Category: eating

cycling · diets · eating · Guest Post · sports nutrition

It’s all about the fuel! (Guest post)

cdaigle4 Comments

image

I ride a Rocky Mountain hybrid and my spouse and I enjoy biking every time we can. Our minimum ride (the “quicky”) is a 30 km ride. But we often go for longer rides and have done as much as 110km in a day. We are not as serious about biking as a lot of readers of this blog are but we take it seriously enough. We have some bags for our longer runs and take what we need with us: water, snacks, tools, a spare tube, sunscreen, long sleeved t-shirt, money and a credit card. I am also fully equipped to ride to the office with a wonderful clip-on sturdy bag that can carry my books and binders.

We just came back from a 77 km ride and are both seriously exhausted. Why? What happened?

Yes it is 39 degrees with humidex. We left early to beat the heat but that was tough because at 10 o’clock, it was already pretty hot and the sun was shining in all its glory. But that was not the problem. The problem was: we made a rookie mistake! We did not fuel properly!

It does not matter how hot it is. It does not matter how fit you are. It does not matter what bike you ride. It does not matter how fast or slow you go. It does not matter how old you are. It’s all about the fuel!

We had plenty of water. That was not the issue. But water is not the fuel needed for such rides. Water is some kind of fuel and sufficient for a “quicky” but one needs more than that for a prolonged ride.

First step to our rookie mistake: a light breakfast low on protein. It was hot early and who feels like a hearty breakfast on days like this? I had fruits and 1/3 cup yogourt with sunflower seeds. Eric had raisin bread and fruits with one Ensure (dental surgery aftermath). We both had lots of carbs but very little protein.

Second step to our rookie mistake: we took only water with us. We had 3 litres of water between the two of us. We did not have any energizing drink with salt/sugar and other nutrients (yes, I consider salt a nutrient).

Third step to our rookie mistake: we thought we were going out for only 50 km so we did not bring snacks. We usually carry nuts and dry fruit bars when going for longer than 30 km.

Fourth step to our rookie mistake (which is connected with the previous one): we thought that 50km would take us to lunch time in Fonthill at our favorite fry truck in the area which boasts the best poutine in Southwestern Ontario. The plan was to ride 40 km to the truck, have a poutine, and ride the 10 km left back home.

At about 30 km into the ride we had a choice of turning left or right. Right was taking us back to Fonthill too quick and left was a small detour that would make the ride 50 km, what we were aiming for. The small roads in that area are populated by farms and there are no cornerstores or garages where to buy fuel. We were on our own with our water. A series of other detours (caused by us not wanting to ride on gravel roads because it hurts my wrists too much) made the ride much longer.

At about 50 km, we hit our wall: Muscles burning, slight headache, slight nausea. We were drinking water like mad but still that was not enough. I was hungry and my body was screaming for fuel. At some point I thought: “Man! I am pushing like crazy and yet riding at only 9 km/h on a flat road!!!” You should know that my normal cruising speed is between 22 and 25 km/h. Eric asked: “Are we that out of shape?? Our tires seem to stick to the road!” He even checked the tire pressure! The pressure was fine but we were not.

The problem was we ran out of fuel. Badly. No energy left, whatsoever. Well, a little I guess since we made it back. But at some point, walking my bike up a hill, I did feel like I was going to collapse, right there on the spot. We made it back to Fonthill and the fry truck after riding 56 km. We did not run out of water before getting there. But water was not enough. We were lacking proper fuel. This was remedied partly by purchasing one litre of iced tea (probably not the best but I can’t stomach energy drinks and sports drinks) and more water for the remaining 11km.

And then we did ourselves in… we had our poutine (after all, we deserved it by then, right?). Yummy as ever (did I mention it is the best poutine in Southwestern Ontario?), but poutine is what it is: it feels like a brick in your stomach once you have feasted on it. And that it did. I did have some chicken breast alongside it and Eric had a burger. But this further improper fueling just made everything worst. The last 11 km were long and hard. I normally ride 11 km without even thinking about it. Earlier today, I was thinking about every push on the pedals… and about the brick in my stomach. Improper fueling is what caused all this.

One shower later and trying to recuperate (I think it will take until tomorrow morning) I muse about this experience. Lesson learned: if it is not a “quicky” we got out for, bring proper fueling. Because a planned 40 km can morph into a much longer ride. Nobody needs to hit a wall as we did. All we have to do is plan ahead and care enough for our bodies to feed it what it needs: nutrients that will fuel it with the energy we need to enjoy whatever it is we engage in. Exercise should be fun and will be fun if we fuel properly.

It’s all about the fuel!

Christine is a feminist continental philosopher who lives with spouse and cat in the Niagara Region. Biking and training are favorite activities as is gourmet cooking and reading gore thrillers when she travels to conferences, taking a break from writing her monograph on Nietzsche.

aging · body image · diets · eating · fat

Middle age bellies, body acceptance, and menopause

Sam B12 Comments

As a result of the blog and our posts about body acceptance lots of friends have been sharing with me their thoughts about women’s bodies, shame, aging, all sorts of interesting stuff. Given the range of fitness activities I do–CrossFit, rowing, cycling, Aikido–I hang with some amazingly fit, strong, confident women.

It’s interesting to hear them chat about their bodies changing with age. They’re a very fit bunch, aging athletes all, and they have a lot of respect for what their bodies can do. Mostly I’d say their attitudes about their bodies and appearance are better and healthier than those of the less active women I know.  But the one thing that universally seems to irritate  is the change in the distribution of body fat that comes with age, with menopause to be precise. All of sudden, wham, everyone has a belly and no one likes it!

We all know that the changes in hormones associated with menopause leads to change in fat distribution. Lower estrogen levels post menopause move fat storage from hips and thighs to the midsection. And it’s the chubby bellies that bug people who’ve been on the thin side for most of their adult lives.

Here’s a recent piece, May 2013, from the Star Tribune on the science of it:

“A groundbreaking study, co-authored by the Mayo Clinic, has determined why fat storage shifts from a woman’s hips and thighs to the abdomen after menopause: Proteins, revved up by the estrogen drop, cause fat cells to store more fat. The study also revealed a double whammy: These cellular changes also slow down fat-burning by the body.Even though the research doesn’t provide weight-loss solutions, it may bring a sense of relief to millions of middle-aged women who have been fighting an often losing battle against the dreaded “post-meno belly.””

If the research doesn’t provide solutions, why might it be thought to provide relief? There’s a principle in ethics that’s relevant here–ought implies can. Blackwell’s dictionary in Western philosophy puts the principle this way: A formula in Kant ‘s ethics, meaning that correctly judging that a given agent is morally obliged to perform a certain action logically presupposes that the agent can perform it.

So there’s no point in saying you ought to get rid of your belly fat, if you can’t do that. You can aim to be at a healthy weight but beyond that there is little you can do about where the fat our bodies have chooses to hang out. That’s largely the fault of hormones and hereditary. (Newsflash: Spot Reduction/Spot Training Does NOT Work.) So the best you can do is learn to love your new body and treat it well. (Love is a better motivator than hate)

What works for acceptance? Look at your body and the bodies of other women lovingly. Look at imagery of sexy women with larger bellies. (Belly dancing and burlesque for example.) Shift your focus from sexy young bodies to the bodies of those older than you. And for God’s sake, please give up on the goal of visible abs. Down that path leads misery.  Watch Go Kaleo on visible abs.

Interestingly, Amber from Go Kaleo, is like me naturally gaining weight in the legs, thighs, hips and lean through the middle. It’s how I can weigh significantly more than the normal weight for my height and still wear clothes in the usual range of sizes. I gather that will change as I age and I’m hoping I cope well. Life is all about change. It’s either that, or death, I remind myself with my philosopher’s hat on.

addiction · body image · diets · eating

Feminist Reflections on Extreme Eating and Extreme Not Eating: Feeders, Pro-Anas, Pro-Mias

Tracy I3 Comments

I first saw the story of Tammy Jung, a young woman who is intentionally gaining weight in order to attract an internet audience, posted on the Feminism subreddit. Tammy’s main audience is the “feeder” audience. Feeders (from what I understand based only on what I’ve garnered from the internet), including her boyfriend, gain sexual pleasure from over-feeding their partners and making them gain weight.

In the scheme of “feeders,” Tammy and her boyfriend are small potatoes, with her weight at around 250 pounds at the moment of the article. According to this report, Susanne Eman, 728 pounds, is eating 22,000 calories a day in an attempt to become the Guinness Book of World Records heaviest woman in the world.

The person who posted the story originally asked: How do you tell someone like this they are wrong without fat-shaming or is this okay?”  A flurry of subreddit discussion followed.

Granted, the original source was the UK’s Daily Mail, which I take it is — ahem — not a highly regarded news source.  I found more on the Huff Post “Weird News” site. So yes, I know, I know, this is not the most well-researched post you will find on our blog.  But bear with me because I find the original poster’s question to be worth thinking about, first, for its assumption that Tammy is doing something wrong, and second for its concern that to call her out on it might be fat-shaming.

I want to think about that, and also to think about whether this raises any other relevant feminist issues.

But first, let me put something else on the table as contrast, something so disturbing that, like the thigh gap stuff that’s out there, I can’t bring myself to include the link.  It’s the world of the pro-ana and pro-mia communities, that is, communities that are pro-anorexia and pro-bulimia and think of these not as diseases but as lifestyle choices.

Taken together, Tammy Jung’s intentional quest for obesity and the pro-ana and pro-mia followers’ intentional quest for thinness via starvation present an interesting study in contrasts.  They are the equally disturbing ends of the eating as a form of body-modification (or body-control) continuum.

The discussion about Tammy Jung and fat-shaming on the feminism subreddit had some interesting dimensions to it, but a lot of them side-stepped the fat-shaming question altogether in two polar opposite ways. On the one hand, lots of people said that it’s her choice, she gets to do what she wants, and no one has a right to challenge her goal of becoming 420 pounds.  On the other hand, other people criticized her decision on health grounds, saying that she is intentionally killing herself, and she shouldn’t have a right to health care insurance.

One person said that if we saw a similar story about a young woman intentionally starving herself on the internet to make money and satisfy men’s sexual fetishes, we would have more to say about it.

I have mixed feelings about her quest.  I like that she feels sexy despite being, or even because she is, obese by society’s standards. I like too that there are people out there who find that sexy. Her desire to be paid for her weight gain by admirers who fetishize it is a form of sex work, broadly construed. I have no strong reservations about non-exploitative sex work and believe that it is possible to engage in sexual activities and pursuits for money (i.e. as work) without being exploited. That is not to say that exploitation never happens, but it isn’t an inherent feature of sex work (see philosopher Martha Nussbaum’s fabulous chapter on sex work in her book Sex and Social Justice for a compelling discussion of why sex work ought to be considered work).

It’s a simple fact that from a health perspective, what Tammy is doing is very likely to shorten her life. Her doctor has said as much.  But it’s not clear to me that we have an imperative to be healthy. And it’s also not clear to me that resorting to a claim about health risk isn’t a covert way of fat-shaming.

We’ve seen in past posts that the assumption that people who are larger than average are necessarily unhealthy or unfit is false.  Moreover, do we really have a right to judge people for making choices that don’t promote health or longevity, or that involve risks?

Despite my concern about invoking health as an imperative, I confess that it is the slow suicide, bad-for-your-health feature of anorexia and bulimia that make it so difficult for me to read “tipsheets” that outline in painstaking detail how to starve yourself or how to make yourself vomit — and in both cases how to hide this from friends and family.

Beyond the physical health of it, I see both extremes as fostering psychological obsessions with food and body. Whether the obsession is with gaining or with losing extreme amounts of weight, the pre-occupation with food and body is not healthy. In fact, both anorexia and bulimia are regarded as eating disorders, illnesses requiring treatment.  The same might be said of extreme overeating.

The choice issue enters into the picture because the women themselves frame their behavior as chosen. Let’s say for the sake of argument that they are engaging in this behavior by choice. Do we have a right to pass judgment on these choices? That is, is it correct to assume that there is something wrong with those choices?

Eighteenth Century philosopher Immanual Kant argued that among our moral duties included duties to self.  He believed that suicide was wrong and that, on a more positive note, we had duties to “promote our own talents.”  So, according to Kant, not only is it wrong to kill yourself, it’s also wrong to do things that hinder the development of your personal gifts. Roughly, Kant believed that no one could consistently engage in self-defeating behavior (this really oversimplifies his point, I confess, but that’s the gist of it).

I disagree with Kant that suicide and not developing our talents are morally condemnable. But I do think that we can back off from the moral judgment while still recognizing that there is something disturbing or even just plain sad going on when anyone engages in behavior that fosters obsession and is overtly self-destructive.

Do I want to go so far as to say that these women should not be able to make choices about how to treat their bodies?  Is it not a significant part of feminist ideology that women are in control of their own bodies and ought to be permitted to choose as they see fit?  Absolutely.

There are all sorts of choices that women ought not be denied and that yet, at the same time, do not help the cause of women’s equality. Think of these choices not so much in terms of their impact on the individual women who make them but rather in the broader context of social structures that systemically disadvantage women and stand as obstacles to women’s equality.

Starving ourselves as a lifestyle choice promotes a bodily aesthetic that puts women’s lives in peril. Much to the misfortune of women living in the Western world at this historical moment, that aesthetic is represented in media as normative.  Therefore, if starvation for women is indeed a lifestyle choice, then it’s a choice that is just plain bad for women as a group because it buys into rather than challenges normative femininity as ultra-thinness.

On the other side of this, force-feeding ourselves in order to gain attention and for the express purpose of appealing to men with a particular fetish also puts women’s lives in peril.  In this case, the systemic issue is less that it promotes a normative aesthetic (clearly, obese women’s bodies are not normative in the present cultural context) than that it promotes the idea that we should shape our bodies according to male desire.

I do not mean here to be negatively judging men who find large women attractive. Instead, we need to question the idea that women need to take extreme measures to modify their bodies so that said bodies are attractive to men.

Ultimately, then, to the extent that these extremes are defended as choices, I believe they are (a) choices women have a right to make and (b) choices that are bad for women in general because of the social messages they perpetuate.  They can make them, but for the sake of all of us, I really wish they wouldn’t.

[photo credit: MSU Grad Life]

diets · eating

Vegan versus plant strong redux

Sam B9 Comments

Recently I blogged about the different terms people are coming up with to describe a diet that excludes animal products. I was wondering about the differences between being ‘vegan’ and ‘eating a plant based diet’.

I thought that the plant based diet description had the advantage that it could come in degrees. You can eat a mostly plant based diet but it sounds odd, to my ear, though I do say it, that you eat a mostly vegan diet. I thought the plant based diet might also lack the vegan concern for animal welfare and focus more on human health. As Vegan Soapbox notes, plant strong folks can wear leather and engage in other practices that harm animals. It’s all about human health and what you eat.

But now just after posting, I’ve noticed a third difference. Vegans can eat junk food consistently and still follow a vegan diet. Oreos, pop tarts and Doritos are all vegan foods. Vegans for ethical reasons might not care about their own health. No animals were harmed during the making of these scary foods. They contain long lists of nasty sounding chemicals but no animal products.

But they’re not plant strong. This is the sense in which plant strong is more demanding. Thinking about it this way, there’s plant strong, on the one hand, and merely vegan, on the other. For a great discussion of this, from the plant strong perspective, read When Vegan Is Not Enough!

As a friend once said, I’m a vegan, not a health food nut, but the thought of vegan junk food rarely occurs to me since the thought of junk food rarely occurs to me. I don’t eat fast food and foods like pop tarts don’t hold any appeal.  I haven’t spent time with junk food vegetarians since grad school when for some of my classmates becoming a vegetarian just really affected what went on the pizza.

diets · eating · soy

The Great Soy Debate

Tracy I5 Comments
Image description: edamame close-up. Photo credit: cotonbro studio, pexels.com

As a vegan (for ethical not health reasons), I need good quality plant protein.  Soy delivers the most plant protein and in a variety of different forms than any other single source I’m aware of.  Bottom line is, I eat a lot of soy products: soy milk, tofu, soy hot dogs (I know–not much better for you than “real” hot dogs), tempeh, edamame.

I first heard rumblings about the risks of eating soy from another vegan friend who tries to avoid it. Whenever I asked why, she said it was because of “all she’d read.”  What she’d read were reports that linked soy to breast cancer.

As explained in this article (and many others), soy contains natural plant compounds (phytochemicals) called isoflavones. These are chemically similar to estrogen. This article talks about the link between estrogen and some cancers in women:

It is well established that estrogen is linked to hormonally-sensitive cancers in women, such as breast and endometrial cancer.  Breast cells contain estrogen receptors, and when the “key” (estrogen) joins with the “lock” (the estrogen receptor), a series of signals are sent which can spur on estrogen-receptor (ER) positive breast tumor growth. Common risk factors for breast cancer include conditions that involve longer exposure of breast tissue to estrogen.

These risk factors include having children late, not having children, or post-menopausal obesity. I qualify under the second one of these since I have never given birth.

If soy acts like estrogen and estrogen is linked to these forms of cancer, then soy is also linked to these forms of cancer, right?  Not so fast.

Studies on rats and mice seemed to suggest risk, but the consequences for humans are not easily read from these studies because they apparently metabolize isoflavones differently than humans.

And also here is more about isoflavones:

Isoflavones behave like very, very weak forms of the body’s own estrogen. Isoflavones compete for the same place on cells that estrogen does. That means isoflavones can affect the action of estrogen in your body, but not increase the level of estrogen.

For example, since isoflavones can bind to estrogen receptors on breast cells, they prevent a woman’s own, more potent, estrogen from taking that spot. Some of the risks of excess estrogen, including breast and uterine cancer, are thought to be lowered in this way.

This makes it sound like soy is a good thing that can lower the risk of cancer in women.  It appears also to lower the risk of prostate cancer in men:

…a study conducted in more than 12,000 Californian men found that those who drank a soy beverage daily, compared to those who never drank it, were 70 per cent less likely to develop prostate cancer. It’s thought that isoflavones can help keep testosterone levels in check (prostate cancer cells feed off testosterone). Soy beans also contain other phytochemicals that have cancer-fighting actions.

Large studies in Asia seem to suggest that women who consume soy have a lower incidence of breast cancer.  But since soy consumption patterns differ between Asian women and North American women, it’s not clear how well these results translate over for non-Asian women. In other words, lifelong soy consumption might yield different results.

Most of what I read suggests that, at the very least “soy foods, such as tofu, tempeh, edamame and soymilk, are safe and do not pose cancer risk.” The question then becomes: “is including soy foods as part of your healthy eating habits ‘neutral’ in effect, or will it actually help reduce breast cancer risk? The answer, it seems, may be ‘it depends’…”

Variables include quantity of consumption, at what time in a woman’s life the soy is consumed (pre- or post-puberty, pre- or post-menopause), and genetic differences between people that have an impact on how they metabolize soy compounds.

I’m less concerned with whether soy reduces risk of breast cancer than I am with whether it poses a health risk.  My primary reason for consuming in it the quantities that I do is because I am seeking a sound source of protein, not because I am seeking cancer prevention.

Based on what I’ve read so far, no study shows that soy poses a risk for humans and no link between soy and an increased risk of breast cancer has been established. This comes as a great relief to me. I will continue to enjoy the soy products that I’m consuming, and will also continue to monitor the latest research for any significant new findings.

Source materials:

Really? The Claim: Eating Soy Increases Risk of Breast Cancer (by Anahad O’Connor)

Soy and Breast Cancer: Where Are We Now?  (by Karen Collins)

The Bottom Line on  Soy and Breast Cancer Risk (by Marji McCullough)

Is Soy Milk Suitable for Men? (by Leslie Beck)

diets · eating

Diets Disguised as “un”-Diets and the Food Police Strike Again!

Tracy I11 Comments
wheat field from pexels.com
Wheat field (pexels.com)

The other day, Sam forwarded me a couple of posts (she is wonderfully savvy at keeping up with the massive volume of information that this world has to offer!) she thought would be of interest to me.

The first headline was about Evil health foods: “The so-called ‘health foods’ that are probably killing you.”  The second, from a committed intuitive eater who blogs at Not Much to Lose was about diet anxiety.

I’m not sure if Sam meant me to draw a connection between them, but oh how quickly it became clear to me that evil foods and diet anxiety go together like a trip to my favorite vegan restaurant and eating their outstanding triple chocolate cake  [not a link to their recipe, the code for which friends and I are attempting to crack].

First, to the evil “health foods.”  Of course, I have already gone on record to say that food is beyond good and evil.  I thought for sure this article was going to tell me that my blueberries were killing me in my sleep or that broccoli, against all odds, would give me cancer.  Why? Because when I think of health foods, I think of blueberries and broccoli, kale and cauliflower, green tea and green drinks, lentils and legumes.

What a relief to find that none of these were on the list. No, instead, it’s the fruit juices, “healthy” oils, whole wheat, agave nectar, sports drinks, anything low fat or fat free, any gluten-free junk food (confusing how anything identifiable to the ordinary person as “junk” food should be on a list of what we used to think was healthy but isn’t), energy bars, low cal “junk” food (there’s junk food again on our healthy list), and “healthy” breakfast cereals.

Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t see any of these foods as something that people eat lots and lots of on a daily basis except perhaps whole wheat, which, in the scheme of things, is a lot better for you than refined flour products (and trust me, I believe there is a place for crusty white baguettes and strawberry short cake too).

I’m not sure anyone considers sports drinks and energy bars to be health foods. Pretty much no one thinks of “junk” food — gluten free or not, fat free or not — as health food.  The healthy oils they talk about are overly processed vegetable oils (not including olive oil, which the author describes as “good for you!”). Again, it’s not clear to me that these are considered health foods in the first place.

So my reaction to this list was (a) relief that I could continue eating blueberries and broccoli without worrying about imminent death, (b) that not many people consider these things to be health foods anyway, and (c) that even the things on this list can take a moderate place in our lives without killing us. Killing us!  Hyperbole for sure.

Lists like these are just another way for the food police to monitor and ban and regulate, making people do things like stop you from ordering fresh squeezed orange juice when you go out for breakfast (because you’ll die).

So what does a list like this have to do with diet anxiety?  By design, it is meant to make us worry about what we’re putting in our bodies and base our food decisions on something other than what we feel like eating at the time.  It’s the opposite of intuitive eating.

When the Not Much to Lose blogger blogged about diet anxiety, she had just purchased a new book called The Undiet. She started to read this book. It’s full of information about healthy eating — what to eat and what not to eat. She began to get anxious:

The moment I start thinking about what I should be eating, it brings back all the internal dieter’s thoughts.  I was reading along thinking, when I would start eating this way, and when I would start eliminating the non-negotiable foods that she mentioned. (NO!  Not my veggie hot dogs!!)  Even though there is no calorie counting involved, it felt like reading a diet book complete with meal plan ideas, etc.  And planning the meals for the week.  I think the planning could work for some people, but how do I know on Wednesday night what I’m going to feel like eating on Sunday night?  Not very intuitive.

I can really relate to what she says here. The more I think about what I should and shouldn’t be eating, the more likely I am to eat more than I need of foods I don’t really want.  Intuitive eating is not about that. Yes, we can make choices for health, but we need to get in touch with ourselves first.

How hungry am I? Would my hunger be best satisfied by something sweet or savoury, salty or spicy, hot or cold, crunchy or smooth, hearty or light?  When I used to diet, I never — not once — used to ask myself these questions. It was more about what was on the menu plan for that night. It might not have even been a plan I made (for many years it was some variation of poached fish, vegetable, salad with no dressing OR plain chicken breast, vegetable, salad with no dressing OR egg white omelet, vegetable, salad with no dressing).

Diet anxiety is the anxiety that comes along with having your choices be guided by what you’ve read, completely independently of any kind of checking in with yourself to determine what you need and want. Lists like that “healthy foods that will kill us” list generate diet anxiety.  Books that divide foods up into those that are good for you and those that must be avoided at all costs (soy is the latest culprit — more on that in a future post).

Lots of people go running in the opposite direction when they hear the word “diet,” not just those trying to follow the intuitive eating approach. Even Weight Watchers avoids the word “diet” as much as it can, always stressing that “this is not a diet.” Why? Because diets have come to be associated with deprivation and, much worse for potential consumers of diets programs and products: failure.

You can dress it up any way you like, restricted food plans (like WW) and food lists with forbidden foods (like the undiet) and lists of health foods that are killing you all promote the diet mentality and encourage us to police what we (and maybe even others) are putting in our mouths.

Anxiety seems like a perfectly reasonable response to that message, especially when it’s sneaking its way into our lives in stealth mode, packaged as the opposite (that is, as NOT a diet).

We’re not so easily fooled anymore.

diets · eating

Vegan, plant-based, plant strong? What’s in a name?

Sam B14 Comments

Times they are a changing for those of us moved by animal suffering, the environment, and human health to eat a diet more about plants and less about flesh.

It seems there are more and more high profile vegetarians and vegans (even Bill Clinton!). And recently, all of the conferences I’ve been to have had terrific vegan food. Indeed, the most recent conference had only vegetarian and vegan lunches and no one complained.

What’s interesting are the number of people who are happy to, or who are inclined to, eat vegan much or most of the time. More people seem to be following Michael Pollan’s advice: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

Some people call this moderate approach to plant based living ,’flexitarianism.’ The Guardian asks isn’t that just vegetarianism with cheating.

Mark  Bittman in a New York Times column The Flexitarian: Healthy, Meet Delicious puts it this way:

“The moderate, conscious eater — the flexitarian — knows where the goal lies: a diet that’s higher in plants and lower in both animal products and hyperprocessed foods, the stuff that makes up something like three-quarters of what’s sold in supermarkets. That’s the kind of cooking and eating I’ll be exploring in this monthly column. (It’s also the topic of my new book, “VB6” — for vegan before 6 p.m.)”

There’s now a plethora of names for the way one eats and I’m interested here in the people who describe their diet, not as vegan, but instead as plant based or plant strong.

What’s the difference?

First, the latter two admit of degrees. I say I’m mostly vegan but people look at me oddly since veganism is an all or nothing thing. But if I say that saying I’m eating a primarily plant based diet my moderation makes sense. See my post Experiments in Moderation for an explanation of what I’m up to.

Second, there’s a political association with veganism and animal rights that I think some would rather distance themselves from. Although it’s not necessary–we might be moderates to minimize animal suffering for example–the focus of most plant strong people seems to be human health and the environment.

This Huffington Post piece Vegetarianism Cooking talks about the move away from lifestyle vegetarianism which apparently involves wearing birkenstocks and eating lentil loaf. It says that people can now choose cauliflower and kale without a side of ideology.

Third, ‘vegan’ is an identity term and the others aren’t. You’d describe yourself as a feminist, an athlete, and a vegan but the others need to be claimed in connection with the way one eats. “I am a vegan” versus “I eat a mostly plant based diet.’

Vegans aren’t also usually associated with athletic achievement and manliness, Thug Kitchen aside (though note they’re also plant based leaving full strength veganism to the girlfriends).

The most prominent plant based moderate is Lance Armstrong. Here’s Armstrong talking about his 2/3 vegan lifestyle.

Lance Armstrong In 2012: On Exercise, Diet And Why He Won’t Go Into Politics

LA: I started swimming again, and I swim with a guy [ed’s note: former triathlete Rip Esselstyn] who started basically a food program called the Engine 2 Diet, which is a plant-based, 100% natural, organic diet. His dad was a famous cardiologist who did Forks Over Knives, and was President Clinton’s doctor. Clinton has gone to a completely vegan diet and he’s essentially erased his heart disease.

It’s basically whole grains, different types of beans, kale salad with creative alternatives for dressing. They’ll bring out something that looks like a brownie, but it’s not a brownie … though it tastes a bit like a brownie. So I did it for one day, then two days. Then I branched out and started doing it at breakfast and lunch. I still insist that I get to do whatever I want for dinner. But it’s made a significant difference in just in a month.

HPC: What kind of difference?

LA: Energy level. Even when you’re training really hard, it’s normal that you would have certain things for lunch or certain things for breakfast, and then have this dip, or almost like a food coma … I don’t experience that anymore. My energy level has never been this consistent, and not just consistent, but high. I’m a big napper — I couldn’t even take a nap these days if I wanted to.

The other thing — I expected to get rid of that dip, but I didn’t expect the mental side of it, and the sharpness and the focus that I’ve noticed. And I was the biggest non-believer, I was like ‘whatever man’, and I’m in. I’m not doing dinners yet, but breakfast and lunch, I’m in.

HPC: Do you think it’s pretty sustainable?

LA: If I were to stay in Austin, it’s very sustainable. It’s harder when you get on the road, of course — I mean, you walk out that door and breakfast is sitting there. None of that [muffins, croissants, etc.] is on the Engine 2 diet. So it gets harder and harder. But you can even travel with stuff. Breakfast is not hard, you bring your cereal and then you go to the store and buy almond milk, you buy bananas to put on top of it. If you plan, then it’s possible.

Where do I fall? I’m still not sure. I think of myself as an aspiring vegan, someone who recognizes the force of the moral argument and is doing as much as I’m able. Better to be good most of the time than rotten all of the time, basically.

But by description of how I’m actually eating: I’m eating a primarily plant based diet.

And maybe that’s okay. My reasons for being a vegetarian at all aren’t about animal death. They’re about animal suffering. I’m mostly concerned with factory farming and unnecessary animal pain so maybe I can maintain my roughly 2/3 vegan diet while remaining true to those concerns. I’m not sure. I’m still thinking! I’m a philosopher after all.

What do I think of the move to ‘plant strong’ over ‘vegan’? Insofar as it seems to distance our diets from concern for animals, I’m not thrilled. If it results in less animals being raised in and killed in horrible conditions, I think it’s great. In the end, I’ll be happy with good results even if they don’t come about for reasons that I think are the right reasons. But that argument, between results and motives and their moral significance takes us right into the deep end of moral philosophy, so I’ll stop here and go enjoy my buckwheat waffles and green smoothie!

Plant Strong Resources:

Living Plant Strong

TheEngine2Diet

body image · diets · eating · fat · fitness · running · swimming · weight lifting · yoga

Reflections on Setbacks

Tracy I26 Comments
Disappointment concept.
Image decription: “Road sign” that says “Welcome to disappointment. Don’t stay too long!” (credit: Bigstock licence)

I had a demoralizing experience at the bod pod earlier this week. The bod pod measures body composition (lean mass to fat ratio).  I went once before, in September.  And since getting leaner is one of the goals I have, the bod pod is a good way to get an objective measure on that.  Tuesday’s result: I’ve lost 2 pounds of lean mass and gained 4 pounds of fat since September.

I had some reservations about going to the bod pod at all. First, I’ve been following the intuitive eating recommendation of staying away from the scale. This has been a great freedom for me and has released me from years of obsession with food and weight. That alone is a great success for me, not one I will trade in, even for a few pounds.

Second, I know for a fact that I’ve fallen out of routine lately, with both my running and my weight training suffering for it.  Backing off of the weight training is likely a key explanation for my loss of lean mass.

Third, I don’t think I’m getting enough protein. As explained in my last post, I’m making an effort to get more.  That post yielded some good advice. I’m tracking protein for a little while anyway, until I get on track. I’ve got some distance to go. Yesterday I fell short of my 100 grams/day goal by 24 grams.

So I have the explanation for why the decline in lean mass and increase in fat.  Today I’m feeling okay about it but I have to say that on Tuesday and yesterday I felt pretty discouraged.  I remember that feeling from when I used to weigh myself regularly.  Given that I’ve fallen out of my routine, I probably didn’t need the bod pod to tell me that my lean mass hasn’t increased and that my fat has increased. In fact, that little voice in the back of my head was telling me to cancel the appointment.

The thing was all made worse by the fact that the bod pod guy assumed that I would feel discouraged and went into a long list of suggestions about what I should or could do about it.  These ranged from relatively sound advice about working with a sports nutritionist or following the Precision Nutrition plan, to eating all of my food within a six hour period each day between 4 p.m and 10 p.m. (!!).  I really just wanted to get out of there at that point, but he’s a nice man and I didn’t want to be rude. At the same time, I wasn’t seeking his input, just the results of the test.

I only enjoy wallowing in the negative for a short time.  So I spent that evening and yesterday feeling discouraged and demoralized, a little bit hopeless and a little bit helpless, frustrated and sorry for myself. I shared my tale of woe with Sam, who is always great at lending an empathetic ear and seeing the positive side of things.

What good can I glean from this setback, if that’s even what it is?  The first question is of course this: is doing a bod pod measurement a useful thing for me to do, given my aspirations to stick with intuitive eating?  I’m not so sure it is. I think for the time being I would do better not to monitor my “progress” in this manner, but instead to stick with a few performance goals that I can feel good about.

To that end, I’m getting back on track with my running now that the weather is a bit better. I start a clinic with a local running group this evening.  It’ll be my first experience running with people and I’m kind of excited about it.

The other issue is my resistance training.  I’m not pushing myself as hard as my trainer used to push me. That’s I guess the main reason we hire trainers, isn’t it? But I’m not interested (at the moment, anyway) in going back to the training studio.  It’s a lot of money and I have enough knowledge to figure out my own workouts. It’s the motivation factor that I need to get back.  I’ve got to mull that one over a bit. I could start training at the Y again. I have a membership already because of the pool, and I have fond memories of the camaraderie of the gym.  Maybe.  If I can’t get my home routine back on track over the month of May, then the Y is an option.

And then there’s the issue of what IS working. Sam reminded me that, for me, getting over the food obsession and letting go of the scale are significant changes.  The bod pod result made me question everything for a short time. I started to think that intuitive eating wasn’t “working.”  I even felt drawn to go on some sort of diet, but then remembered that diets don’t work. The fact is, intuitive eating is working just fine.  Other than that I now feel it’s time to focus a bit more on high protein choices, I’m doing well with the intuitive eating approach.

A brief reflection on “what went wrong” yields that the main issue hasn’t been food (other than that I could get more protein) but training.

Being fixated on the numbers that the bod pod gives me isn’t much different from fixating on the numbers on the scale.  I’ve learned that it’s really difficult for me to react well to a reading that isn’t as “good” as I wanted it to be.  Yes, it’s information, but is it the sort of information that I really need to have in order to achieve my fitness goals?  I’m not so sure about that.

Re-grouping, I plan to stick to my original commitments: running 3 x a week; resistance training 3 x a week; yoga 3 x a week; swimming 2 x a week; leaving the car at home more often, opting to walk or cycle instead.  That’s a good re-start.

Once I have the routine back in place, I can think about upping my performance goals.  I like the strategy of gradual progression, adding just a little bit each day or week.  For example, instead of swimming for 25 minutes, swim for 30; or make a few of the laps sprints. Instead of doing 20 kettlebell swings, do 22.  That sort of thing. Subject matter for a future blog post.

For now, I’ve got to be somewhere soon, and if I’m going to walk instead of drive, I need to hit the road!

[image from Bigstock]

diets · eating · overeating

Hack your nutrition

Sam B13 Comments

So if i trust my body, but not 100%, what can I do to steer me, in a non restrictive way, to better food choices?

I’m interested in hacks, that is, in quick and unexpected fixes for hard problems.

Mostly what I’m interested in are changes in environment that influence choice. Cass Sunstein in his book Nudge outlines a variety of ways in which structuring choice situations differently leads people to better choices (as judged by their own lights) without making rules that govern behavior. You can read about Sunstein’s libertarian paternalism here.

Here is a great example from that book, one which actually concerns nutritional choices. The study concerned people selecting food from a self serve cafeteria. The intervention was intended to get people to choose more fruits and vegetables without coercive measures. All that researchers did was change the order of the food being selected. Putting fruits and vegetables first meant that people chose them and left less room on their plates and trays for processed alternatives.

What changes in our lives can we make that are ‘nudge’ like? I’m not talking about restrictions. Calorie restricted diets don’t interest me and I’m not convinced they work. Instead, I’m interested in environmental approaches that change the choice scenario.

We were chatting about environmental changes lots at the implicit bias conference I was attending on the weekend. One slogan, used by a social psychologist, caught my ear: automate, don’t ruminate. Make good choices easy and automatic. Setting yourself up to think too much is more likely to lead to failure.

We know this of course from the literature on habit. I’ve written here about how good habits are key to change. So it’s not about harsh rules and struggles, deep thought and massive amounts of will power.

But what sorts of changes might we made regarding nutritional choices?

Precision Nutrition has a number of habits they encourage people to establish. Eating when hungry, eating slowly, eating to 80% full, eating protein, vegetables and healthy fats with every meal, choosing better carbs.

Like the cafeteria example, we might think in terms of eating veggies first. Some people recommend eating vegetable soup before each meal. That sounds tedious to me but I do eat raw chopped veggies before dinner on most days. I don’t eat standing up or while doing something else. Vegetables are an exception to that general rule.

I also try not to bring food into the house I don’t want to eat. John Berardi at PN urges people to clean house and get rid of food that they don’t want to eat. He jokingly says that if you bring food into your house odds are that sooner or later you or someone you love will eat it.

I agree with Tracy that there are no ‘evil’ foods but there are annoying foods that I inevitably eat more of than I would like. It’s not that they’re a great treat. I’m a big fan of delicious treats. These are foods I’d rather not eat but can’t resist if they’re there.

Tracy is skeptical about claims that we’re addicted to certain foods and I agree but at the same time there are foods that seem engineered to get me to eat more than I want.

There’s also a number of tools to help you eat more slowly. The the hapi fork isn’t for me but some people also have success slowing down by eating with their non dominant hand. Others use chopsticks, if that’s not familiar cutlery.

Why eat more slowly? It’s tied to the 80% idea. It takes awhile for our bodies to recognize how much we’ve eaten

Others like to eat using small plates and small forks. The small plates encourage us to take smaller servings and to feel like we’re eating more. The smaller forks just slow you down.

My family jokes about the American cutlery we bought. The spoons are enormous. No one wants to eat using the tablespoons and the teaspoons are just about the right size for cereal, etc.

Dish colours also make a difference in how much you eat. Aiming to eat less? Worst are dishes the same colour as the food you’re eating. Better are plates a different colour than your food. Best of all are blue plates, possibly because no food is that colour.

Read about blue plates here. I own blue plates but I didn’t buy them for that reason.

The only restrictive rule I’m trying to adopt is limiting dessert to twice a week. I’ll let you know how it goes…

Do you have any nutritional hacks or tips that you like? Please share.

diets · eating · sports nutrition

How to Get Lots of Vegan Protein

Tracy I16 Comments
Image description: tofu scramble on a white plate with bread, fruit salad and jam. Credit: pexels.com
Image description: tofu scramble on a white plate with bread, fruit salad and jam. Credit: pexels.com

After following Go Kaleo for a while and now reading her new book, Taking up Space: A Guide to Escaping the Diet Maze,  I’m 100% convinced that I need to make more of an effort to get more protein if I have any ambitions in the strength/body composition department.

Yes, I still want to follow the intuitive eating approach. And yes, I still reject the idea that fitness is about achieving a certain aesthetic. I think both of these beliefs are compatible with aiming to get more protein into my daily pattern of eating.

Intuitive eating doesn’t mean paying no attention to what I eat. In fact, the last principle is “Honor your health with gentle nutrition.” Ironically, now that I’ve lifted the restrictions, I have pretty much no strong food cravings.  This makes it much easier for me regularly to make choices that have good nutritional value. I find myself attracted to whole foods in any case.  But I need to think more consciously about where I’m getting my protein.

Aiming for a leaner body that has a different lean mass to fat ratio than what I have now doesn’t need to be about looking a certain way. For me, it’s more about feeling strong and energetic. That in turn helps me enjoy my chosen activities more and feel as if I am experiencing positive gains from them.

I’m vegan. That means I avoid any animal products to the best of my ability.  I’ve chosen it for ethical, not health, reasons. As far as what I eat is concerned, that means no meat, fish, poultry, eggs, dairy, or honey. I’m okay with these omissions and do not miss anything on the list of non-vegan choices. But I am finding that my strength training program and the concomitant increase in lean mass just is feeling stalled.

It could be because I’m almost fifty (that’s no secret!), so any changes are going to come more slowly. But more likely it’s because I’m not getting sufficient protein to fuel the fire. If Go Kaleo is correct, then we all should be getting one gram of protein per pound of body weight per day.  For me, that means more than 125 grams of protein daily.  The way I’m eating at present makes that a stretch on most days.

This is not to say a vegan diet does not offer ample sources of good quality protein. It just means that it requires some attention.  It’s not as simple as just grilling a chicken breast or eating a can of tuna (neither of which I can even imagine myself doing anymore).

My first goal is to get to about 100 grams of protein per day. To do this I need to make sure I’m getting good protein at every meal and every snack.  What does this mean in real food terms? I’ve done a bit of research and here’s what I have come up with.

At breakfast, I’m already getting a good 23-25 grams of protein by not changing anything. I put peanut butter on my toast or english muffin and soy milk in my morning smoothie, made also with a couple of scoops of pumpkin seed protein powder.  A cup of oatmeal with a cup of soymilk has close to 20 grams of protein. On more leisurely mornings, a tofu scramble is a fantastic start.

At lunch, I often eat soup or salad. The commitment to protein means making sure I add legumes or seeds (1/2 cup of kidney beans has 20 grams) to my salads and eat tofu (1/4 cup has 10 grams) or tempeh on regular basis.  Brown rice has protein (2.5 grams per half cup). The same portion of quinoa has twice as much.

For dinner, there are lots of different things to do. When I have pasta, I can make a blush sauce by adding some silken tofu to my tomato sauce and boost it even more with chickpeas or kidney beans.  Falafel is a pretty good choice. So are veggie burgers or veggie sausage, at least some of the time.  And I’ve already developed the habit of adding some beans to my tofu stir-fries. And I have a really tasty balsamic vinagrette recipe that uses cashews as a base instead of olive oil.

For snacks, I can dip my sliced apples in peanut butter or almond butter, have some hummus with crackers or veggies, or steam up some edamame.  If I want apple sauce, I stir in a few sliced almonds or soy nuts. Occasionally, clif bars or clif’s builder bars can ramp up the day’s protein intake, with 10 grams in a regular clif bar and 20 grams in the builder bars.  They’re very much like candy bars in other respects, so they’re not something I want to rely on daily.

There are also some surprises when I start looking at the protein in foods. It’s possible, for example, to find pretty good amounts of it in the pita bread and english muffins that I already enjoy eating.  I don’t want to use bread as my major source of protein, but it’s good to know that it factors into the protein equation.

Sadly, at least for the next little while, I’m going to need to track. I’ve been quite public in announcing that I am no fan of tracking — it is oppressive and represents to me all that is wrong with dieting (the monitoring, weighing, measuring, and counting).

But I plan to keep track for the next few days just to get an idea of what is actually required for me to reach 100 grams of protein in a day.  Using the strategies outlined above, which don’t really deviate from what I like to eat already but do require me to make conscious choices that include protein, it’s not as hard as I thought it would be to hit 100 grams in a day.  But in order to see whether I’m making it, I’m going to track my food this week.  I am pretty sure that I won’t need to track for much longer than that.

The biggest challenge is dining out at restaurants that have don’t cater to vegans. Lots of places will come up with something, but it frequently lacks protein. Today, for example, I had lunch at an Italian restaurant and had a spinach salad and the grilled veggie panini. They were both delicious but aside from the five or six glazed pecans in the salad, neither had much quality protein. The panini bread had more than any other ingredient. That’s okay once in awhile, but if I’m trying to hit 100 g a day, I can’t have too many lunches like that.

I’m also going to track my body composition at the start of this protein experiment. Tomorrow I have an appointment at the bod pod, and I will check in again after six months of making a conscious effort to get more protein.

Right now, I’m going to go steam up some edamame (9 grams) for my afternoon snack, and throw together a salad that includes tempeh bacon (6 grams for 3.5 slices), hummus (1-2 grams per tablespoon, depending), and sliced almonds (6 grams per 1/4 cup) thrown in with the mixed greens, avocado, sliced tomato and black olives.

I’m curious to see whether this focus on protein will make a difference in the results I see in my resistance training program.  If you have any more suggestions for protein-rich vegan options, please share them in the comments.

Meanwhile, bon appetit!

Resources:

High Protein Vegan Recipes from Vegangela.

6 High Protein Vegan Recipes from Shape magazine.

Protein Rich Vegan Recipes from about.com.