Life puts hurdles in front of you: ice cream, home baked cookies, gift packages of divine seasonal sugary treats from well-meaning friends. Even if you work from home the seasonal threats are abundant.
The results in this study highlight the nutritional limitations in terms of iron and zinc bioavailability of shifting from a diet containing animal protein from meat to a diet based on meat substitutes. This study shows difficulties obtaining essential minerals from a diet in which meat has been replaced with products based on legume or cereal proteins, which might lead to an increase in iron deficiency, especially among vulnerable groups. Our results call for a sharpening on the interpretation of nutrition claims, especially for iron, which would create incentive for producers to improve their products with regard to iron bioavailability.
This past Holiday season was the roughest in recent memory. I ate everything in sight. I binged on bagels every day for nearly a week. The cookies, cakes, and pies found their way into my mouth. The sheer quantity of food was my downfall. I put on the pounds and topped the scale at 202 pounds. Time to get back to my normal routine. I’m getting back to my usual habit of eating only when hungry. Avoid sweets. Shrink portions.
Journal entry 10 Years Ago
I was searching my journal on a different topic and found something I wrote 10 years ago. Back then despite eating healthy foods I continued to struggle with my weight. It was the Holiday season. I binged. Then I binged some more. Thankfully I’ve learned a lot since then like how diets really work. Source: Dr. Anthony Pearson.
In my last post Trouble in Paradise (it’s Weight Gain Season) I posted this picture of our dessert board on Turkey Day. It’s how I gained three pounds in three days. The cheese and crackers didn’t help. Nor did #10 twice.
Update and Threat Assessment
The three pounds gained were lost but it took two weeks.
I removed the beer from the house which was purchased for entertaining company.
Yes, I drank the beer.
M&M’s spelled correctly is TROUBLE.
Two pieces of pumpkin pie are in the freezer. This is OK because pumpkin is a vegetable (botanically a fruit so still OK).
Ice cream, normally not in the house but it is and calls my name every night.
COOKIES.
The Boss came back from a cookie exchange with the neighbors with several dozen dangerous tiny bites.
“Competition puts hurdles in front of you that you have to clear.”
OKC Thunder coach Mark Daigneault
Life puts hurdles in front of you that you have to clear. Like Thanksgiving. TGTIO (Thank God Thanksgiving is Over). We were out of town for only three days. I gained three pounds. I’m not good at math but I think this equates to one pound per day. YIKES. There’s 35 days until the first day of the New Year. At this pace I’ll weigh 208 pounds…
But I am not alone. This chart is attributed to the New England Journal of Medicine but I could never find the original source article.
As the years pass I get better at understanding why I put the pounds on. This was our dessert board on Turkey Day.
I can’t get Tex-Mex in Oklahoma. So when in Texas I need Tex-Mex. At one of my favorite Tex-Mex stops I discovered a new favorite, the #10.
The numbers above are calories, fat calories, and fat in grams. 2950 mg of sodium too (the original chart has more nutrition information).
We ate Tex-Mex Wednesday and Friday, the perfect bookends to Thanksgiving.
I had #10 twice.
Take Home Lesson
Salt, sugar, fat and excess calories. Taking and/or keeping the weight off is simple when you reduce intake of these four items.
Restaurant meals will kill you. Literally.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with every now and then so long as it’s every now and then.
My skinny jeans fit fine. I’ll get back to my usual routine and diet and the three pounds should come off and I’m good until the next hurdle. Until then I’ll wear my black t-shirts because dark colors make you look thinner.
In fact, the milk — and the company-owned creamery where it is produced — is the cornerstone of the Braum’s business model. The chain makes and produces all of its dairy products and bakes its own burger buns, and as such, Braum’s only opens locations within a 330-mile radius of its production facility in Tuttle. From there, refrigerated trucks are dispatched every other day to make deliveries to its more than 300 stores scattered across Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Missouri.
The closest grocery store from my house is just a mile away. But anytime I need milk, eggs, or cheese I shop at Braum’s. Their private label bread is better and cheaper than the grocery store. Butter at the grocery store is between $4.00 and $6.00 a pound depending upon the brand. Braums’ butter is $3.50 a pound (but you have to buy two to get this price).
Control of production and lower transpiration costs obviously affect the retail prices. And in a good way.
Humans also vary in their ability to extract sugars from starchy foods as they chew them, depending on how many copies of a certain gene they inherit. Populations that traditionally ate more starchy foods, such as the Hadza, have more copies of the gene than the Yakut meat-eaters of Siberia, and their saliva helps break down starches before the food reaches their stomachs.
These examples suggest a twist on “You are what you eat.” More accurately, you are what your ancestors ate. There is tremendous variation in what foods humans can thrive on, depending on genetic inheritance. Traditional diets today include the vegetarian regimen of India’s Jains, the meat-intensive fare of Inuit, and the fish-heavy diet of Malaysia’s Bajau people. The Nochmani of the Nicobar Islands off the coast of India get by on protein from insects. “What makes us human is our ability to find a meal in virtually any environment,” says the Tsimane study co-leader Leonard…
In other words, there is no one ideal human diet. Aiello and Leonard say the real hallmark of being human isn’t our taste for meat but our ability to adapt to many habitats—and to be able to combine many different foods to create many healthy diets. Unfortunately the modern Western diet does not appear to be one of them.
There are a growing number of diet choices that promote healthier eating. Common among several of the most-well known diets (e.g., paleo, Mediterranean, vegan), is an emphasis on the consumption of plant-based foods (sometimes alongside animal protein, sometimes without), and the avoidance of added sugar, refined grains, and ultra-processed foods. There is increasing evidence that consuming more plant-based foods is beneficial to our overall health, especially our immune system health. There are also data indicating that consuming more plant protein than animal protein is healthy for both ourselves and the environment.
The U.S. adult obesity rate stands at 42.4 percent, the first time the national rate has passed the 40 percent mark, and further evidence of the country’s obesity crisis. The national adult obesity rate has increased by 26 percent since 2008.
garyskitchen.net 