The Pantry

The more I read, the more I think. The more I think, the less I know. The less I know, the more I read. This has been the cycle. Read, think, ponder, question, read.... Slowly, out of the background, a thought has been forming, peeking through the questions and the research, until it finally came to a head and just kind of hit me today.

Yet another friend of mine posted something on facebook about a new low-calorie treat and how excited she was about it, but it's filled with naughty ingredients. I realized how focused our society is on calories. I know I've alluded to this many times, especially in my most noted Weight Watchers article (see this also), but today it just really struck me - when did it become all about calories? I'm using calories here, but for the point of the argument I also mean carbs, fat, protein, fiber, etc. The term calorie was first defined in 1824 by Nicolas Clement, so for 5,800+ years, people got along just fine without worrying about how many calories they were consuming. The obesity epidemic didn't start to become a big issue until the mid 20th century, so clearly the lack of importance on caloric intake didn't cause problems with being overweight. Shouldn't we follow history's lead here?

Our society today spends so much time focusing on how many calories were consuming, how many grams of fat and which kinds of fat, how many grams of protein, how many grams of fiber vs. how many carbohydrates, and the list goes on and on, and yet we're the most obese culture in the world (and I might go so far as to say here: we're the most obese culture in the history of the world). Is this system really working for us? If we do manage to figure out the magic formula for all the right proportions, how much of our time will be spent looking at the side of the box, adding and subtracting, tallying up our totals for this and that? To be honest, that sounds time consuming, mind-numbingly boring, and rather stressful.

The main thing our society overlooks is ingredients. There has been some push toward this mindset recently, which has led to an increase in organic and all-natural products on the shelves. But for the most part, our society still completely misses the point. We have completely over-complicated something I believe was originally intended to be quite simple.

The Creator of the Universe was extremely intentional in every last detail that went in to His Creation. With that in mind, it is clear that He had a specific plan for nutrition. That is why He filled the earth with healthy foods for His people to eat. God has stocked our pantry full of the foods that He knows are best for our bodies. And if anyone knows what's best for our bodies, it's the One who created them and understands their anatomy and physiology better than anyone.

What then did He put in The Pantry? He supplied us with fruits and veggies, grains, nuts and seeds, and animals which supply both meat and dairy. Foods that have been created in a laboratory or genetically modified are not supplied by God, they are man's attempt to do something better then God. That idea will never work. We cannot be better than God. It's no wonder that the foods man created have made man fat and unhealthy.

I've worked through a lot of questions I've had about how this concept works. For instance, marijuana comes from a plant. Is that part of The Pantry? Honestly, I think that might be part of The Medicine Cabinet. Or how about how much processing did God intend for us to do to His supply? To this, I've looked to history. I'm not sure what the diet was like thousands of years ago, but I do know that they didn't go to the supermarket to buy their food. And the first establishment that resembles our modern day restaurant didn't show up until the 11th century, so for 5,000+ years, people got along without supermarkets or restaurants. This tells me if it's something that you can conceivably garner from The Pantry and process yourself, then it's probably ok. For example, butter is simply milk that has been churned for quite a while. I have made butter before. I could conceivably go milk a cow or a goat, churn the milk, and eventually get butter. Obviously, we don't live in a society where we can spend all day making butter, but if I'm going to look at the store for it, I'm going to find the one that's only ingredient is milk. Any other ingredients in butter (save for salt which isn't necessary and salted butter should be avoided) are man-made and not from The Pantry.

So that's it, that's my philosophy that has been burgeoning for quite some time now. Whole, fresh foods from The Pantry God stocked for us, buying processed only when necessary and only for something in which you could conceivably make yourself if you had the time. No need to worry about the biochemistry of the foods found in The Pantry - the calories, fat, protein, etc. - because the Creator supplied foods that are good for our bodies (I will not say they are foods that will automatically make us skinny, because no where in the Bible do I find a call to be skinny, only a call to take care of our bodies as they are a temple for the Lord). And He gave us a body that, when we get in tune with it, tells us when to eat and when to stop. I have completely stopped looking at the Nutritional Information table and only look at the ingredient list. That tells me all I need to know.

Let's Think About What We Know About Processed Foods

I apologize for my brief disappearance. After a crazy week, which included me taking a 4ft. x 1ft. mirror 2 inches into my knee (and the resulting ER trip, stitches, knee brace and crutches), I am finally back on blogger! Last time, I talked about using common sense to think about things we know to be true about produce. Today I want to do the same for processed foods.

Another reason for the delay is that this next topic is pretty involved, with the capacity to include a large variety of food and beverage products. To be exact, food processing is anything that is done to food before it is made available for us to eat. This could be anything from freezing a food, to prepackaged meals found on the shelf. Obviously that's a wide range of products, so it's not possible to give an opinion one way or the other on the group 'processed foods.' For the purpose of this article, I want to zero in on packaged foods with preservatives added to extend their shelf life.

Let's go back to what we know about the human body. Our body is an organism made up of several systems working in congruence to keep us healthy and alive. One of these systems is the digestive system. The definition of digest is to break down food in the stomach and intestines. In essence, digest is the exact opposite of preserve. So why would we want to put foods designed not to break down into our bodies which are made to break things down? That doesn't make any sense. The obvious result of this idiotic setup is that these kinds of foods hang out in our bodies (my body's hangout spots are my hips and thighs) while our bodies work overtime to try and break them down (possibly at the expense of other important functions?). This is where I can see the advantage to doing some kind of detox - to give the body time to catch up and digest all the preservatives I've loaded into it over time. If I just keep adding more and more preservatives, my body will always be behind. But if I do a detox, I'll give my body an opportunity to get back on track. This concept has been festering in my mind for a while now, but I am still researching. There are several different kinds of detox programs and I don't feel I know enough to start one in particular yet. So stay tuned, more on detoxes to come.

In the meanwhile, cutting out preservatives will be a big help. This is much easier said than done though. The list of different preservatives is quite long and can be as innocuous as salt or as dangerous as TBHQ. Very likely, any ingredients on the side of the package that you can't pronounce are preservatives. I found this fantastic list which has the vast majority of preservatives you're likely to find, and also indicates whether they're linked to hyperactivity, cancer or asthma. An easy guideline to go by though is the longer the shelf life, the worse it is. If something does not go bad, it should not be eaten.

This burger from McDonald's has been sitting out for 6 months:
It looks about the same as it did on day one. I've seen other pictures, though I can't find any at the moment, of fast food burgers that have been sitting out for more than a year or two with no change! Is that REALLY what you want to put in your body??? Do your body a favor and only give it foods and beverages that will make it easy to do its job. Your health and your waistline will thank you for it!!!

Let's Think About What We Know About Produce

Last Spring, I was fortunate to go on a cruise around the Caribbean. During one of our days at sea, the spa & fitness center had a seminar on toxins and I decided to attend. My eyes were opened wide during the one hour lecture and I've given the information presented a lot of thought ever since then. For the most part, they didn't share anything that I didn't already know, but they put it all together in a way I'd never really considered. So let's talk about what we know. This article is the first in a series and will just cover produce.

What do we know about some of the produce we eat? Produce is sprayed with pesticides or herbicides to keep pests from destroying it before it can be harvested or to keep weeds from growing. The suffix -cide is from the latin verb 'caedere' meaning to strike down or to kill. We know that these are designed to kill the "pests/weeds" but what are the pests or weeds? Living organisms. What do we know about the human body? The human body is a living organism. Our produce is treated with substances designed to kill living organisms which includes our own bodies.

You may be thinking, 'but I wash all my produce first so the chemicals get washed away.' The truth is, washing our produce doesn't do much. First, pesticides can seep down in to the fruit or vegetable through the skin making it impossible to just wash off. Second, most of the time, the pesticides are protected. Let's think about this using apples as an example. Have you ever picked an apple straight from the tree? This is what it would look like:

Does it look different from a store-bought apple?

The apples on the tree are a little more dull, not quite as shiny as the store-bought apples. That is because apples in the store have a waxy coating added to them to make them look more desirable (to encourage you to buy them). But what does that wax coating really do? What does it do to a car? When you wax your car, it makes water droplets just roll right off it. It's no different with the apple. When you wash the apple, it just cleans off that waxy layer, which unfortunately, is protecting all the pesticides that were applied first underneath. And, just so you know, it's probably not just a couple times that it's been sprayed. The research I've done varies, but it's mostly consistent to the fact that produce can be sprayed up to 30 times with different pesticides which first seep into the produce and then may be locked in under the wax. That's a lot of pesticides that we're ingesting, which are then stored in the colon where they slowly poison the body (the living organism where they ultimately end up).

Waxy appearances aren't the only trick used to encourage you to buy. Have you ever bit into what appeared to be a red, juicy strawberry only to have it taste awful? Chances are, the strawberry you just ate wasn't ripe when it was picked and the red coloring was added to it to make it look appealing. This trick is used a lot for produce that isn't in season. Aside from the dangers of artificial coloring, which can constitute an entire article unto itself, eating unripened produce is not exactly healthy. If it hasn't had time to complete its growing cycle before being harvested, then it hasn't had time to reach its full nutritional value.

The absolute best option is to grow your own produce, where you know and control exactly what goes on it. I have two large dogs and an extremely black thumb (I even killed a cactus once - that takes a special kind of black thumb!) so I'm still working on this in my own life. For now, Farmers Markets and Greenling are my best alternatives. Organic produce is a third option, but most organic produce is treated with organic pesticides. Common sense should tell us that even a natural pesticide is still designed to kill living organisms, which is a category that still effects our own bodies. If Organic is your best option, the EWG has their Dirty Dozen and Clean 15 which rank various produce on their levels of pesticides so you know which are the most important to buy Organic.

Up next: Processed Foods

A Fat Free Twinkie is Still a Twinkie

When I was in fifth grade, I was friends with a girl who was rather large - as in, she was probably already well into the obese category at that tender age. At one point she decided she was going to lose weight and so she started eating fat-free twinkies at lunch time. She was convinced this would help her because they were fat-free!

I was reminded of this story today when I almost got in a debate with a good friend. She stated she was hoping to get a full 6-8 servings of fruits and veggies each day and I suggested the Machine drinks by Naked (Blue Machine, Green Machine, Red Machine.) These particular drinks are full of fruits and vegetables, some in juice form and some pureed from the whole fruit/veggie. They easily have 6-8 servings of fruits and veggies in them and have no naughty ingredients. Other than being high in sugar (from the natural fructose found in the fruits), they are extremely good for you. However, this friend is on Weight Watchers and these drinks are worth 4 points each (probably due in part to the juices added which aren't as good for you as the whole fruit or veggie), and so she said she couldn't drink them.

This thought greatly confused me as some other women in our same circle had been discussing just the day before how great it was that a boxed cake mix mixed with a can of Diet Coke or Sprite made a dessert that was barely any points. It struck me that this summed up my problem with points systems quite nicely - they encourage you to eat things that may not be good for you (as I assure you a boxed cake mix most certainly isn't!) because they are low in points but discourage you to eat anything that is high in points even if they are really good for you.

In all fairness, I hadn't ever looked into what exactly Weight Watchers stands for, so before I made up my mind too firmly, I decided to research it some. My first problem with the program is that there was very little I could find out from their own website without signing up for the program. I also have a problem with paying to get healthy, but I do recognize that it can be a motivator for weight loss for some people.

I decided to do their free assessment which brings me to my next problem with the program: they claim

You don't have to give up any of your favorite foods to lose weight! 

I actually have two issues with this statement. First, what if my favorite foods are McDonald's, pizza, ice cream, chips, and cookies. Really? I don't have to give up ANY of those to lose weight? And second, the goal shouldn't be to lose weight, the goal should be to be healthy. In order to become healthy, you have to give up unhealthy foods, many of which top most people's list of favorite foods. 

Finally, I have a problem with the accountability of the program. They say they encourage healthy options, but unless you regularly attend their meetings, the only accountability is in the Points system. They use this picture to show how you can eat more if you eat better things (sounds suspiciously like trading in your "favorite" things):

 

But when I look at this picture, my only question is what's to stop you from eating the meal on the left? They're both worth 11 points, so why should I eat the rather disgusting-sounding pasta salad and soup when I can enjoy the childhood favorite of PB&J with chips? What if the meal on the left was 10 points? Would that make it a better option than the meal on the right? Unless there is a goal for how many fruits and veggies to eat each day, how much meat and dairy and grains (remember the Food Plate from last week?), people could stay within their points range every single day and still gain weight. Because I'm sorry, but if you're struggling with your weight, I can almost guarantee you that you'll have to give up at least something in order to see any success. A 2-point chocolate cupcake with Diet Coke is not better for you than a 4-point organic fruit and veggie drink. A fat-free Twinkie is still a Twinkie. 

One thing I think they do have right, they incorporate exercise into the program, although, to what extent I'm not sure. 

To be fair, there may be more that I have missed, but as I stated, this was the most I could learn from their own webpage without signing up for the program. To their credit, I do think they have really delicious recipes, but as it turns out, you can make them even if you're not on the program.

****UPDATE****
Due to some of the immediate response I got, let me clarify a few things:

1. I don't want to discount anyone who follows this program the way it is designed to be done and sees results. I'm sure if you follow it exactly as recommended, you can see results if your goal is weight loss. However, my goal is Whole Health, and for that, there are things I have to give up. For example, is it ok for me to eat carcinogenic ingredients as long as I only do it every once in a while as a treat?  I really don't think so. This program may teach you about fat, protein, carbs, portions, etc. but does it teach you about healthy ingredients? Personally, I feel that things with poisonous - I refer to these as naughty - ingredients should not be allowed, not just take up  more points. My point with this article is that unless you're going to their meetings, the accountability relies on the Points. The accountability to follow their recommendations and guidelines depends entirely on your will power, making it no different than than just watching your portions and eating a well balanced meal. That you can do on your own, you shouldn't have to pay for that. Having someone tell us what we should and shouldn't eat in order to lose weight is not what the problem is for most of us. The majority of people are probably aware that an Oreo is worse than an apple. We - or at least I - don't have to pay for that.

2. If I had gone in and met with one of their specialists, I may very well have learned more about their program, but I feel if they're going to offer an online option, then you should be able to learn everything you need to know online before signing up.

3. I'm not sure where people are getting the idea that I recommended cutting out entire groups of food - I am not saying to cut out carbs or dairy or anything like the sort. And I do think that total deprivation of something you like, on the path to weight loss, will lead to binge eating and mess up your "diet" even more. Let me make this perfectly clear: I AM NOT ON A DIET. I am on an adventure to find Whole Health. So yes, allow yourself a treat, just make sure it doesn't have naughty ingredients in it that may kill you no matter how thin you are.

4. I suppose I should not have started with a program called WEIGHT watchers, but as far as I'm aware, there is no program called HEALTH watchers. If weight loss is your goal, and you have the will power to make the right choices on your own, then I'm sure you will succeed with this diet and that it will be sustainable over the long run, in part because of their incorporating indulgences into the program. If you have seen results using Weight Watchers, congratulations!

****UPDATE 2****
Please read Janis' comment to this post. She is a Weight Watchers success story but is still able to help clarify what I'm trying to say. Maybe it will seem less offensive or judgmental if it's coming from someone who has not only done the program, but seen a lot of success with it. I'm not trying to say you can't lose weight with this program, all I'm saying is that you can lose a lot of weight with it without necessarily getting any healthier.

I do know, from my own mother who is currently on the Weight Watchers program (as is my grandma - I'm not against people on the program!!), you can apply a point value to anything using only the fat, carbs, protein and fiber. The actual ingredients do not matter. So when they encourage you to indulge every once in a while so as not to feel deprived, you can turn to Oreos or Chips Ahoy. By not discouraging these foods, they in a way do encourage them as an option for your indulgences. It'd be far better to indulge in a homemade cookie than a prepackaged cookie. What's worse, they do encourage low-fat or sugar-free or low-calorie alternatives, which as Janis very clearly stated have a much naughtier ingredient list than their slightly more fattening counterpart. Points are a good guideline, but should not be the determining factor. No one should look at a healthy fruit drink and think of it as "wasting points." Follow the points, but also look at the ingredients and know what you're eating. 

****UPDATE 3****
Instead of posting a new update, I decided to completely re-do the whole article in an attempt to better clarify what I'm trying to say, as well as give the program credit for what I like and some statistics about the program. View it here.

Frenemies, Surprising Allies, and Wolves in Sheep's Clothing ROUND ONE

Frenemy #1: While researching the best healthy snacks, one thing stood out: nuts and nut butters (peanut butter, almond butter, etc.). I get it - nuts are a healthy fat, are a great source of protein, and leave you feeling full. But they make my Frenemy list because, while it's healthy, they're still high in fat. When I was pregnant with my daughter, I lost 12 pounds during the first trimester just because I was too queasy to eat much. My OB was relatively unconcerned about this until midway through the second trimester when I still hadn't started to gain any weight. At that point she told me I needed to increase my peanut butter intake. Let me just say I didn't have any problem with weight gain after that (over the next 4 months, I gained 40 pounds!!) So while it is healthy and full of protein, it might not be the best if weight loss is your goal. I now severely limit my nut and peanut butter intake (which stinks because I love peanut butter with fruit or on toast  or with chocolate or by the spoonful....).

Surprising Ally #1: Chocolate milk is rapidly moving toward the top of everyone's favorite healthy post-workout snacks. Chocolate milk, when compared to plain milk or most sports drinks, has almost twice the amount of carbohydrates and protein which are essential to refuel your muscles after a workout. This also gives your body something to metabolize after your workout which extends the effect your workout has on weight loss. Plus, it's super yummy!! I drink Mootopia (a lactose-free brand from HEB) and in one glass, there are 150 calories, only 4.5 grams of fat, 13 grams of carbs and 12 grams of protein!!! Note: You can lose up to half of your workout if you do not eat within a half an hour after finishing, so don't wait too long!

Wolf in Sheep's Clothing #1: Many people think that protein shakes or energy bars are an excellent choice when picking a healthy snack, especially for a post-workout snack. The truth is, the vast majority of these items aren't really good for you - they're simply candy bars or milkshakes disguised to be healthy by having added protein. Yes, the protein is great, but the rest is not. A far better alternative is to make your own fruit smoothie and add some protein powder. If you like the idea of an energy bar, check the ingredients and nutritional information very carefully. Pure bars are an excellent choice - while a little high in fat due to the nuts (Frenemy #1!!), they are made with all organic and/or all natural products and are a great source of protein.

Weight is Just a Number

As I mentioned yesterday, your weight is not the be all end all of how healthy you are, but it is a good guideline to consider. Body Fat Percentage is a much more accurate depiction of your fitness, but is harder to obtain. There are websites like this one or this one where you can "calculate" your body fat percentage, but they aren't as reliable as a water displacement test. These calculations can vary between sites (mine varies even between these two) and can be skewed depending on where you carry your extra weight. If you're a pear shape, like me, these sites will calculate your percentage as better than it actually is. However, if you're an apple shape and carry all your weight around your middle, they may reflect your percentage as worse than it really is. But assuming that most of us are not equipped to perform a water displacement test in our home, this number is another good guideline to consider. Aiming for a middle of the "healthy" road BMI by weight and body fat percentage are good goals. (This chart shows healthy body fat ranges by gender.)  Trying to lose inches off your measurements (bust, waist, hips, thighs, and arms) is another great goal.

But there's more to fitness than these numbers, right? Absolutely! Your weight might not drop as quickly as you'd hope if you're truly getting fit as muscle weighs more than fat. This picture shows the difference quite well:



It is clear to see that even though they weigh the same, fat takes up much more space than muscle! This is one reason why tracking your measurements, or how well your clothes fit, is a much better picture of how well you're doing. This picture alone should be pretty motivating! I know I would certainly rather have the 5 pounds of muscle than the 5 pounds of fat!! How about you?