In light of recent updates to the official United States dietary guidelines, I’m posting an excerpt, actually a full chapter from my book, Fitness, Straight Up (2011). Much more than a food pyramid, I share with you a sound perspective and a solid plan for eating in accordance with your best fitness & health. That is, a program that literally fits in the palm of your hand — The Bachelor’s Diet!
While this blog post is just the appetizer, the real meal, the meat & potatoes, follows with what has been the foundation of my eating plan since the mid-1980s.
So, before the main course … a story.
“It” Keeps Growing
Sunny, as he calls himself, grabs two hands full of fat. One of several cascading Michelin tires rippling his blue polo shirt. “It keeps growing,” he says. “What can be done?”
As you might imagine I hear this cry for help frequently. So does every other fitness professional. In social situations physicians may deal with this sort of thing, too. My aunt Lillian, an internist in Pennsylvania, has a solution.When cocktail party conversation is diverted to, “Hey, doc, I have this problem…” she replies, “OK, go into the bedroom and remove all your clothing…I’ll be in shortly to look you over.” In her stodgy community such a parry discourages further inquiry. Of course, freewheeling fitness trainers given the right circumstances, might parlay such an exchange to their advantage — a world of possibility exists in LA. I, however, was on a night train somewhere between Milan and Barcelona, sitting across from an intemperate fellow traveler, with no escape, and even less interest. My only reasonable option was to answer as best I could. But, the limits of Sunny’s understanding indicated by his first reference to “it” being out of control predicted wasted breaths. He thought his midsection flab was a foreign invader, some opportunistic alien. He wasn’t responsible for its presence, nor its continued development. Rather, it just happened, like an act of God. Denial can be comforting during uncomfortable situations.
Nonetheless, he thought something could be done and asked what action he might take — you know, like swallowing a pill. When I pointed out that he must eat less, especially less processed food, and move his body more, he bristled. An expression — incredulity — washed over his face a second time. Sunny, a man of rigid belief, shifted in his seat, laughed a little, and resigned himself to thinking he misunderstood me, again. Earlier in the evening I had explained a reluctance to embrace or profess any particular system of religion, superstition, or myth. I unintentionally challenged his concept of reality. But to him there is no concept of reality, only reality. His. And, taking responsibility for his actions so as to trim his physique fell into the square peg / round hole conundrum, like, say, atheism.
Now here’s the crazy part. I run into this same mindset in reputedly progressive and self-aware Los Angeles! (Yes, really. Just incredible.) Activity isn’t always so much the issue with my athletes, or with plenty of other Americans either; rather, it’s diet. We, and I include myself, are no less susceptible to hiding within denial than anyone else. Happily, we have television’s Dr. Phil to slap us silly, or sensible, right? Even the brightest, the best educated, and the most successful can fall prey to this irrationality. That, or we’re just gluttons. At the end of the day, it’s consumption that undermines our well being. Now, that’s a hard pill to swallow, isn’t it?
Recently, one of my clients, a young lady with whom I’ve worked periodically for a decade, desired a tune-up training month. We exercised harder than what she would’ve done on her own, but ultimately progress was more about her diet, which was quite good (thank you) — three meals and several snacks per day — but it required pruning. So, we cut portion size and nixed a snack here and there. She then complained of being hungry at 10 am and at 3 pm. “So what,” I said. “You mean it’s OK to be a little hungry?” I replied, “Culturally, no. Otherwise, yes. Furthermore, this hunger you describe isn’t always about satisfying nutritional and metabolic needs, is it? What daily cycles of emotions, associations, or habits, are triggering your eating?” She understands. Sunny, however, probably still struggles with “it.”
This Just In…from the Stone Age
More surprising than discovering intricately carved, anatomically detailed figurines from the Upper Paleolithic era some 20,000 to 40,000 years ago is that some of them appear rather corpulent. Rubenesque. Obese! These likenesses of voluptuous women would seem representative of an age of leisure, not an epoch of hunting and gathering. The so-called Venus sculptures of Willendorf (Austria), Dolní Věstonice (Czech Republic), Hohle Fels (Germany), Gagarino (Ukraine), and Laussel (France), a bas-relief, stand in distinct contrast to images of men of the same period who are depicted as little more than stick figures. But, consider that large amounts of small animal bones found at excavation sites of ancient settlements are evidence of a less nomadic lifestyle, perhaps specialized societal roles, and, that the Paleolithic world provided bountiful game right outside the hut, too. Civilization was beginning to take hold. (Bringing with it indulgence and undue morbidity. Things we know, now, all too well.)
As far back as 25,000 and arguably to more than 100,000 years ago there are indications that humans were pulverizing and baking or parching wild grasses such as barley and wheat, but the wholesale farming of the Neolithic Revolution that would supplant hunting and gathering was at minimum a distant 10,000 years off. Further, corn wouldn’t arrive in Europe until the end of the 15th century, potatoes wouldn’t take root until the mid-16th century, and even though grown in Spain, Sicily, and the Middle East centuries earlier, rice wouldn’t catch on across the Continent until about the same time. Clearly, such fattening carbohydrates weren’t the constant in the Stone Age dietary equation. Some modern Australian Aborigines — if members of a 60,000 year old culture can be described as modern — hunt and forage just as they did from their beginnings. They remain healthy, fit, and disease free, unless they adopt our contemporary Western lifestyle, inclusive of easy access to calorically dense foods without bearing the energetic expense of naturally offsetting physical effort. So, if not the fault of carbs, per se, is Paleolithic obesity Nature’s earliest comment on a simple energy imbalance, that of general overconsumption, and sedentary behavior? It could very well boil down to the difference between men who were actively hunting, and women who were more passively gathering. In any event, from the Paleolithic era to today’s pop culture, our daily, habitual choices in eating and activity produce very real consequences.
Continue with The Bachelor’s Diet …