Category Archives: Diet

Foodie city

June 11, 2015 6:22 AM , Leave a Comment ,

Reading through the local newspaper and Houston websites I see that I’ve probably picked the worst time to get in shape and lose weight.  I read through websites like the Houston Press or magazines like Houstonia and there are always announcements about new restaurants and how up and coming chefs are migrating here.

Back in my twenties when I was just starting out we did have a bit of a food scene if you knew where to look for it.  Areas like the west side Chinatown offered up a variety of Asian dishes.  The Tex-Mex restaurant has always been a staple of Houston cuisine and we had some of the best.  Of course we also had the traditional steak restaurant.

But back then if you were to name cities to visit to experience haute cuisine or just a wider variety of dishes then Houston never even came up in the conversation.

Something happened back in the late-late nineties or early 00’s.  Here and there a chef would escape the rat races in other food towns and set up little bistros in Houston.  Not in the downtown area but near downtown where the rent was cheaper.  Chefs that might have otherwise left stayed and honed their skills.  Certainly Hurricane Katrina injected a dose of New Orleans talent into the mix.

By trial and error, by enthusiastic practice this city began building a reputation one dish at a time.

So here we are and I see that the wave is beginning to crest.  I have to admit that sometimes the temptation is overwhelming.  Just looking at the variety and quantity of places to explore makes me want to take a week or two off my diet.

Thankfully (I suppose) living out in the suburbs I don’t have ready access to these culinary wonders.  I’m not hours away from any of these places of course (I could in fact reach most of these in twenty minutes) but just far enough to put them in the slightly impractical column.

I console myself with the thought that I am working towards a worthwhile goal and that one day I will treat myself to a mini restaurant vacation.

Posted in: diet, food and drink, habits, health, Houston, restaurants

it’s never over

April 24, 2015 7:07 AM , Leave a Comment ,

One of those Facebook posts that seems to circulate all over your news feed really hit home today.  It was titled “The after myth“.  The post was an essay about a fat person who took the time and did the work to lose a lot of weight and succeeded but a few years after her success realized that there is no after, there is just the now.

I’ve been on my health kick for the last four years now.  Begun as a necessity to restore my health.  Starting slowly, having several missteps and finally starting to see results in the last year.  I mean really big tangible results.  The type where the guy in the commercial holds up his giant pants and steps from behind them to reveal his “new” skinnier version.

No matter how you do it (whether it’s exercise, diet, stomach staples, whatever) these ads gloss over the time, the struggle, the long hours which stretch into days and then weeks, months, and years.  The process gets lost to get to the point on the TV screen.

It’s gratifying seeing people who I haven’t seen for a long time and having them tell me how much better I look now that I’ve lost the weight but I find it puzzling. Before the weight or after the weight, it’s still me.

I’m still the same person regardless of the weight and I found that this essay was right on the mark.  For me there is no “after”.  I have to keep to this lifestyle from now on.

Back in March I had to deal with the flu that was going round Houston.  First I had to take care of a couple of people who got sick for a couple of weeks and then I got sidelined by it as well.  My exercise routine went to hell and I began to pile on some weight.  Maybe it was not noticeable to anyone else but it was to me.  Just proved it to me that I don’t have a magical goal number to reach.  This is my life now.

My metabolism has slowed over time.  It was never very high but now it’s slowing down as I age.  I need to keep working out. I need to watch my diet, I need to keep the process going.

I am still the same person that I was at 288 pounds that I am now at 181 pounds.  I am just more aware and more conscious about the type of life I live and the consequences of my actions or in-actions.

I’m not defined by the number on a weight scale.  No one is, or at least no one should be.  I hope that I am defined by my actions and thoughts.  Hopefully those actions and thoughts will lead me to a healthier and happier life.

Posted in: activities, aging, diet, exercise, goals, health, life in general

A ripe old age

March 23, 2015 6:23 AM , Leave a Comment ,

A few months back one of my friends that regularly eschews all health related advice was discussing longevity.  Someone pointed out that some simple lifestyle choices may help him live a longer life.  He retorted “maybe it wasn’t that he would live longer but rather that it would seem longer.”  Meaning of course that he would have to get rid of all the enjoyable parts of life and live a pretty dismal existence just to get in a few more years of life.

The reason I thought about this conversation was that I saw a couple of news articles the other day.  One was about a 100-year-old woman who celebrated her birthday by skydiving and the other article was about a 104 year old that drank 3 soft drinks a day.

How is it that some people can live seemingly reckless lives and still feel vital in their later years while others practice control and are careful and may be lucky to reach 70?

Certainly genetics plays a large role in this.  Research has shown that some people are not only genetically predisposed to live longer but also may be predisposed to sidestepping certain congenital diseases such as cancers or heart disease.

Lifestyle will of course count somewhat in how you fare in your later years.  No matter how lucky you are in the genetic lottery mistreating your body is still a terrible idea and mistreating your body to the point that you cause it severe damage is just a bad overall strategy that may mean that you will not be able to enjoy all the benefits of your body into your later years.

But I suppose the main crux of my friend’s argument is that making sacrifices for the long haul just isn’t so appealing if in the long run you have nothing to look forward to but a bland existence.  In that I think he misses the point.

Just because you don’t go out and party every night when you’re young doesn’t have to mean that you are doomed to a spartan existence for the rest of your life. Rather, living a more regulated and moderated lifestyle gives you chances to do more down the years.

I feel lucky that I have survived my younger and wilder years fairly unscathed and that I am now more serious about my health.  I look forward to many years of exploiting my continuing health to try out more experiences, do new things, and savor what the future may bring.

Sure I get frustrated when someone on social media posts about a new restaurant or when someone tells me about a hot new bar or whatever place that they went to.  I would love to do more of these things.  But then again I also hear about their hangovers and having to go to the doctor for stomach problems or having to refill prescriptions that I have thus far avoided.  They won’t get to look forward to some of the things that I will get to enjoy later in life.

As long as I can keep my moderated lifestyle going I think that over time I will be the one that enjoys life more.

Posted in: aging, diet, exercise, genetics, health, life in general

An all out effort

February 15, 2015 6:12 AM , Leave a Comment ,

Pressure builds and keeps on building.  That’ just the way that life is.  The more you do, the more you have to worry about and the more reactive and proactive you have to become to keep everything going at the same time.

More than once in a while things will blow up.  I think it’s inevitable.  Then of course you have to scramble to assess the damage and to try to fix things.  Nothing is ever easy.

In the course of all of this effort you might suddenly find that you’re not feeling all that great.  Maybe one morning you will wake up and you can’t quite pin it down but you know you’re not up to 100%.  The rest of your day is thrown off by this and over the next few days and weeks you start going downhill.

This type of generalized fatigue is common.  It’s the sort of thing that can’t be pinned down and will slowly but surely seep in and affect all aspects of your life.

So what can be done?  You obviously have to address this before you can continue on with any of your other activities.  But you can’t just stop everything.  Luckily you don’t have to.

The problem lies in the way you live your life and how you are living your life and the solution is also found there.  Not in one aspect of your life or one activity but in all of it.

Stopping one activity or one part of your life will not get rid of your fatigue.  I mean maybe one part may be more directly responsible than others but I think it has to do with your life as a whole.  You have to modify everything you do to cure this disease.

So in no particular order.

Exercise – Maybe it’s time to cut down one part of your exercise regimen or change it up so you focus on another exercise.  Then again maybe you’ve not been getting enough exercise.  Add up all your weekly exercise hours and think to yourself “Is this too much or not enough?”

Diet – We all eat crap.  Sometimes it’s unavoidable.  You get invited out to too many meals with clients or family or friends.  Sometimes we indulge in a little treat and before you know it that treat becomes a regular meal.  Sometimes you find yourself eating “lunch” at 3PM and dinner at 10PM.  Try to exercise a little diet discipline.  On the other hand eating the same healthy foods all the time may make your system acclimated to a certain energy level.  Shake up your routine.

Work – The 40 hour work week is a poor joke to those who want to get ahead.  But 80 or even 100 hour weeks?  Come on!  Realize that there are only 168 hours in a week.  At some point in each day the line has to be drawn and that line cannot be crossed for anything.

Other work – You may have some outside interests or some other venture going on outside of work.  The same advice from above applies.  Remember that this was supposed to be a side project not the main focus of your life.  Treat it accordingly

Personal life – The main problem here is lending too much weight to this aspect of life. Sometimes you may have a problem in this aspect of your life and this bleeds over into other parts of your life.  You have to either address this problem or compartmentalize it.  Although I don’t advise doing the latter too much as it will inevitably escape out.  The other problem concerning personal life is that sometimes you don’t have one.  Focusing on work or exercise too much will over time lead to a hypnotic like state where you really don’t what you’re doing.  Break up the monotony.  Take time to do something pointless just for the sake of doing something pointless.  See some friends, talk to complete strangers.  Get another point of view in your life.

None of these suggestions will work on their own.  Rather it will be a combination of efforts in several different fields at various levels of intensity all working in concert to keep you balanced and working at the optimum level of efficiency.  There’s no one solution or one single therapy that will work universally.  What worked last year may not work this year.

All that I can advise is to keep vigilant and constantly reassess your personal needs with relation to your life.

 

Posted in: diet, environment, exercise, health, illness, life in general, rest, thought

Decaffeinating

December 29, 2014 6:43 AM , Leave a Comment ,

Last Friday night I was trying to wind down from a hectic holiday week and decided to do some writing and enjoy some tea at Te house of tea in the Montrose area.  After a couple of pots and about two hours worth of writing I found it was still somewhat early so I headed to Siphon coffee for a Mocha latte.

Fifteen minutes later I began to regret this.

Don’t get me wrong.  Caffeine and I have had a long and profitable relationship.  Ever since I got my first taste of Coca Cola as a child I got hooked.  Back in my high school and college days I could drink as many as seven or eight cans of Coca Cola a day and not feel any ill effects.  Cola drinks have helped me pull all nighters in school and they were definitely the key to a four-day and four-night work marathon that I had to do back in the late 90s.

The only time I ever did go overboard I had to really push things.  Freshman finals were coming and I needed a boost to keep me going.  I got a giant (back then it was giant) 44 ounce travel mug and filled it with Jolt cola (a cola drink with twice the caffeine of normal colas) and just to go that one extra step I added two caffeine pills.  I was ill for an entire weekend.  I felt constipated and nauseous at the same time and couldn’t fall asleep and had to lie awake for the entire ordeal.  Now you know what caffeine poisoning feels like.

This Friday didn’t feel that bad but I felt somewhat anxious in the pit of my stomach.  I was wide awake till about midnight when I could finally doze off.

Over the past few years I have been curtailing my caffeine intake severely.  First, about 6 years ago I weaned myself off regular cola drinks and onto diet cola drinks and then to bottled teas.

I still needed the bottled teas as a boost in the morning to go running but in the last year I have been cutting that as well.  As a result I now really feel the effects of caffeine as I never have before.  If I control it properly I can get a good energetic boost from the caffeine but if I overdo it then I get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

This just reminds me that I need to practice more moderation in everything I do and not depend so heavily on one sole factor but to develop my life in such a way that I’m in a better shape to do what I need to do.  Whatever that may be.

A healthy body and a healthy mind work better without any sort of chemical supports or stimulants.

Posted in: aging, diet, life in general

in defense of bad dietary habits

October 2, 2014 7:07 AM , Leave a Comment ,

A series of articles have come out in the last year concerning the intake of salt in our diets and its impact on our general health.  One study concluded that there was no marked benefit in limiting salt intake and another concluded that there were some risks in having an abnormally low salt diet.

I have also read reports on the benefits of caffeine and negligible risks posed by caffeinated coffee for seniors with Alzheimer’s disease.

Quite a turnaround from the late 60’s onwards when these were demonized food items to be avoided at all costs.  Now of course these recent studies come with all sorts of conditions and caveats about not overdoing it.  But back when these dietary restrictions came into place there were no stipulations made.

All of these recent findings began in the late 80s with studies looking into the benefits of wine for people with heart disease.  This was based on anecdotal evidence and folk beliefs among Europeans that “wine cuts grease” and that imbibing wine helped people digest food with high fat content.  The benefits were not all that great but they are somewhat present.

When we started getting warnings about salt, caffeine, and other things that we ingest, the studies back then didn’t blush or mince words.  They were unapologetically negative about these things.  No reservations, no qualifiers.  These things were bad.  Avoid at all costs.  Better to err on the side of safety and all that.

But now we get revised research and we do get conditions.  What’s a person to believe?

Perhaps people should follow their common sense more and listen to speculative research less.  I don’t expect any time soon to see a study lauding or praising the benefits of smoking, or binge drinking, or an all lard diet. Even the most rudimentary common sense tells you that inhaling smoke isn’t good for you.  Your liver will take issue with you over drinking all the time.  Your bowels will exact revenge for eating so much fat all the time.

I think we all know what we need to do.  Namely don’t overdo it on any food item and get off the couch more.

No one can seriously believe that chain-smoking or drinking all the time will lead to a healthy life but I don’t see the harm of occasionally indulging in some “forbidden food” or treat that was considered bad for you for so long.  As long as your overall eating habits remain healthy and you live an active lifestyle I say pass the salt, please.

Posted in: culture, diet, health