MERRY CHRISTMAS

Merry Christmas!  I hope everyone has had a safe and happy holiday.  I sure have, and I've also been destroying some delicious (and of course nutritious) food.

I got a couple of sweet presents this year.  First, my sister-in-law and her husband gave me a t-shirt from Mental Floss:

I would definitely say something like that, so I think the shirt is awesome.  In fact, I am wearing it right now and while I was working out at the park earlier (more on that in my next post).

Secondly, my mother-in-law gave me a Flip HD video camera:

This thing is pretty incredible, and you can shoot up to 2 hours of HD quality video from this thing.  That means more SHOP videos for the blog!

Merry Christmas again and Happy New Year!

8 WEEK POST-OP APPOINTMENT

I had my 8 week post-op (even though it's almost 9 weeks) appointment with my surgeon this morning and it went very well.  He was very pleased with my range of motion and strength levels on my right hip.  He told me that I can now take my range of motion as far as possible now (before I was limited to the point where tightness would occur).  Also, I can step up my strengthening a notch or two.  The main thing for me to avoid now is any activity that results in pounding (running, jumping rope, etc.) until mid-January.

Sweet!

THE 6 WEIRDEST, SCARIEST PROCESSED FOODS

Here’s a link to an interesting article detailing the “6 Weirdest, Scariest Processed Foods.”  It’s a pretty entertaining read to see just how disgusting the food industry has become (and also to see how many of them you may be guilty of eating).

Anyway, I thought it would be funny to show some pics of these “foods” and follow it up with some quotes right out of the article.  I may add a few comments of my own if I feel like it.

1.    Spray Can “Easy Cheese”

“Dipping a butter knife into a tub of cheese spread and putting it on a cracker takes a lot of time and effort. Thankfully for all of us, the wizards at Kraft have developed a product that ensures we’ll never again run the risk of hurting our wrists trying to spread processed cheese. Kraft’s Easy Cheese cans combine the soulless tastelessness of its cheese products with the convenience and simplicity of whipped cream cans.”

I’ll admit, I’m guilty of eating “Easy Cheese” back in the day, but I never took the dispenser straight in my mouth and ate just the “Easy Cheese”.  That’s disgusting.

2.    Oreo Cookie Death Filling

“You see, typical frosting is made mostly from butter, milk, sugar and vanilla extract. No one will ever accuse it of being good for you, but at least you're eating fairly natural fats. Oreo stuffing, on the other hand, is basically sugar-flavored Crisco. Seriously, that’s what you’re consuming when you eat an Oreo.”

Oreos and milk are a pretty tasty combo for sure, but now that I am older and wiser and I can read the list of ingredients, I will never touch them again!

3.    Condensed Soups

“Well, consider that a mere half-cup of Campbell’s Vegetable Soup contains a heart-stopping 890 mg of sodium, or roughly 37 percent of your daily recommended sodium intake. But wait, there’s more! The typical Campbell’s soup can contains one-and-a-half cups of soup, meaning that one can of soup contains more than 90 percent of your daily recommended sodium intake.”

Instead of buying canned soups, I just recommend you pick one of the 1,000’s of recipes available to use with your Crock-Pot that combine only quality, healthy ingredients that take barely any time at all (obviously it has to cook all day in the Crock-Pot, but it doesn’t require any attention or work from you to do that).

4.    Spam

“Spam was really a major miracle of food science, as it solved a mystery that humanity had been trying for centuries to figure out: namely, how to make meat-flavored Jell-O.”

I don’t even know what to say other than “GROSS!”

5.    Artificially Flavored Blueberry Bits

“An apt description would be ‘purple globs of sugary goo,’ but they’re actually called ‘artificially flavored blueberry bits.’ Their ingredients include sugar, dextrose, soybean oil, soy protein, salt, citric acid, cellulose gum, artificial flavor, malic acid, Red 40 Lake, Blue 2 Lake and…that’s it. Notice anything missing? Oh yeah: blueberries!”

6.    Kraft’s Avocado-Free Guacamole

“This right here may be the pinnacle of processed food magic. Kraft has managed to make a food product without an actual main ingredient, akin to tomato-free tomato sauce or potato-free baked potato. Yes, there are no avocados in Kraft’s guacamole. Then what is it made of, you ask?  How about some modified food starch, coconut and soybean oils, corn syrup, food coloring…in other words, you’re eating green-colored oil.”

The story behind this one is actually pretty funny.  Some customer sued Kraft because she felt misled into buying guacamole that was not made with avocadoes.  As a result, Kraft changed the product name to “Guacamole Flavored Dip,” and as you can see they made the change before I could snag a picture of it from their website.  I think it’s also funny that Kraft eliminated the primary ingredient from a traditional dish and the healthiest one at that!

FAT FEES AND SMOKER SURCHARGES

I read a very interesting quote the other day, and it was basically this:

You will spend time and money on your health.  Fortunately, you get to choose whether that time and money is spent proactively or reactively.

Man I thought that was brilliant.  I think it also segue's perfectly into this article that just came out in Time Magazine a few weeks ago.  It basically asks the question "Should smokers and overweight individuals have to pay more for health insurance than their healthier counterparts?"

I think the answer is absolutely YES.  I can only give an example on how my company currently handles it since I know those details.

How much more do you think the insurance premium is for a smoker at my company vs. my premium?  $7.  Smoking has been proven beyond any doubt to be a death sentence but that person will pay only $7 more per paycheck than I will (I don't smoke, by the way).

How much more do you think the insurance premium is for an obese person with Type II diabetes at my company vs. my premium?  $0.  We pay the exact same amount.

Anyway, it's a great article, so check it out.  I have a few quotes and comments on it below as well.

Fat Fees and Smoker Surcharges:  Tough-Love Health Incentives

“North Carolina this year became the second state to approve an increase in out-of-pocket expenses for state workers who smoke and don't try to quit or who are morbidly obese and don't try to lose weight.”

On the surface, I think that policy is awesome!  I also think it is fair.  It doesn’t immediately penalize someone who smokes or who is morbidly obese.  It actually gives that person the chance to change those unhealthy habits.  They are only penalized if they don’t try to change their situation.

The one counter-argument I have is where are the rewards for those people who not only maintain good health, but actively seek to continuously improve it?

“Nationwide, employee insurance premiums have increased 131% over the past decade, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. And it's well documented that smoking and obesity are associated with higher medical costs.”

Given that information, why shouldn't smokers and obese people shoulder the majority of the costs?

CONS:

There are a couple of reasons why such programs are hard to administer.  First, for the overweight issue, the plans described in the article use the Body Mass Index (BMI) as their determinant.  BMI is a number based on a person’s height and weight that attempts to categorize them into one of four categories:  Underweight (<18.5), Normal Weight (18.5 – 24.9), Overweight (25 – 29.9), and Obese (>30).

I just ran the numbers on myself (5’11”, 190 lbs.) and my BMI is 26.5.  Holy shit!  I’m overweight!

BMI can be effective for quickly categorizing a large population with decent accuracy, but at the individual level it just doesn’t cut it.  It completely ignores the fact that muscle has a greater density than fat.

I think systems like this should be in place, but there has to be a better way to administer them.  It might mean that actual bodyfat testing and blood tests should be run (perhaps at the expense of the individual).  I would pay to have those tests done if it would result in savings on my premiums.

"'We're trying to get across to the population that they have to take responsibility for their well-being and engage in more healthy behavior,' says Jack Walker, executive director of the North Carolina State Health Plan."

Are penalties unfair?  What if there are no penalties, but only rewards for meeting certain criteria?  For example, from the article:

“In 2005 the Safeway supermarket chain implemented a voluntary wellness plan. Employees who take and pass tests for such things as blood pressure and cholesterol levels can reduce their annual insurance premiums by nearly $800.”

Why are drivers penalized for speeding tickets and accidents?  Why are homeowners penalized based on what zip code they live in?  Simply, it’s because those people represent a higher risk to the insurance company.  So why doesn’t the same theory apply to health insurance?  Should those people who are more at risk (obese and smokers, for instance) pay a higher premium than those people who are less at risk?

Your thoughts?

FACT OR FICTION?

It should be no surprise that I think the food industry is evil.  I’ve talked about it here, here, here, here, and here.

96% FAT FREE:  FACT OR FICTION?

Here’s my latest example of how the entire food industry is a scam.  Look at the picture below and you'll see that they market this deli meat as 96% Fat Free.  But is it really?

OSCAR MAYER DELI FRESH MEATS HAM COOKED 96% FAT FREE

Serving Size:  28g

Total Fat:  1g

% Fat by Weight:  1g / 28g = 0.036 (rounded to 4.0%)

Technically they aren’t lying.  That product is in fact 4% fat by weight, or in other words it is 96% Fat Free.

Now here’s the twist.  There are a number of ways to fudge that number.  If you look at the ingredients list you’ll notice that water is the second ingredient.  Why the hell would you need to add water to meat?  Well as I’m sure you know water has 0 calories, so it obviously doesn’t contribute to the caloric load of the deli meat.  However it does have mass, which means it does contribute to the total mass (or serving size).  This effectively dilutes the Fat Free figures in favor of the food company and can mislead the consumer.

So let’s look at it differently.  We’ll use the same label and information that is provided right there in plain sight, it just hasn’t been emphasized in bold letters or anything like that to catch the consumer’s eye.

Calories per Serving:  30

Calories per Serving from Fat:  10

% Fat by Calorie:  10 / 30 = 0.333 (rounded to 33.3%)

That’s quite a dramatic difference!  How many packages of that deli meat do you think Oscar Mayer would sell if they labeled the package as “66.7% Fat Free”??

Now imagine if you apply this same technique to a creamier product or even a liquid (e.g. yogurt or milk) where even more water could be added without significantly affecting the texture of the product. 

If you want an even more dramatic example of this, check out this video from Jeff Novick.  This guy is a smart dude.  He has Masters’ degrees in both exercise and nutrition and more abbreviations after his name than I care to list.  Anyway, if you have a few minutes, watch this video.

POST-WORKOUT SHAKE

I just made an amazing discovery the other day...pumpkin is good in everything!!  And fortunately, pumpkin is ridiculously good for you.  High in fiber, full of vitamins and minerals (vitamin A and beta carotene in particular), and light on the calories (another high water volume food).

For about the last 4 or 5 years, I've had a protein shake after virtually every workout I've done.  It has evolved over the years to include more and more high quality ingredients while removing any "less good" ingredients.  The one thing I've always struggled with though is how to include vegetables in my shake.  The thought of a blueberry banana and broccoli shake is just kinda gross!  That's where pumpkin comes into play!  I always eat a ton of it around Thanksgiving and Christmas, but this year I am absolutely destroying it...I've been going through a couple of cans per week.  So here's the recipe for the greatest shake of all time:

Water (the amount depends on how thick you want your shake)

Vanilla protein powder - 1 heaping scoop

Milled flax seeds - 2 tbsp

Oats - 1/2 cup

1/2 Banana (frozen)

Canned pumpkin - 1 cup

Cranberries (frozen) - 1 cup

Try it!

PRE-EATING

It’s been a while since I have posted a non-training entry, so I figured today would be a good time!  I was trying to figure out what topic to cover, but lo and behold a combination of the internet and my co-workers provided me with the inspiration I needed.

Thanksgiving was about a week and a half ago, and people around my office ever since have talked about how they gorged themselves on turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, and of course pumpkin pie!  Now don’t get me wrong, on three separate occasion I ate more than my fair share of all of those (except the stuffing…never been a fan).  I guess the main difference is that some of my coworkers were talking prior to Thanksgiving about how they were going to try not to pig out this year.  For me, on the other hand, I had every intention of feasting on some pastured turkey, vegetables, and homemade pumpkin pie with a whole wheat crust!  I follow the 90/10 rule (eat well 90% of the time, relax the other 10%), so as long as I was on point leading up to Thanksgiving then I was free to eat to my heart's content.

What I find interesting about my co-workers’ situation, though, is that they frequently talk about how they try not to pig out at Thanksgiving since they are trying to lose weight or something of that nature.  The same thing applies to Christmas Parties since it is that time of year again.

Let me clarify something first:  if you want to eat the pumpkin pie, then by all means dig in.  That’s what I did.  However if you truly want to be “good” this holiday season and avoid the sweets, then prepare for it!  It should be no surprise that pretty much anywhere you go around the holidays WILL have some form of seasonal dessert (and probably more than one to be honest).  So how do you prepare?

PRE-EAT!

It sounds like a simple concept, and it is.  Additionally, it’s an incredibly health-conscious concept!  Just eat something before you go (such as raw broccoli and hummus or celery and baba ghanoush).  That is the crucial part though.  If you pre-eat with crappy food, that defeats the whole purpose of pre-eating.  In fact, you'll probably be worse off than if you didn't pre-eat since crappy food tends not to be filling thereby allowing you to eat even more!

If you pre-eat with high quality foods, then the benefits of this are several-fold.  First, and most obvious, you’re eating vegetables or some other healthy food.  That cannot be bad.  Secondly, since you are consuming a fibrous, high volume foods (as in water volume), it will help to satisfy your hunger without a ton of calories.   When you actually get to your destination, you will be fairly full from pre-eating and therefore less likely to give in to temptations.  Even if you decide to eat desserts and sweets, it is very likely that you will consume less of them because you will be so full.

I pre-eat all the time.  In fact, Lauren and I have a Christmas party to go to tonight where I'm not sure what to expect in the food department.  As you probably guessed, I plan on pre-eating.  As a matter of fact, I have some lentils and veggies cooking in the Crock-Pot as I type this.  You can check back to one of my earlier posts about the greatness that is the Crock-Pot!!

Here’s a perfect example of when pre-eating can (and should) be used:

Movie popcorn still a nutritional horror, study finds

The very first paragraph from the article states the following:

“A medium-sized popcorn and medium soda at the nation's largest movie chain pack the nutritional equivalent of three Quarter Pounders topped with 12 pats of butter….”

That’s absolutely ridiculous.  The article goes on to give a few specifics on movie popcorn that detail just how bad it is:

“It found that a Regal medium popcorn -- 20 cups -- contains 1,200 calories, 60 grams of saturated fat, and 980 milligrams of sodium. That's without the buttery topping that can be drizzled -- or poured -- on the popcorn, which adds another 200 calories and 3 grams of saturated fat per 1.5 tablespoons.”

A couple of things jump off the page here…the most unbelievable to me is that a medium popcorn is 20 cups!!  How many cups are in a large?  I’d be willing to bet they offer an extra-large too!  I’m not terribly surprised by the calories and fat content.  The numbers are huge to be sure, but I expected that.  I guess I never had considered the actual volume of a popcorn tub before.

Anyway, back to the pre-eating concept.  If you are susceptible to the temptation of a big, buttery tub of popcorn at the movies, just eat before you go.  You can ensure that you eat high quality foods that are highly nutritious and will keep you on track to accomplishing whatever your goals may be (that is, assuming your goals are NOT to pig out on movie popcorn).