Stop Calling It a Diet

I’ve been dieting. But now I’m not dieting. I have a “diet”, which is just a list of foods that I keep on hand at my house. More importantly, there is a list of foods that I don’t need to buy and aren’t welcome at my house. The list below summarizes most of my choices.

YES!	OH, HELL NO!
Chicken	Sugars
Grass Fed Beef	Bread
Wild Salmon	Candy
Eggs	Beer
Hard Cheeses	Wine
Spinach	All the booze
Carrots	Tortillas
Waterloo Seltzer Water	Jelly
Almonds, Peanuts	Buns, rolls
Chili	Margarine
Butter	Soda (pop)
Coffee with ½ & ½	Fruit
Low sugar protein drink	Fruit juices
Peanut butter	Dessert
Avocado	Ice cream
Green & Herbal tea	Pasta
Rice (sparingly)	Sauces with sugar
Sugar Free Greek Yogurt	Cereal
EVOO/Avocado oil	Chips & pretzels
So much water	Seed oils

I’ve read about the carnivore diet quite a bit, so I don’t think I quite meet the standard of steak, eggs, and butter only, but I do think I have incorporated many of the principles of carnivore. I went through a phase where I had a dinner salad every day, but have dropped that because it was inefficient, especially out of season for fresh veggies.

The removal of almost all processed food has been a primary key to success. Shopping now is easy, and the label reading really amounts to making sure there aren’t additives in any food with a label, especially all of the many forms of added sugar and engineered sugars. I have a general understanding of the nutritional values and portions sizes of the foods I am choosing, so I don’t have to repeatedly count calories or do the math. I meal prep chicken and beef so that if I am hungry, my snack will be a few ounces of chicken and water. The simplicity of this process has removed almost all “eating due to boredom”.

I have been following @fitfounder (Dan Go on X), who regularly posts reminders in a nicely condensed form. An example:

A simple formula to lose belly fat

• Get 8 hours of sleep

• Walk 10k steps daily

• Drink primarily water

• Lift weights 3x a week

• Eat single ingredient nutrient dense foods in a caloric deficit

To quantify success, I have a couple weigh-ins a month. Weight loss has averaged about 4.5 pounds per month. As of Feb 10, I am 30 pounds lighter than mid Summer 2023. I am pretty sure I can lose 5-10 more pounds on the same schedule. Then I will re-evaluate next steps for the nicer weather season, with a fresh set of fitness goals to take advantage of being lighter, whether that be cycling or running.

I’ve stopped calling this a diet; it is now just my healthy lifestyle.

Daily Proof of Success

From the beginning of my current health improvement and weight reduction journey, one of the key parts of each day has been completing a journal entry.

Initially, the goal of the journal was very simply to understand what I was eating and to get an understanding of the macros (or more accurately, the lack of macro quality). There are many benefits to journaling, but right up front, it is more about being honest with yourself. The details that reach the page include what you eat, how much you each, how often you eat, plus any other information recorded, which may even include why you eat.

I was lucky enough to have at a starting point of a simple one page guide from a metabolic specialist. Listed out were the things I could eat, and a much longer list of foods not to eat. The first week was a detox, the second and third weeks were refinement (adding just a couple items to the list that I could eat), and from there a diet and nutrition pattern to follow.

How Long Does It Take to Form a Habit?

Four weeks isn’t long enough to form a habit, especially if this includes broad lifestyle changes. For me, the journal became an easy, satisfying checkpoint that required acknowledgement several times throughout the day. I began by gathering information about each main diet staple I was consuming. For instance, 6 oz of chicken breast or a 5 oz salmon filet. Even the contents of a dinner salad, especially the dressing. I would add up all the calories to get a daily total. I was use my Fitbit tracker to get a best estimate of daily energy expended. Was I in a caloric deficit or not? I think it took me almost a year to refine the journaling to a point where not only was it simple to do, but it records a wider range of important information. Is one year to make a habit too slow? Not in the big scheme of things, really. After not being completely honest or aware about my lack of nutrition from age 30 to 55, changing in one year is actually pretty fast.

My refined journal tracks the following items on a day basis:

• All the foods I eat (simple list)

• Vitamins taken (checklist)

• Exercise accomplished (Y/N)

• Diet correct or not (Y/N)

• Hydration tally (in 16 oz increments)

Additionally, I will record a current weight on the 1st & 15th of each month. I also check my weight on Sunday morning in the interim. There is room on the page to also add a few notes, usually positive or negative things that caused an incomplete journal, like travel, or other scores, like BP and an especially good fitness day.

I use the small graph paper journals and a mechanical pencil. I fit 7 days on two pages, so that typically I can fit 4-5 months in one journal book. At the end of each day, week, month, and fully filled in journal, I get an honest assessment of what I accomplished. Or in some weeks, what I messed up. The journal doesn’t lie. Falling away from good habits is easy if you let it happen. The journal pulls me back into alignment. The refinements keep it interesting and a fully completed page feels good.

Note: I’ve saved all the journals from the last several years. I can see the progress, and increase in awareness and nutritional knowledge, and attribute this daily behavior as one of the keys to continuing health success.

Smoothie Color of the day is...Purple!

On a sunny Saturday in February, I took advantage of the great weather to take a 4 mile walk around town. By the time I returned home, it was about 1:30pm. For me, this ended my intermittent fast, as I had only had water and coffee. Before I prepared a smoothie, I glugged down another 16oz of water.

For this smoothie, I am substituting the Orgain Organic Protein in since I had no spinach on hand.

INGREDIENTS (followed by protein/calories/carbs in grams)

Greek Yogurt (11/50/5)
Mixed Nut Butter (3/100/4)
Blueberries (1/42/4)
Banana (1/105/14)
2% milk (8/120/12)
Orgain (11/80/10)
PB Fit (7/60/6)
Isoflex (27/120/2)

Totaled up, this smoothie recipe has 70g of protein, 680g calories, 55g of carbs, and also 39g of sugar. For me, that is on the high end for sugar, but on target for staying around 10-100g of carbs per day. A small amount of blueberries sure makes for a colorful drink. It makes me immediately get the blender into the wash with some hot water, so I don’t end up with a purple mess.

I don’t usually take the time to do the math on every smoothie. But every once in awhile, especially if I have changed ingredients, I verify that I am still understanding what I am getting. This is a meal replacement I do every other day. I don’t always have milk around, so I was a bit surprised that there were 120 calories in 8 oz of milk. Noted.

Still of the menu for later today are leftover chicken legs. I may also have some Extra Sharp Cheddar cheese. Very likely about 500 calories and another 60g of protein without adding to the carbs.

I’ll finish up the evening with a herbal or green tea.

Arriving at a Proper Human Diet

For me, getting to a healthier place later in life was a series of steps, which followed a larger series of missteps. Most of these steps were so small, that no blame can be assigned. Not to me, not to doctors, not to my parents, or genetics. Of course, this only leaves the lunch ladies to blame. My steady diet of chocolate milk and ice cream was the only use of any lunch money I ever spent. I could see the food pyramid right on the wall as I made those purchases. It was all downhill from there…

As it turns out, I can’t really blame the lunch lady. Luckily, all the answers are on the internet. And the best answer for me was a combination of several solutions. The video below from Ken Berry wasn’t the first diet change I tried, but he enforced many of the concepts that I had been successful with. Dr. Berry is a prolific YouTuber, and not everything he says is perfect, but the PHD approach makes much more sense than anything else I’ve read.

Another very positive experience I had was with a physician specializing in metabolic health. Her diagnosis was made by the analysis of blood labs and also use of an InBody 270 Body Composition Analyzer. The enemies were carbs and sugars.

As we roll into 2024, I continue to make strides towards health goals, not just via diet, but also regular exercise and interactions with humans. There is always room for improvements, so I will have no shortage of health topics to cover. Below is a list of just a few I’m working on now:

• How to tailor time restricted eating to a daily schedule

• How to monitor insulin resistance, and how frequently to do it

• How to validate sources of information (Good, bad, and insane)

• How to build the best supplement and vitamin regimen

• Are protein powders real, good, bad?

• How to source a local meat processor that is affordable

Breakfast of Champions

As part of the daily grind of eating healthy food, sometimes I have everything on hand to make a nice breakfast. In this case, 3 eggs, 6 oz of Wild Alaskan Sockeye Salmon, and half an avocado. The nutritional breakdown is as follows:

• 605 calories

• 60g of protein

• 10 carbs

• Very low sugar

• Lots of beneficial nutrients, and even some fiber

This meal took less than 30 minutes to prepare, with most of time just waiting for the oven to preheat. Another benefit to this meal is that it provides many hours of satiety, without feeling overly full.

Later in the day I will have an additional meal that includes 6oz of chicken breast, to that I am around/over 100g of protein for the day.

Meal Replacement Smoothies

As part of a healthy low-carb diet, I replace a meal every other day with a smoothie. I have several recipes, but there are a few foundational ingredients that most of the smoothies contain.

• 1 scoop of Isoflex whey protein

• 1 scoop of PB fit powder

• 1 frozen banana

• Ice cubes

• 10oz milk

• A big handful of baby spinach

• A dash of cinnamon

• A tablespoon or so of nut butter or crunchy peanut butter

• A 5oz container of Chobanni Zero Sugar Greek yogurt

All of this added up equals a very filling, 30 ounce meal. I usually drink it all at once but sometimes put half in the fridge to slow my pace a bit.

The finished smoothie is about the shade of pea soup. Pretty green. I can’t taste the spinach, but it is in there. No doubt about it.

Sometimes I will substitute a Fairlife protein drink for the milk, and end up with a drink with 80g of protein, 22g of sugar, and around 590 calories. Having this smoothie before a 6-7 hour work shift gets me through work without ever feeling hungry. I just focus on keeping hydrated at work - and staying away from the myriad of junk food snacks ever present in the break room.