At 3.9 joggling miles and 32 minutes a day, I fancy myself to be in pretty good shape.  Unfortunately, one area of physical fitness has stymied me, weight.  According to my BMI, at 6 feet 1 inch and 197 pounds, I’m solidly in the Overweight category.  If you consider my recent average weight of 194, BMI still clocks in at 25.6 = Overweight!  Ugh.

Perhaps I shouldn’t worry too much about it as the BMI is a relatively simplistic & probably bogus measure.  However, you cannot deny that there are definite correlations between high BMIs and lower lifespan.  On the other hand, there isn’t any real loss of years lived for a 40+ year old until you get to BMIs over 29.  Looks like my current weight / BMI isn’t going to significantly cut down my lifespan.  Whew!

Developing the perfect diet

Still, there are reasons beyond my desire to live until 107 that I should lose weight. The primary one being it’s a fact…

Lighter runners are faster runners

With so much information out there about what you should eat, it’s difficult to know what to believe.  The excellent book “In Defense of Food” boils it down to this simple lesson.

Eat real food, not too much, mostly plants

As compelling as the phrase is, for some reason I haven’t been able to implement this in my life.  Perhaps it’s too much of a change in my current diet or maybe I just forgot to do it.  Or maybe, my weight hasn’t really affected me in a noticeable way (except making me slower).  Anyway, I continue to search for nutritional advice that makes sense.

Here is an interesting story reporting on a study done by researchers at the University of Copenhagen.  In a large-scale, randomized study, scientists looked at what is the optimum diet for preventing and treating obesity.  A total of 772 families participated in an 8 week long study that featured 5 different, low-fat diets.  Why they looked at only low fat diets is a mystery to me.  The five diet types featured some combination of a low/high protein diet and low/high glycemic index (GI) carbohydrate diet.  There was also a control diet which follows the government’s current recommendations.

Diet Results

According to the study results, the diet that works the best is one that is high in protein and low in GI carbohydrates. This one resulted in the least amount of people dropping out and the least amount of weight regained.  Of course, all the diets led to weight loss since participants were restricted to 800 cal/day.

What should I eat?

Foods high in protein are easy enough to find.  Things like chicken, beef, and pork will work.  But other things eggs, beans, peanuts, spinach, peanut butter, etc. also work, especially if you are more inclined to be a vegetarian.

For foods with a low GI, you need to eat some of these foods.  Oat bran, whole wheat bread, sweet corn, green beans, red peppers, carrots, green peas & peanuts.

Darn, Watermelon is a high GI food.    On the plus side, M&Ms are not

Readers of this joggling blog know of my desire to live until 107. In fact, I’d love to set the world record for the fastest marathon done while joggling for a centurian. Since there is a fair amount of luck involved in longevity, we’ll see if I actually make it.

Is it worth it to restrict calories?

One popular idea for living over 100 years is to restrict your calories. In fact, there are some people who have adopted a lifestyle where they eat 25% less calories than normal. You can learn more about them at the CR Society webpage.

Now, the evidence has been collected in numerous animal studies, but it is still not known whether a reduced calorie life style will lead to a longer living human. Perhaps, but it’s not certain science. However, there are some significant drawbacks to the low calorie lifestyle, namely, reduced energy, reduced sex drive and the inability to enjoy lots of foods. Really, you might live longer but what kind of life would you have?

Eat less, live healthier

Research continues about the idea of human calorie restrictions. According to the latest research, scientists believe that they will soon figure out what molecular changes take place as a result of calorie restriction. Eventually, they may work out a way to get the benefits of calorie restriction without the negative side effects.

I know this joggler can’t wait for that day.

Here’s some bad news that pits my love of candy bars and soda in conflict with my desire to live until 107. According to this research published in the November issue of Cell Metabolism, worms with extra glucose added to their diets live about 20% less than their usual life span. Researchers believe it is a result of some insulin signals that are affected by the glucose.

Now, this research is only in worms and hasn’t been confirmed in mice or humans so it might not be time to give up candy bars just yet.

As an aside, I do find it strange that the lead author is a believer in low-carb diets. This could bias her in favor of finding evidence that supports her belief in the benefits of low-carb. Of course, this could just be my bias in favor of wanting to continue to eat candy bars and drink soda. lol.

So, the bottom line is that if you want to live longer there might be some reason to reduce sugars and carbohydrates in your diet.

I once read that caffeine was good for runners. It has been shown to help make you faster and also can reduce running pain. So, I’ve typically made it a point to drink a cup of tea before I race.

While the amount of caffeine that I drink is probably ok, there is growing evidence that too much caffeine can actually cause problems. This article by the Running Doctor points out that a few runners (who had clear arteries) collapsed during races. The common factor was that all had taken in a large dose of caffeine before the race. He cautions runners that they should limit their caffeine intake to less than 200 mg on the day of a race or run longer than 10K. So, I’ll repeat it for you here.

Limit caffeine to 200 mg or less on the day of a race or long run

Caffeine levels

In case you were wondering, the running doctor also provides a list of caffeine content of common drinks. My favorite, Dr Pepper has 39.6 mg per 12 oz can. My cup of tea is 40 mg. So, I’m way under because I could drink 5 cups of tea or drink 5 Dr. Peppers and still be under the limit.

Do you drink caffeinated drinks before a run? How much? Leave a comment and let us know.

I often wonder why I don’t lose more weight. I joggle miles upon miles and I do it every day. This year I’ve already logged over 900 miles and am on track to do 1700 for the year.

And what has happened to my weight?

Nothing.

I weigh the same now as I did on January 1st.

How is this possible?

Well, it must mean that I’m eating enough food to compensate for all the additional calorie burning activities I do.

The equation for weight loss is simple.

If  Calories in < Calories out you lose weight

AND

If Calories in > Calories out you gain weight

According to this article on Rodale Health, people are probably eating up to 3 times more calories than they actually need. The reason is because our minds are not good at predicting how many calories a given amount of food is.

5 tips for reducing food consumption

1. Check labels – In the US, calories are printed on everything you buy. Yes, a 20 oz coke is 250 calories.

2. Become familiar with portion sizes – A single serving of meat is about the size of a deck of cards.

(Try this fun food matching game to help you figure out portion sizes of typical foods. )

3. Buy portion-sized bags - This helps you to psychologically eat less.

4. Create your own portion-sized bags – If you get the big size package, take time to transfer it into smaller bags using sandwich bags.

5. Set your own portions in restaurants - This doesn’t seem a reasonable request. Maybe just trying to eat half the food on your plate is more effective.

If you want to be healthy and live a long time, you’ve got to cut down on your calories. It’s ok to eat good, real food. Just eat less and enjoy it more.

Being a runner or joggler is great to keep you heart healthy. Changing your diet will help prevent many “Western world” diseases.

Do you have any tips on how to control how much you eat? Leave your comments below.

I just finished reading (or listening to) Michael Pollan’s excellent book In Defense of Food.

In it, he provides an excellent rationale why you should change what and how you eat. A steady diet of what he calls “imitation food” is what he believes is responsible for the Western diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer, etc. He suggests that you can improve your life and health by implementing a few food rules or algorithms as he calls them.

Food Rules to Eat By

The eating advice for the entire book can be summed up in the following 7 words.

“Eat food, not too much, mostly plants”

This advice is explained a little deeper in the third section of the book. Here are ways you can put this mantra in practical action.

1. Only eat food your great-great grandmother would recognize as food. (e.g Go-gurt is not food)

2. Consider things food only if it meets the following criteria.

• It has 5 ingredients or less. (Home-made recipes with more ingredients are ok).
• It has ingredient names you can pronounce
• It doesn’t contain high fructose corn syrup
• It will eventually rot (Twinkies are out)

3. Buy foods only on the perimeter of the supermarket

4. Don’t buy your food where you get your gas

5. Eat meals, don’t snack

6. Eat with other people

7. Only eat at a table. (Your desk is not a table)

8. Use small plates & never have seconds

9. Cook your own food

10. Eat until you are 80% full

11. Drink a little alcohol every day – (shown to fight diseases)

12. Eat more plants than meat & specifically leafy plants rather than seeds

13. Eat a variety of foods including wild game

One of the things I like about the book In Defense of Food is that he doesn’t give you a specific diet. He demonstrates that humans can live well on all sorts of different diets. Rather he describes some eating philosophies which focuses on eating food rather than eating nutrients.

I’m going to try and modify the way I eat because if I’m going to live until 107, I’ll need all the help I can get.

If you’ve read the book, what did you think? Should every joggler / runner / juggler start eating the same?

In 2005, I consumed 144 donuts. Sugar dusted, custard filled confections were my favorites, but coconut encrusted ring donuts were great too.

The next year, I just stopped. The great donut nix of 2006 is what it was called. I mostly stopped eating breakfast except occasionally 2 pieces of half-toasted bread schmeared with Country Crock margarine. The result of skipping breakfast? Well, in 2005 I weighed 191 pounds (86.8kg) at the end of the year. In 2006, I was 195 pounds (88.6 kg). This was despite joggling 150 more miles.

Certainly, the weight gain could be attributed to different factors like eating more, sleeping less, and getting older. But according to this article about the importance of breakfast, The great donut nix of 2006 could’ve also been a factor.

Why you should eat breakfast

According to the article, here’s why all world class jogglers should regularly eat breakfast.

1. Breakfast is linked to lower body mass. Less mass takes less power to move. Therefore, running and juggling is easier if you weigh less. You also can run faster without exerting more energy.
2. Breakfast reduces your risk for obesity & insulin resistance. Suffice it to say that obese jogglers are generally slower than the non-obese jogglers.
3. Breakfast is proven to help in maintaining long-term weight loss. Hey, if it’s proven it must be true, right?

So that’s it fellow jogglers. Feel free to keep eating those donuts. Granted cereal, oatmeal, eggs & toast may all be better choices, but even donuts are better than skipping it all together. Now, I think I’ll go have some cereal. For some reason, I’m hungry.

This New Yorker article had some interesting facts about how American’s weight has changed over the last few decades.

We are getting fatter

Consider some of these points, since the 1970′s…

• Men are on average 17 pounds heavier
• Women are 19 pounds heavier
• The proportion of overweight children has tripled

Currently, 33.3% of the population is overweight and 12 million Americans have a BMI 40!

Theories about why we are fatter

So, you might be wondering why people are getting fatter. Well, here are some of the leading theories.

1. Expensive Tissue Hypothesis – Our brains required lots of energy so they have evolved to make you want foods dense in calories. Now, high calorie food is so easy to get we’re starting to pack on the pounds.

2. Cheap Food Hypothesis – High calorie food has just become much cheaper over the years. We’re fat because it makes financial sense.

Soft drinks make up 7% of all calories ingested in the US

3. Eatertainment - Foods have been optimized to get you to eat more. This is a natural result of capitalism where companies are rewarded when you buy more. Food is a drug manufacturers are the pusher

4. Supersizing – The availability of super sized foods has made us eat more. In the early 1980s, companies discovered they could get us to buy more with larger sizes. And our weight has gone up ever since.

And then there is my own theory…

5. Not enough joggling – With all the TV, Internet, video games, and other great inactive forms of entertainment, people just don’t burn as many calories as they used to.If more people started joggling more, we wouldn’t have the obesity problem.

The only weight loss advice you ever need

Dr. Dean Edell once said that all the diet advice you would ever need could be summed up in a single sentence.

Weight loss is simple, if you burn more calories than you ingest, you’ll lose weight.

And if you want to make sure you are eating healthy, follow this advice from Michael Pollan’s book In Defense of Food…

Eat food, not too much, mostly plants

Incidentally, if you want to read a good site about obesity and what science is doing to help cure it, check out fellow joggler Travis Saunders’ excellent blog Obesity Panacea

While there is much thought put into figuring out what foods are good and bad to eat, did know that how you chew them can have a significant effect on the nutritional value?

It’s true. According to a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition researchers found that chewing almonds longer led to a variety of unexpected benefits.

Benefits of more chewing

The study was conducted to see what affect chewing might have on the nutritional value of almonds. They looked at factors including appetite & hunger, hormone response, and fat absorption. 13 people were recruited to do the study and they ate and chewed 55g of almonds either 10, 25, or 40 times. Here’s what they found.

1. The more people chewed, the more full they felt.
2. The more people chewed, the less hungry they felt 2 hours later
3. More chewing led to greater absorption of fat & nutrients

Are you chewing enough?

I tend to eat really fast which probably results in over-eating. If you chew your food more it’s likely that you’ll eat less and feel less hungry for longer. This should lead to eating less food, losing some weight, and most importantly becoming a faster joggler! Oh yeah, and living longer too.

So, science proves it…Chew more!

Incidentally, I really love the title of this scientific paper “Mastication of almonds: effects of lipid bioaccessibility, appetite, and hormone response”. I became a scientist just because I like saying long words.

There was an interesting bit of research that I came across about the reason why Americans are fatter than they were in the 1970s. The answer…we eat a lot more.

Calories Burned

It was commonly believed that weight increases were the result of increased food intake plus decreased activity. But scientists have shown that all our weight gain can be explained by our bigger appetites. Using national food supply data from the 1970′s and 2000′s, they were able to determine that the number of increased calories more than explains the increased pounds. They found that it was true of both adults and children.

Eat less

So, if you want to lose weight try eating less. In the 1970′s American’s ate 350 calories per day less than they do now. Exercise, like joggling, can help burn calories but less eating is the real key. Of course, if you’re going to eat less you should focus on eating real foods that are filled with vitamins and minerals.

Why Stay Fit

Staying fit helps me accomplish a few of my personal goals including…

1. Live until 107 years
2. Completing 44 marathons
3. Doing 10,000 pushups
4. Joggling for 1000 days in a row

If you want to achieve your personal goals, there’s no doubt that staying fit will help you get there.