Getting activity POINTS by evading sharks. My pre-vacation check list.

All good things come to those who wait.   After a hectic summer, I am finally getting geared up for VACATION beginning this coming weekend.  Two weeks at the beach with family is really all a guy can ask for.  Accordingly, it's time for me to write-up my pre-vacation check list.  I know I've done these on this blog before, but truth be told, I write these check lists as much for myself as for anyone reading the blog.  There's nothing like a little bit of forced accountability through public disclosure.

As I've noted in past pre-vacation posts, this special time is often a nutritionally perilous time.  Most significantly, clicking on the "I'm on vacation" neon sign in my brain is tantamount to turning on the "I can do and eat anything I want" sign.  Therefore, it's useful and helpful for me to remind myself that respite does not have to equal nasty fried food.

So here I go.  Let's start with Danger Zones to manage/avoid:

• Evil snacks:  it's pretty easy to load up the rental house and beach bag with enormous bags of chips and assorted food rubbish.  Unless I don't.  
• Fried food:  my beach zone is in Massachusetts, home of the fried clam.  Fried food always looks awesome pre-mouth entry, tastes OK, and feels terrible post-mouth entry.  Why continue to repeat the sins of the past?  Stick with the grilled fish.  
• Ice cream:  it's a danger zone, but one worthy of partaking on some sort of semi-reasonable basis.
• Slothdom:  in theory, vacation creates the risk of non-movement.  However, I'm far too hyperactive to not exercise, so it's not a terrible danger zone.  

Moving on to my I-don't-want-to-gain-10lbs-in-two-weeks Action List:

• Find a gym:  I have already worked the interweb to find a local gym that will sell a two week package.  I agree that it's sad that I find this so awesome.  Nonetheless, I find this awesome.  I wake up before the rest of the family anyway, so why not jam in a solid workout.  
• Find a bike path:  I also looked this up online, and there are lots of trails where I'm going.  It's not mega-death hill climbing, but there are plenty of flats for a nice 45 minute semi-sprint.  Also makes for a good family activity.  
• Try something new(ish):  I found a local surf school that teaches standup paddle boarding (SUP), which I already tried and liked this summer.  This plus body surfing and swimming is both fun and active.  Which is good.  
• Pre-scout healthy food options:  Again, I've worked the web to find some good fresh-stands, farmer markets and organic food options.  I plan to load up on having a ton of good, fresh food kicking around.  
• Plan on a healthy breakfast and lunch each day. 
• Don't go crazy at dinner, but don't over-think it either.  Nuff said.  

Said differently, when entering a new environment, a little research, planning and mental rehearsing goes a long way.  As always, I don't expect to fully adhere to the above guidelines, but hitting at least 75%-80% will make for a healthy, un-gross vacation experience.  

Scanning the recent local news, I recently learned that Cape Cod is now having an outbreak of both rip currents and Great White shark infestations.  This should make for some vigorous swimming.  It's nice when the survival mechanism can also benefit the caloric equilibrium.  

I'm guessing this guy doesn't count POINTS, 

but I'm still curious how many POINTS I would be?

For those who did your vacations already, how did it go?  For those still planning, anything to add to the list?  

Cheers,

dk

Your brain on drugs. Errr. I meant food.

As referenced in an earlier post, I had the opportunity to attend the recent International Congress on Obesity in Stockholm, Sweden a couple of weeks ago.  There was some research shown that demonstrates what our brains looks like when we're hungry.  It's a fascinating new angle on understanding obesity that uses the technology of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI's).  Said differently:  brain scans with cool colors that show neural activity as it is actually happening.

Researchers have used this technology to attempt to better understand the parts of the brains that get activated by different systems and pathways.  Some researchers now theorize that there are two pathways that show how brain activity relates to feelings of hunger:

1. Homeostatic:  this is basically the control mechanism our bodies use to manage our energy balance. They largely rely on hormones to either stimulate or suppress hunger depending on whether we have excess energy stores (i.e., have eaten enough).  Leptin levels are elevated to suppress hunger while grehlin levels are elevated when we need food.  Said differently, this system was designed to help us figure out when we need food or not.  It is not to say that the system works perfectly in guiding people to their swimsuit-fantasy selves, but it generally works on some level.  
2. Hedonic:  appropriately named, the hedonic system is theorized to stimulate people to consume "highly palatable" foods (and drugs) through dopamine release through something called the mesolimbic dopamine pathway.  Basically, when you see a picture of chocolate cake your brain goes fuzzy.  And you eat.  Or you really want to eat.  Badly.  

Recently, there has been research done that demonstrates that the hedonic system goes into overdrive for people who struggle with their weight vs. people who don't.  Apparently, those of us who are challenged with excessive food intake (like me) have brains that light up like a Christmas tree when we see something yummy.  Apparently, the naturally thin do not have this neural-fireworks display to nearly the same degree.  

Interesting, there has also been research that seems to indicate that those who have lost weight and kept it off have a different part of our brains that also lights up when we see something yummy.  It is basically, the part of the brain (the dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex in case you were wondering) that helps us regulate against our impulsive behaviors.  A friend of mine asked me if such a part of the brain could be implanted or purchased.  Presuming that medical technology for this kind of quick fix does not yet exist, it sounds like the way to get this part of the brain activated may be more like developing a new muscle, presumably through practice and training.  

So what's my professional take on all of the above?  fMRI is a hot new area in obesity research that holds a lot of interesting long term promise.  It's still new technology (as it relates to obesity), and the brain is a complicated piece of equipment.  As a result, curiosity into these studies is definitely warranted, but a wait-and-see scientific patience is as well.  It's very new stuff.  

So what's my personal take on all of the above?  I totally relate to these theories.  My brain totally gets fuzzy when I see my favorite trigger foods.  I cannot look at a muffin without my heart skipping a beat and my head getting a weird buzzing sensation.  To be clear, I haven't had a muffin in years, and I still have a frenzied response when I see one.  

At the same time, I seem to have gotten pretty adept at not eating said muffin.  Therefore, it's possible that my self-restraint brain biceps have gotten at least a little bit toned.  That said, if I were locked in a closet with a blueberry muffin for a day, I would surely eat it.  So I cannot rely on my restraint muscle completely.  I also need to keep myself out of harms way by avoiding being around those foods that make my brain-heart go pitter-pat.  

It's all common sense stuff, but it's interesting to see how it's correlated to neuroscience.  Does that mean it's not brain surgery?  Let's hope surgery isn't required.  

How do  you manage your own dopamine pathways to keep yourself from spiraling into a food frenzy?

Cheers,

dk

My doctor, my weight and cool stuff from Sweden

As noted in my last post, I was a crazy traveling person last week, including a day spent in Stockholm, Sweden at the International Congress on Obesity (ICO).  It was a big day for Weight Watchers for reasons that I will get to in a little bit.

Before, I talk about Sweden, I wanted to share my own personal experience with my doctor as it relates to my weight.  The year was 1998, and I was getting my first physical in many years.  At the time of said physical, I weighed about 40 pounds more than I do now, and I had both high cholesterol (the bad kind) and high blood pressure.  It was in that visit that my doctor told me that it was time to lose weight and get my lifestyle together, or I would be looking at a lifetime of medication.  Suffice to say, it was an alarming conversation for me and was a clear wake-up call.  I have to say that if there was one single event that pushed me to get my physical life together, it was this conversation with my doctor.

If there was one issue with that conversation with my doctor, it was simply that I did not know what to do next.  She gave me a target number of calories to consume each day, and sent me on my way.  To be clear, my doctor is pretty amazing, and I trust her implicitly.  She is an incredibly committed physician, and I don't blame her for not giving me more specific advice.  The reality of her world does not easily afford the opportunity to provide nutrition counseling for her myriad of patients.  Further, it's not obvious that this kind of weekly counseling would be the best use of her (or her nurse's) time.  What she did provide was a much needed push.  What she also provided was a reason for me to come back with better numbers:  my next physical.  In other words, my doctor played a critical role in my weight loss process in creating a sense or urgency and a sense of accountability to lose the weight.

The "doing" part of losing weight did not happen until I joined Weight Watchers as employee and member.  The week-in and week-out of participating in the program, keeping track of my points, attending my meetings and measuring my progress (or not) on the scale was what generated the actual results.  This is the Weight Watchers zone of excellence, and it delivered for me big time.

For me, the combination of my doctor and Weight Watchers is ultimately what made the difference.

So what does this have to do with Stockholm, Sweden?  For the past couple of years, a team of highly regarded academics in the UK, Germany and Australia have been working on a multi-country, large scale (n = 772) randomized clinical trial (RCT) efficacy study.  Here is how the study worked:

• Doctor sees patient who is overweight and talks to the patient about the importance of losing weight.
• Doctor randomly assigns patient either to 1) the "standard care" that ideally they would normally provide or 2) Weight Watchers.  In this case, "standard care" is defined by government public health guidelines that typically include having a nurse or nurse practitioner teach the patient how to follow a healthy diet and then have follow-up coaching visits.  Sadly, "standard care" does not always happen, often due to time pressures faced by over-burdened doctors' offices.  
• The study was done over a 12 month period

The results?  Those who were assigned to Weight Watchers lost twice as much weight as those assigned to standard care through the doctor's office.  Further, of the 56% of those completing the trial (a really good result, by the way) in the Weight Watchers arm, 60% lost 5% or 10% or more.  A 5% weight loss is the point where medical benefits begin to evidence themselves, so this is a big deal.  That compared very favorably to 33% on the doctor standard care arm, again a 2X improvement.  To be clear, this does not mean that those who completed the Weight Watchers arm were actively doing the program each week for 12 months.  It merely meant that they showed up for the last weigh-in of the research project.  

Does this mean that Weight Watchers some how does a better job than doctors in treating patients?  Of course not.  What it does mean is that Weight Watchers has a structure in place that makes providing weekly support, education and weigh-in's very straight forward and easy to facilitate.  Further, Weight Watchers has meetings literally everywhere in each of its markets making it pretty convenient for the vast majority of doctors' patients.  What this study conclusively showed is that the combination of doctor and Weight Watchers is a winning one in creating weight loss that is significant from a health perspective.  The clear implication of this is that there is a valuable partnership to be formed between doctors and Weight Watchers.  

It worked for me, and the study showed that it can work for most others.  

What role (if any) has your doctor played in your weight loss process?  

Cheers,

dk

Happy, so very happy (for the little things)

We were able to retrieve my original www.manmeetsscale.com URL.  No more picture of the weird body builder guy and all the random links.  That is good.

EOM.

Planes, trains and automobiles. Getting a plan for a whacky travel week.

(me in about 6 hours -- hoping for a volcano free ocean hop)

I've got a crazy week in front of me (as of right this minute on Sunday morning).  I'm getting in a car and heading off to the airport at 2 PM, and I've got a 5:30 flight to Stockholm, Sweden.  The lineup this week is fairly harried:

• Fly out tonight and get into Stockholm at 7:30 AM
• Spend Monday at International Obesity Conference (ICO).  Give speech.
• Fly out Monday night at 9 PM to London
• Spend Tuesday in London doing media interviews about some amazing research we are presenting this week
• Fly out Tuesday night to Boston
• Take a morning train on Wednesday to spend the day with our team in Providence, RI.  Give a town hall meeting with local staff.
• Take train back to NY area Wednesday night

Not looking for sympathy on this craziness as I love everything I am participating in over these three break-neck days.  However, from a healthy life perspective, I am going to have to manage a few challenges:

1. No sleep.  5:30 PM red-eye flights to Europe are just flat out harsh.  I'm not expecting to get much more than 3 hours sleep tonight.  I will be running around pretty furiously on Monday, so that should help me from sudden narcoleptic fits.  However, no sleep = mindless eating risk zone.  
2. Airplane travel.  I've talked about this one a thousand and twelve times, yet I still have fairly atrocious eating habits on planes.  
3. No workout on Monday.  Horrors!!!!  What if my limbs fall off from lack of use?

So what's an overwrought, type-A guy to do?  Have an awesome plan!  

• Airplane strategy:  choose the fish-like choice on the flight service.  Don't eat junk in the airport while waiting for the plane.  Skip desert and/or ask for the fruit instead.  No nuts!!!!
• Train strategy:  see airplane strategy.  In fact, one-up the airplane strategy by skipping the food all together.  I get into NY around 7 PM, so I should be able to hold off until I get a normal meal at home.  Just because they offer the cup-O-nuts doesn't mean I have to take one (or two).  
• Workout strategy:  my hotel in London's got a good gym.  Further, I'm staying at a hotel in Boston which has a local Equinox gym within walking distance.  That means I get two solid workouts in on Tuesday and Wednesday.  Go me!  
• Stay busy:  the more I an running around, the better I eat.  Kind of paradoxical somehow, but it's true.  

As I have noted before, summer is a perilous eating time for me, and so is travel.  But neither has to be.  What if this time could be replete with healthy food and abundant exercise that made me feel healthy, happy and well?  It's a positive thought that I will do my noble best to keep in a non-perishable place over the coming week.  

On a side note, I'm listening to my 12 year-old daughter loudly singing with Rick Springfield to Jesse's Girl.  That makes me smile and think even more positive thoughts!  

Cheers,

dk

Heart rate shopping: my Lifecycle, spinning class, road bike show down.

2009 and 2010 have been the years in which I have finally embraced cardiovascular exercise.  I've been good about hitting the weights for the better part of the past 10 years (since I joined WW).  Further, I'm a fairly prolific walker, so I have been able to secure my move-around exercise that way.  However, I could never seem to force myself to really embrace the art of raising my heart rate (except during frightening movies).  I always felt that it was a missing piece of the exercise version of myself that I wanted to be.

Sometime around late 2008 and early 2009, I rediscovered my mild romance with two wheeled exercise devices, otherwise known as bikes.  I had purchased a nice road bike in the summer of 2007, but I am guessing that I took it out a grand total of three times (maybe) that summer.  

About 18 months later, I started to see the light.  I began to partake in periodic spin classes and occasional solo trips on the Lifecycle.  Last summer, I started to take my bike out in earnest, and I discovered that I really enjoyed the whole being-outside-and-get-a-workout thing.  I'm now good for some sort of meaningful cardio exercise about five times per week.

All of my cardio consists of some variant of a bike:  1) Lifecycle, 2) spinning class or 3) road bike.  While I get something out of all three, I have always suspected that they were not created equally in terms of work expenditure.  I get a good sweat with all three, but I think I always knew that the Lifecycle was not nearly as demanding as the spinning class or the road bike.

About two weeks ago, I finally buckled and bought a Garmin heart rate monitor (FR60 for those who are shopping -- I like it!).  There is nothing like data to get a view into the truth of your life.  It can be in the form of counting POINTS or it can be in tracking your heart rate.  What I found with my new fangled HRM was not surprising, but it was still eye opening.

First, a quick review of my heart rate basics, based on my age according to CDC physical activity guidelines:

• Moderate intensity activity = 88.5 bpm (50% of max) to 124 bpm (70% of max)
• Vigorous intensity activity = 125 bpm (71% of max) to 150 bpm (85% of max)

Vigorous activity roughly corresponds to what is referred to as the aerobic zone (70% max to 80% max) while anything north of that would be in the anaerobic zone.  

OK, so without further adieu, here is what I discovered:

• Lifecycle:  45 minutes at an average of 137 bpm and a maximum of 159 bpm.  This works out to an average of 77% of my age-adjusted max heart rate (MHR)
• Road bike:  73 minutes at an average of 144 bpm and a maximum of 164 bpm.  The average was 81% of my MHR.  
• Spinning class:  50 minutes at an average of 150 bpm and a maximum of 171 bpm.  This is an average of 85% of my MHR.  

So what are my conclusions:

1. Value accepting punishment from a teacher:  The effect of having my good friend Emma (the spinning instructor from the depths of Hades) hammering on me works out to about a 9% increase in average heart rate vs. the Lifecycle.  Further she was able to push me way into my anaerobic zone for extended periods of time.  
2. Duration counts:  The road bike trip was the calorie consuming winner.  I put in 62% more minutes on my bike than I did on the Lifecycle, yet my average heart rate was still 5% higher.  
3. Time to man-up on the stationary bike:  I clearly need to up the average resistance on the Lifecycle.  Points #1 and #2 demonstrate that I can clearly push myself harder.  

My other conclusions are that:

1. I am truly a geek for spending this much time analyzing all of this stuff.    
2. The old adage of What Gets Measured Gets Done is true.  Having the heart rate monitor is giving me useful information that will be hugely helpful in taking my exercise to the next level.  Which is good.    

Any thoughts or tips on how you use heart rate monitors for the benefit an HRM newbie like myself would be great!  

Cheers,

dk

Can foods be friends? Definitely. Meet some of my crew...

When last we spoke, I wrote about snacking/grazing foods that get me into hot water.  For example, I’m still slightly horrified by the disturbing number of POINTS packed into a tin of Sabra hummus.  I think I always knew that it tasted too good to be true, but I didn’t realize how deadly it was.  I guess it’s good to know your enemies.

Yet, having all enemies and no friends seems like a sad and lonely way to go through life.  I have friends.  I really do!  And I like to imagine that that they like me just as much as I like them.  Even better, my friends are both fun and upstanding, responsible citizens.  They are a good influence on me, and they make me a better person.

Of course, I’m speaking metaphorically as I am referring to my food friends.  [Parenthetically, I feel the same way about the qualities of my human friends.]

The friends I would like to celebrate are my snack buddies.  So what does it take to become one of my snacking friends?  What lofty criteria must be reached to be able to call yourself my buddy?  How does a snacking food become fabulous in my world?  Here are some basic criteria:

1. You should take a while to eat.  Food works best if it can meet a basic time criteria and create the sensation that I’ve had meaningful eating experience.  If you can be eaten in three bites, you are not a true snacking friend.  Tiresome acquaintance at best.  
2. You should look larger than life.  That is, you should occupy a significant amount of spatial volume and create the illusion that you are a boatload of food.  Of course, you should be an optical illusion of sorts as you should also have a limited number of calories.  In Weight Watchers lingo, these are referred to as Filling Foods.  
3. You should taste good.  I tried to be snacking friends with saw dust, but I never could endorse the taste.  I am ambidextrous when it comes to choosing savory or sweet, so my taste can spread a fairly wide spectrum.  It helps that I’m not a picky eater, as this allows me to be fairly promiscuous in this dimension of choosing my snacking friends.  

This apple seems super friendly!  

So without further adieu, here is my current snacking buddy lineup:

• Apples:  love apples, particularly Fuji apples.  I also appreciate that one apple can be sliced into eights, which in turn can be allocated to two bites each.  That’s 16 bites of food.  And only 2 POINTS.  
• Non-fat Greek yogurt:  he doesn’t taste awesome by himself, but he plays very nicely with other friends.  He also contains lots of protein with relatively few calories, so he stays with me long after he’s consumed (in other words, he has outstanding satiety – an excellent character trait).  I have been known to organize play dates with Greek Yogurt and an apple.  
• Grapes:  I heard a friend call grapes nature’s candy, and I have to say that perfectly sums up this delicacy to me.  I love the taste, and they take a long time to eat as long as I spend time with each grape individually.  Which is good.  Grapes also go nicely with the otherwise slightly boring Greek yogurt.  
• Pop corn:  I’d like to become someone better friends with this guy.  This is another snacking food that takes a lot of time to consume, yet has very little tag-along calories to go with the experience.  My only real issue with pop corn is that I don’t love the smell while they are realizing their metamorphosis from corn to puff.  
• Salsa ‘n vegetables:  Don’t dis the crudités.  They may not be manly, but they are a more than suitable substitution for chips and crackers.  And they have, in most cases, no POINTS.  I love dipping, so through some salsa into the mix, and I’m a happy camper

These are good friends, but I have a sneaking feeling that I’m going to need a few more friends if I am to succeed in reforming my snacking/grazing quandary.  Who are you all hanging out with during snack time?

Cheers,

dk

Bad habit takedown technique: putting a choke hold on Trigger Foods

No, not me, but definitely one way to visualize laying waste to a bad habit

On my last post, I talked about how I wanted to wrestle my grazing habit the way "Stone Cold" Steve Austin would maraud an out-of-shape/pasty opponent.  I wanted to beat this heinous and obnoxious habit once and for all time.  I wanted to beat it with a folding metal chair.

My plan was roughly focused on committing to only using Filling Foods for snacks and to try to limit myself to two 3-4 POINTS values snacks per day.  How did it go?  Great.  I actually did it.  It was funny how limiting myself to foods like fruit, 0-fat yogurt, etc. could limit my mindless eating.  What I particularly liked about last week was that I felt in control, but in a very natural and common sense kind of way.

However, even wrestlers and super heroes have their kryptonite, and it is time for me to recognize mine.

All this got me thinking about the other side of Filling Foods:  trigger foods.  So what exactly is the definition of a Trigger Food?  From the WeightWatchers.com website (the Science Center section) "Eating Triggers" -- WeightWatchers.com :

• Trigger Food:  A trigger food is a specific food that sets off a course of overeating where control is lost and excessive amounts are consumed. The most common trigger foods are sugar/fat combinations (e.g. ice cream, cookies) and fat/salt combination (e.g. nuts, potato chips). Food triggers are fairly uncommon and should not be confused with favorite foods (foods that are highly preferred), comfort foods (foods that are linked to a sense of home and contentment) or food cravings (desire for a food that has not been consumed in a long time). With a true food trigger it is the food, not an emotion or situation, that triggers the out-of-control eating. For example, open the bag of potato chips and it will be gone, regardless of mood, time of day or place.

One of the keys to appreciating the above is recognize that each person has their own Trigger Foods.  What sends one person into a freakish eating frenzy might garner a mere meh from someone else.  I have spent some time thinking about my cat nip foods, and here are some of my key culprits:

• Hummus:  deadly stuff for me even though it is a perfectly honorable food.  Set me up with a tub of this and a box of Reduced Fat Triscuits and watch the crumbs fly.  I can easily run through 12-15 Triscuits and a half a tub of Sabra.  Damage:  9.5 POINTS values for the hummus and 4.5 POINTS values for the Triscuits for a grand total of 14 POINTS values.  Ouch.  Half a day for about 5 minutes of mindless munching.  
• Pretzels:  I started eating Pretzels instead of chips because they seemed the healthier option (i.e., not fried, etc.).  When I go this way, I often use honey mustard as a dipping agent.  Again, my logic here is that it is a healthier way to go.  Typical binge?  16 Rold Gold Twisted Wheat for 4 POINTS values and 4 tbs Honeycup Uniquely Sharp Mustard for another 4 POINTS values.  Total = 8 POINTS values.  Not as bad as the hummus, but still a 400 calorie snack.  
• Reduced calorie ice cream treats:  This is a classic example of completely abusing a product designed to help you.  I almost NEVER have just one Weight Watchers ice cream treat, as I usually opt to go double fisted.  Cost for one Weight Watchers mint cone:  2 POINTS values.  Cost for two?  5 POINTS values.  Beware of rounding!!!  
• Nuts.  It is disturbing how much I like nuts.  All nuts of all types.  Love them love them love them, which is unfortunate given their calorie density.  1/4 cup of almonds is about 5 POINTS values (30 nuts), which makes 1/2 a cup 10 POINTS values and a full cup 20 POINTS values.  Funny how food scales in a curiously linear fashion.  Similarly 14 cashews would be 4 POINTS values and 30 would be 9 POINTS values (!!!!).  The age old problem with nuts is proper portion control.  An open bag of nuts is not a good friend.  

What I find striking about my list is that none of them are massively unhealthy, and most people would say that they are good components to a healthy (or at least not fully unhinged) diet.  Yet in my unsteady hands they do great damage.  

So what should be my plan with my list of Trigger Foods?  For the most part, I should avoid them.  I realize that this may seem a little judgey and draconian.  In my case, I need to realize that I'm a bit of a compulsive eater.  When I get around these foods, I'm not quite myself.  In some cases, I might be able to limit the damage by trying techniques such as pre-portioning the foods:  Trader Joe's sells almonds in small plastic packs.  I can have an (i.e., one) ice cream treat, but I really should have it with my dinner, not idly on the couch watching TV.  However, for the most part, I need to say "no" to some of these foods, not because they are bad foods, but because my brain has a bad interaction with them.  

Just a brief public service announcement:  in no way shape or form am I suggesting that anyone else avoid these foods, and nor am I suggesting that they are bad foods.  It's a Dave thing, not an everyone thing.  

What are your Trigger Foods, and how do you deal with them?  

Cheers,

dk

My newest best laid plan: three steps to vanquishing the dreaded grazing disease

I went back and checked through some of my old postings over the past year, and it seems that I have now publicly confessed to certain eating sins multiple times.  Specifically, I have openly decried my own sad weakness toward semi-unrestrained grazing.  In fact, I wrote exactly such a post last weekend.

Then I flew to London, England (you know, the country that was supposed to beat the USA in this weekend's World Cup action).  How did I fare during this week of travel in my efforts to stave off mindless eating?  Well, I had a largish bowl of ice cream on the airplane to and from my destination.  Further, I found myself breathing in a small container of room service Pringles every single night.  For shame, me!  The irony of it all was that I was a pretty model citizen otherwise, making wise choices at each meal occasion.  Further, I exercised with a fairly high degree of intensity every day except one -- the day I arrived on the red eye.  It's just too easy to wreck the benefit of good choices with a sprinkling a really foolish ones.

Here's where I am coming out on this.  This grazing nonsense has to come to an end.  It's one of my last, major unhelpful habits, and enough is enough.  So rather than continuing to confess to my eating sins, I now choose to use my little blogging pulpit to announce my new resolution to kick this nasty little demon habit.  I am hopeful that I can vanquish it without a full exorcism, so I am going to start with a more utilitarian approach.

First off, I need to answer the age old question (for me, anyway):  what exactly is the difference between a snack and a grazing session?  According to Dictionary.com:

• Snack:  a small portion of food or drink or a light meal, esp. one eaten between regular meals.
• Grazing:  1) to feed on growing grass and pasturage, as do cattle, sheep, etc.  2) to eat small portions of food, as appetizers or the like, in place of a full-sized meal or to snack during the course of the day in place of regular meals.

OK, that's the issue.  A snack is eaten between regular meals while grazing is done in place of regular meals.  Unless you are me and you are also having regular meals.  Said differently, a snack can be thought of as a pre-planned mini-meal designed to fit into a caloric equation (i.e., part of my 32 POINTS).  In my case, grazing would be an endless parade of seemingly innocuous food consumed in addition to my 32 POINTS.  The implications of and distinction between these two words should not be underestimated.

With this little etymological trip complete, I am now prepared to detail my new plan to tackle grazing.

1. Getting a grip via the old POINTS Tracker.  I have been working at Weight Watchers and doing the Weight Watchers program for over 10 years now.  I am the first to admit that I have a hard time tracking my POINTS every single day.  However, I am now thinking about a tip I heard at a Weight Watchers meeting:  track the time of day that is giving you the most difficulty.  So therefore, I am going to start tracking all of my POINTS between meals.  If I do this for two or three weeks, it should go a long way in helping me stop the immediate damage.  
2. Plan on snacking.  Ironic isn't it?  However, I know that I am going to need/want smallish meals between meals.  If I plan them in, that should help me avoid the feeling of deprivation which would then lead to backsliding.  The only condition I am setting for myself is that I pre-plan them and use a pre-determined number of POINTS.  Therefore, I am going to plan on one snack in the afternoon and one after dinner with target POINTS of two to three for each snack.  
3. Restrict snack foods to Filling Foods.  The idea here is that if I am going to have a mini-meal, that means I should be using it with foods that are going to 1) serve a nutritional benefit and 2) actually make me feel full/satisfied.  Practically, this means banning processed foods from my snacking repertoire.  Foods now on the out list include pretzels, hummus, chips, and sadly ice cream treats (no matter how few the POINTS).  

Does this mean I am banishing dessert forever?  No.  It just means that I am not going to use it as a snack.  It means that I am going to eat dessert with meals, not on the couch.  

That's my story/plan and I'm sticking with it.  I will report back on my progress next week.  Wish me luck.  

Cheers,

dk

Habit inventory: summer 2010 mix tape

I just finished the week after Memorial Day, which primarily consisted of three days down in Washington, D.C.  While there, I spent considerable time catching up with my family (I'm from the DC area), socializing, going to work lunches, etc.  Overall, I had a great time, and I definitely do not regret any of the excess calories that were finding their way into my system during sanctioned social events.  That said, I found myself undertaking a number of grievous actions against myself including:

• Wednesday night:  roomservice desert at 11 PM (apple pie a la mode).  Let me just say that there is never a good or justifiable reason for me to do this at this time of night.  Yes, the desert was tasty, but that experience lasted about 12 seconds.  Feeling guilty as I shamefully parked the tray outside my hotel door lasted a good bit longer.  
• Thursday lunch:  went to the restaurant where I worked for a summer in college (the Tombs in Georgetown).  Had a cobb salad, and was HORRIFIED to discover that it came with fried chicken.  Which I ate with a big, fat smile on my face.  Not an awesome choice, but it's good to have a fried fix now and again.  
• Thursday night:  minor mini-bar abuse (Pringles and a Cliff bar).  Again, not necessary or really all that enjoyable. 
• Friday:  repeated acceptance of nuts being offered by the conductor on the Amtrak train back to NY

My meals were actually very restrained and healthy across the board.  Further, I worked out hard throughout the week (other than Friday morning -- my day started too early to allow for the gym).  So this morning I asked myself how I felt about my performance during the week.  My answer to me:  "not bad, but you are kind of flirting with some old demons."

Therefore, I feel like it's time for me to update my personal healthy habit inventory (I did this roughly six months ago).  So here we go.  First the good stuff:

• Working out:  I feel really good about this part of the equation.  I'm pushing myself harder and harder, particularly on cardio workouts.  I am totally feeling the benefit, as I feel my endurance continue to increase.  I'm pretty sure that exercise has been saving my bacon (pardon the pun) vy covering for my slipping on some other habits (see below).  
• Breakfast:  As has been the case for some time now, I rule breakfast.  Just like Jerry McGuire ruled the living room speech, I own breakfast.    
• Lunch:  Good boy David!  Staying pretty good here, even on weekends.  
• Dinner:  Again, not bad even when I'm eating out.  

Said differently, in public situations (the gym, the kitchen when I'm with family, workplace, restaurants), I come across as pretty saintly.  However, in private situations, I have some nasty little habits that I just haven't kicked:

• Sneaking:  ugh.  Just did this with a vengeance last night.  Waited for my DSW to head up for the night, and I pillaged the refrigerator like a Hun with a bad attitude.  
• Grazing:  this one is making me just flat out crazy.  Boredom eating is my Waterloo.  I'm still doing it (witness the ransacking of the mini bar), and I just can't seem to get a grip on this.  
• Accepting gifts from transportation professionals:  nuts on airplanes.  Nuff said.  
• Clean plate club:  at least I'm ordering healthy plates, but I'm still polishing them to unnatural levels of cleanness.  

Of the four nasty habits above, the sneaking, clean plate club and grazing ones are my real issues.  The odd bowl of almonds won't kill me.  I feel like I can get a little focus on clean plate club and find a way to make myself leave just a little bit of food, mostly at dinner time.  However, I have to admit that I just don't have a grazing/sneaking plan.  And I need one.  So I am going to make a plan.

Any and all advice on sneaking and grazing is, as always, welcome.  How are all of you dealing with this?

Cheers,

dk