Eating everything on your plate

Please clean your plate dear, the Lord above can see ya. Don’t you know people are starving in Korea.

Alice Cooper

Little kids in China are starving.

I was brought up the way many of you probably were—I was trained to eat everything on my plate. No ifs, ands, or buts.

My mother and I shared a laugh a couple years ago regarding my all too headstrong introduction to “waste not, want not.” I was three or four years old. Sitting down for breakfast, I stared at a plate of eggs and bacon. “Yummy,” I thought, as I wolfed down the oh-so delicious strips of fat. But nothing doing with those eggs!

Mom enlightened me that I wasn’t getting up from the table until I ate all my food…and yes, she may have thrown in something about those poor, starving children in. “No!” was my retort.

“No” wasn’t cutting it with this doyenne of food. Mom transferred my plate from the table as she told me I was not budging from the table until I was ready to eat my eggs. To make a long story short, lunch came and went with both of us refusing to move one scintilla of an inch. I was determined to out-wait her. So was she.

I had eggs for dinner.

And I learned my lesson well. 

Of course my mother and father were no different from other parents a half century ago. The problem is that our plates, and therefore portion sizes, seem to have gotten bigger—and the foods we eat are farther removed from their natural state.

According to Cornell University researchers, the size of our dishes and eating utensils influence how much we eat and how much we weigh. Their study confirmed what successful dieters have already learned—that external factors have a tremendous impact on our eating patterns. Worry, stress and, yes, even plate size.

And that’s a large part of my problem.

As I mentioned in my June 2 blog, I decided to see a dietician. After all, changing lanes is often enabled by—or just more satisfying—if you’re healthy. This blog is a progress report.

Before actually meeting the dietician, I had to complete a 9-page intake survey. When completed, it provided my family’s medical history, my weight history, what I believed I ate in a typical day, my daily activities, and the ways in which I attempted to manage my weight in the past. I also supplied the results of recent wellness tests.

I then met with Cara, my Registered Dietician (I learned there’s a difference between an RD (registered dietician)) and a nutritionist. Registered dieticians are the real deal and have a higher bar to surmount. Check out their website at http://www.eatright.org./

Cara then directed me to complete a food diary. Three non-consecutive days that includes one weekend day. Then, we met again to discuss her conclusions and recommendations.

So what have I learn so far? 

I never could guess your weight, baby.  Bob Dylan

Trained at the Mayo Clinic, Cara started our first meeting with, “Almost everyone’s weight problems are the result of portion control.” 

Well, that wasn’t my problem and I told Cara so. “I only eat about 1600-2000 calories a day!”  Sadly, my food diary suggested otherwise. One day was about 1600 calories, but the other two were 2500 and 4200! I was stunned. Most of it was the result of portion control (or lack thereof.)

On the bright side, she said that I “eat well.” Meaning that I don’t eat much junk food, love veggies and fruit (of all colors), minimize red meats in my diet, and get plenty of omega-3’s and other essential oils, and generally get all the right nutrients from my foods without the need for vitamin supplements (although I will continue with my weekly pill box.)

I asked about those “white foods.” Having documented on my intake survey that I had tried Atkins in the past, she quickly said, “Atkins is the worst diet you can go on. You need carbs—your body needs carbs—especially if you are as active as you are.” Cara added that, if anything, I wasn’t getting enough carbohydrates!

The American Dietetic Association recommends that, yes, you should avoid white bread and white rice—after all, most of the nutritional value is long gone and they are empty calories. Eat wheat pasta, brown rice, whole wheat bread (it has to be the first ingredient on the list—otherwise it might be white bread colored with raisin juice—and potatoes (sweet potatoes have more nutritional value than other varieties.) I’ve learned that color = nutritional value.

I am well hydrated, but still need to drink more water. I don’t always get enough fiber in my diet. Each of us needs 25-30 grams of fiber a day.

Losing excess weight is all about metabolism. 

Metabolism is responsible for burning the calories in our bodies; the faster the metabolic rate, the more calories get burned.

Everyone has a resting metabolic rate (RMR)—its how many calories you need if you sit or lay around all day. It’s important to know your number. It’s surprising high: mine is about 1425 calories and my 6’2” husband’s pushes 2000. If you’re active, then you need more calories; eating less than your RMR causes your body to do all kinds of weird things, so don’t go there.

It’s not rocket science—losing weight is about creating an “energy deficit.” To lose one pound a week, you have to create an energy deficit of 3500 calories—or just 500 calories a day. That means some combination of eating less and exercising more each day.

Cara has developed a weekly meal plan for me that limits my caloric intake to 1800 calories and has recommended that I exercise 45-60 minutes a day (at least five or six days a week.) My new program is now one week old.

There are also some activities that can influence the rate at which you burn calories in the body. Here’s what I’ve learned in my research:

Tip 1. Build Up Your Muscles

Every pound of muscle in your body can use up about fifty calories daily. Regular trips to the gym have been found to increase metabolic rate by as much as fifteen percent.

What’s good about having more muscles is that these tissues continue to burn calories even if you are at rest.

Rather than going to the gym, I do yoga. Holding standing poses, staying in “down dog” for minutes, and doing handstands all build muscles. Yoga is not just stretching; it can make you stronger as well.

Tip 2. Increase Your Body Movements

Ever notice that the people who constantly shake their leg, tap their foot, and otherwise drive you mad with constant movement are also thin? Those irritating habits have increased their metabolism.

People who live sedentary lifestyles burn barely more than 10 percent of the calories in their body. An average person can expect a 30 percent calorie burn rate through activities like walking to the coffee shop or walking the dog. Given these statistics, we need to increase the movements that we make. The TV remote control, while a great idea—and who could think of life without one—was just the start of a series of advancements that make our lives easier and allow us to accomplish more with less movement.

Rick and I use stairwells rather than elevators whenever we can. And, as I mentioned, Cara has instructed me to walk/hike 45 to 60 minutes most days of the week.

We’ve found a fitness website that helps us understand what every activity we perform burns in terms of calories. You, too, might find it helpful.

As our calories come from the food we eat, we must be able to burn equal or more calories if we want our weight to go down.

Tip 3. Eat Foods That Help Burn Calories

Food is more than just calories—you need wholesome foods to meet your RMR. You can get a multiplier effort by eating foods that actually help you burn calories. Foods rich in Vitamin C can dilute the fat in your body and help increase metabolism. Spicy food like chili and pepper are proven to raise your body’s capacity to burn calories by as much as fifty percent.

Like to cook? Here are some more food tips I uncovered: use unsweetened applesauce in place of half the fat (oil or butter) in recipes. If it’s a chocolate based recipe, use baby prunes instead of applesauce.

Oh, and forget movie theater popcorn! Every theater uses coconut oil to pop their corn. I cannot tell you what a major disappointment this is to Rick and me.

But I’m carrying the weight of all the useless junk a modern man accumulates. Billy Joel

One last thought about the topic of healthy eating and healthy body weights. Read labels. In addition to feeling like a chemist in my own kitchen as I calculate grams of carbohydrates, protein, and fat, and determine the calories of everything that goes into my mouth, I now fully examine food labels.

Have you ever realized how prevalent high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is in packaged goods? It’s everywhere! Rick’s youngest daughter is allergic to HFCS and we searched the bread aisle in the grocery to find less than a handful of bread products made without it.

Since its introduction, HFCS has begun to replace sugar in various processed foods. It’s cheaper because corn is more abundant than sugar beets in the U.S. (Of course, subsidies to corn farmers and import tariffs on sugar also contribute.)

 Besides being easier to blend and transport, using HFCS leads to products with much longer shelf lives. That may be all well and good, but some experts claim there is a correlation between the rise of obesity in the U.S. and the use of HFCS for sweetening beverages and foods. It’s no wonder that many nutritionists and dieticians refer to it as “sludge” in your body. 

It seems that at every turn, you just can’t win—unless you live consciously and with intent, abiding by one of our most important Changing Lanes roadmaps. 

Well, this is a lot to digest (pun intended.) Stayed tuned for another report on my weight loss program next month.

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