my teeth will want to continue to shift as I continue to age, I’ll have to wear a retainer at night, likely for the rest of my life. Let’s hope I can live with that.

Invisalign and Weight Loss

Of course, I talked to a bunch of people about their Invisalign experience before plunking down a bunch of money to give it a try. (It ain’t cheap.) And one of the things that came up is the fact that you lose weight when you’re on Invisalign.

What?

Well, it actually makes perfect sense. You have to wear these things at least 20 hours a day and you can’t eat or drink anything other than water while you’re wearing them. Sure, they’re easy enough to take out, but if you take them out to eat, you need to brush your teeth and clean the plastic appliances before putting them back in. This is a huge pain in the ass. So, as a result, people wearing Invisalign appliances don’t do much snacking between meals. That means they lose weight.

So combine Whole30 with Invisalign and it would be a miracle if I didn’t lose weight.

Invisalign and White Teeth

I also expect that my teeth will be cleaner and whiter than they’ve ever been before.

Let’s face it: I hate brushing my teeth. I hate the flavor of toothpaste. (Peppermint has been known to make me nauseous.) When I eat a meal, I want the flavor of the meal to linger on my palate 20 or 30 minutes later, not the minty flavor of toothpaste. So I normally brush my teeth just once a day, and that’s usually right after showering. I do everything in my power to avoid brushing right before or after my morning coffee, which really is sacred to me.

But now I have to brush after every meal or snack. I brushed my teeth four times yesterday. I expect to brush at least five times today as I begin considering my mid-morning snack.

I use a whitening toothpaste. Brushing 4-5 times a day would have to result in whiter teeth, no?

So in six months, I can expect to have the straightest, whitest teeth I’ve ever had.

Is It Time for Your Tune Up?

Getting old sucks. (And don’t give me the tired old saw about it beating the alternative; there will come a point for many of us when the alternative is better.) But you don’t have to take things lying down. You can do what’s within your power or budget to make your life better as you age.

That’s what I’m doing. If you’re not, why not?

Learning about Milk Fat

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I learned something new today, thanks to a debate with a friend.

The other day, a friend and I were discussing milk.

I told her I preferred 2% milk but was trying to get to like 1% milk. To me, it was about reducing unnecessary fat and calories in my diet. I’ve been drinking 2% milk for years and actually now prefer its flavor and consistency over whole milk. Whole milk, to me, had become too rich, almost like a light cream. I wanted to start liking 1% milk in an effort to further reduce fat and calories for a healthy diet. I already enjoy fat-free yogurt; indeed, I don’t think I’ve had whole milk yogurt in years, if ever. (Do they even make it? I guess I could make my own.)

My friend was adamantly opposed to reduced fat milk. I gathered from our conversation that she thought they added things to the milk that made it less healthy when they removed the fat. Or that something about the actual process of making reduced fat milk caused it to be less healthy. In any case, she thought reduced fat milk was bad and didn’t want to hear anything else about it.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned, especially in the past three or four years, is that when someone is stuck with an idea in their head it’s no use debating the point. At least not without facts. And although I suspected there was nothing unhealthy about reduced fat milk, I had no evidence to prove my point. So I let the subject drop and we chatted about other things.

But this morning, when I sat down with my coffee and some time to kill before dawn, I set about finding some evidence to support my point of view.

How Reduced Fat Milk is Made

I Googled “How do they make reduced fat milk?” I got a number of search results. The first, from The Kitchn website, had the answer I was looking for: “How is Skim Milk Made?“. Here’s the pertinent info:

So how is skim milk made? Traditionally, the fat was removed naturally from milk due to gravity. If fresh milk is left to sit and settle, the cream — which is where most of the fat is — rises to the top, leaving behind milk with much less fat.

The quicker, modernized way of making low-fat and skim milks is to place the whole milk into a machine called a centrifugal separator, which spins some or all of the fat globules out of the milk. This occurs before the milk is homogenized, a process which reduces all the milk particles to the same size so that natural separation doesn’t occur anymore.

The article goes on to provide some other interesting information about milk and fat free milk. Among that information was a note about additives:

Federal law mandates that most skim milk has to be fortified with vitamin A and sometimes vitamin D. This is due to the fact that even though whole milk naturally has a fair amount of both, the vitamins are fat soluble and thus lost when the milk fat is removed during the skimming process.

Milk solids in the form of dried milk are also added since they contain proteins that help thicken the watery consistency of skim milk.

Not only was this likely the additives that worried my friend, but it also explained how some brands of skim milk were far more palatable than others: they likely added back more dried milk to thicken it up.

2% Milk
The only thing that creeps me out about Shamrock Foods milk is its extraordinarily long shelf life: the quart I bought last week is supposedly good until March. Could it be the plastic packaging?

Now I don’t know if the 2% milk I normally consume has a lot of vitamins or any milk fat added back in. The milk in my camper’s refrigerator now — remember, I’m on the road this winter — is from Shamrock Farms and says it contains “reduced fat milk, Vitamins A & D.” Nothing about milk solids.

So nothing I learned about the production of reduced fat milk has scared me away from drinking it.

Benefits of Whole vs. Reduced Fat Milk

Scrolling down in the same search results, however, brought up links to two different articles in TIME Magazine. I read them both. After all, I wanted to learn the truth — a truth that would either support or even change my own opinions.

  • The Case Against Low-fat Milk Is Stronger Than Ever from April 4, 2016 cites a study of people whose health had been tracked for 15 years. The conclusion was that, if anything, people who consumed whole fat dairy products were less likely to be obese or suffer from type 2 diabetes.
  • Why Full-Fat Dairy May Be Healthier Than Low-Fat from March 5, 2015 cites the results of over 25 studies that concluded that “people who eat full-fat dairy are no more likely to develop cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes than people who stick to low-fat dairy. When it comes to weight gain, full-fat dairy may actually be better for you.”

Huh.

Both articles suggested that there might be something special about the fat in dairy that works with our bodies to help them process the foods we eat and help us feel full. Dairy fat could actually be preventing us from eating less healthy sugars and carbs to feel sated. And these articles maintained that it was foolhardy for diets to recommend cutting (or eating) just one kind of nutrient — for example, low fat or fat-free diets — when the body naturally works with all consumed nutrients together.

I understand how these studies could have gotten these results. Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s when the fat-free diet craze was in full swing, stores were full of fat-free processed foods. I know because I still lived at home (or at least visited regularly) and saw that my mother bought them. She, like so many other people, thought that the answer to keeping weight under control was to keep as much fat out of their diets as possible. But rather than do this by eating naturally low fat foods like fruits and vegetables and whole grains, they did it by buying processed foods labeled “fat free.” They then consumed as much as they wanted, not paying attention to the ingredients that made this food taste good despite the lack of fat: mostly sugar. Calorie counts were sky high. It was around this time that I started reading labels and making food choices based on what I read. While I don’t have a perfect diet, I’ve learned to minimize my time in a supermarket’s middle aisles where all the processed foods reside.

The Calorie Argument

Okay, so what about calories? The articles both confirmed that one of the benefits of reduced fat dairy products was the accompanying reduction in calories. So I decided to see just how many calories I was saving by switching between whole, 2%, and 1% milk. (I really detest fat-free milk and generally only have it in lattes because I think it froths better. Fat free yogurt tastes fine to me.)

So I Googled “What is the calorie count for whole, 2%, 1%, and fat free milk?” The PopSugar website had the answer I sought: “Whole vs. Reduced vs. Low-Fat vs. Nonfat Milk.” Here’s the nutritional information that interests me for one 8-ounce cup of milk:

 Whole2%1%Fat-free
Calories15013011090
Total Fat (g / %)8 / 35 / 22.5 / 1~0 / 0

What’s interesting when you read data in the article’s table is that they all the same fiber, carbs, and protein but 1% and fat-free milks actually have more sugar — although admittedly it isn’t much more: 11g vs. 12g.

Now I don’t drink a lot of milk, although I probably do drink more than the average adult. I’ll go through a half gallon in about a week. Every cup of 2% is saving me only 20 calories over whole milk and a switch down to 1% milk would only save another 20 calories. Is it worth it? I don’t think so.

At this point, I sort of regret getting so used to 2% milk.

An Exercise in Critical Thinking

So what did I learn?

In a way, my friend was right: reduced fat milk isn’t any better for you than whole milk. And if she believed that there were additives, she’s right — although I’m not sure those additives make reduced fat milk any less healthy.

But in a way, she was also wrong: reduced fat milk isn’t really bad for you. It just doesn’t give the health benefits we’ve been led to believe.

As for me, I was wrong. There’s no real reason to switch to reduced fat milk. I have no evidence to show her. I have nothing to stand on for pressing my original point of view.

Will I change the way I buy milk? Probably not — at least for now. I really do like 2% milk. I’m used to it. To me, drinking whole milk is almost like drinking cream. I’m not so picky, however, that I’ll turn down whole milk if that’s the only thing available. I’m not worried about 2% milk hurting my health.

But 1% and fat-free milk have definitely become a little bit less attractive. No real calorie benefit and what’s with the added sugar? And what if milk fat really is good for you? Should I really be minimizing it?

And that’s what critical thinking is all about, folks. Gathering information and forming your own opinions after thinking about what you’ve learned. Even if you begin researching with a preconceived notion, you need to be ready to change your mind when the evidence clearly tells you your notion is wrong. You shouldn’t just look for evidence that supports your view. You should look for evidence that tells the whole story, the true story, or at least the story that properly conducted research and established facts support.

I sure wish more people would learn to think critically in today’s world.