Homeostasis: The Body Fights Back

One of the things I learned first and best about biology is homeostasis.  This is defined by Wikipedia as "the property of a system, ... that regulates its internal environment and tends to maintain a stable, constant condition". It further goes on to describe this as possible through "multiple dynamic equilibrium adjustment and regulation mechanisms".


This has been popularized in the diet press as "set points".  Whatever I do to try to lose weight, my body will fight it. It wants to stay the weight it is.  Once I get into a losing trend, it's easier to maintain that trend.  But, getting off the current set point is very hard.  So I thought I was in a losing trend, and I relaxed what I was doing. "Aha!"  exclaimed my body.  "This is the new normal!"  And so it has been:

The horizontal grid lines here are two pounds apart.

Three weeks where the average has been the same, despite four pounds worth of variation within the period.  


I need to blow through this plateau and get back into a losing state.  How?  Back to basics.  Track, baby track, as Kim would say.  Not just track, but make better choices in the food department. Focus on keeping those carbs down. No treats. Sadly, meat-based meals.  Lots of leafy greens allowed, but only small portions of other vegetables, fruits, and nuts.  Keep drinking water.


And, the other half of the equation:  exercise.  Except for the gym and a single weekly walk, I haven't been moving much.  I leave the gym and go to work or home where I stay huddled up and working.  Got to raise the base activity level every single day.  


So I'm off to the great outdoors, right here and now.  GTG. TTFN. SYL.

Apparently I CAN'T Get Away With It

Tough week.  I really strayed this week. There are a million excuses, but it doesn't change the fact I strayed far from my course.

How tough was it?  How far did I stray? My friend Kim has a blog to track all of her eating and exercise, called "Can I Get Away With This?".  My current answer, for me, would be "no". It doesn't work to stray this far.

Monday was the gym at 6 am, a background press briefing, a working session on some tough numbers (my staff and I developed them, I presented them, they bring unwelcome news), a meeting where I presented an unpopular position from my boss to my peers, and then a run through of The Speech. Once a year, I give a speech at the Convention Center in a very big room to a very big audience (600+ people). Last year, I threw up all night the night before and wasn't done even as the speech needed to go on - so my second got his big break instead. This Monday, at the rehearsal, I stood at the podium and I don't know if it was nerves, a hot flash, the hot lights, or what, but before the speech was over I nearly swooned. I was gripping the podium and afraid I would fall. The sweat was pouring off me, and I was shivering. I couldn't let my second know how bad I felt. The minute I was done I climbed off the stage and sat down with my second to go through a few fine points, and stayed there for half an hour till I was ready to stand up again. I was determined I was going to do this, and under no circumstances get sick again. When I got home, the girl and I had a set-to, and I finally made beef stew for dinner and was able to go through the speech again in my mind, visualizing how I would deliver it, what I would wear, how I would gesture, the questions I would get. It was Valentine's Day, and there were home made cupcakes made from scratch in a unique recipe with wine in it, and with two shades of pink cream cheese icing in heart patterns. I had a mini cupcake - my first out and out sweet of the year, I think.

Tuesday was up at the crack of dawn, and The Speech. It was fine. The rest of the conference was fine. The rubber chicken lunch was one of the best of its type ever. Apple cake for lunch, and I didn't say "no", though I only had four forkfuls. That was four forkfuls I hadn't intended to eat, and another crumbling of the no sweets bar.I was "on" all day, hosting the event, talking to industry and press, careful of everything I could say. There was a buffet dinner that evening, and I gorged on lamb and shrimp and caesar salad. Club soda at the free bar. Then, as I was getting ready to go, I stood next to the dessert table and decided just one would be fine. One chocolate covered strawberry, one candied pecan square, one mini fruit tart, that is.

Wednesday was the gym and silence and a walk and just fine. But I was ready by dinner time to finish the wine left over from cupcake making on Monday. It was actually a terrific bottle and more than one glass was involved. The first alcohol of the year. Dinner was sausages on the grill, made into a big salad for me. I believe there was another mini cupcake in there as well. American Idol on the couch all evening.

Thursday was all day stuck in a windowless room facilitating a tough meeting between twenty people all with different agendas. Home early to spend two hours in the back yard doing Wednesday and Thursday's emails, about 200 for the two days. Shrimp for dinner (sauteed in olive oil with garlic, then sauced with purchased bruchetta). Another big salad for me, rice for the family. Split a pink frosted cupcake with my girl during American Idol.

Today, back in the office and catching up on a million loose ends. Not feeling quite so overwhelmed. No real walk at lunch, but I did get the Vespa started and used it in and out of work. Terrific smells everywhere, and music swelling and fading as I scooted along a commercial neighborhood thoroughfare for six miles of my commute. Everybody was out tonight. All the restaurants with doors and windows open to the good weather, pumping out smells and music. Me, totally brain dead, eating spaghetti sauce and splitting another cupcake with the girl in front of the tube.  Home to bed, but too restless to fall asleep, so writing instead.

Monday the scale showed my lowest weight in years. Today, four pounds higher than that. I could make it go back down, but not by adding cupcakes and wine to the tally every day. Certainly not at my current fairly low level of activity.  Good weather will help raise my activity level, but the only way to get a lot more in is to get the frantic pace at work down a notch. Not sure I'll get there any time soon, but at least no speeches for another year.  And a three-day weekend on the horizon! Hooray.

A walk or jog or bike ride each day of this weekend. I can do three. Worry about next week next week.

My walk today

I took a walk today at a park that straddles a peninsula between the Chesapeake Bay and the creek where I keep my boat. I walked in that park a lot back when I was training for the Avon 2-day. It has a long loopy four mile trail that moves between the Bay shore, the woods, some open fields, and the headwaters of Bodkin Creek- tidal, but nearly fresh water from springs.

Seeing the open water gives my heart an incredible lift every time. The view from the Bay shore is very similar to the view we get when we round the point in Mutima and head south.

Things I saw today:

A black lab in the water fetching sticks.

A giant freighter just under the Bay Bridge and making good time for Baltimore.

A woman walking alone with a wheeled walker. Hooray for her, I thought. How did she get here? Did she drive?

One runner attired in spandex.

Five or so walkers like me going the other way.

Three deer running away, with a beagle bugling behind them and no person in sight.

The only green things in the woods were holly trees and mosses on the ground.

Many squirrels.


- iPhone uPdate

Love Not Chocolate

Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within reach of every hand.

Horticulture Magazine quotes Mother Theresa on Valentine's Day.

Seasonal Local and Heart Healthy!


- iPhone uPdate

Skyr: Something from Iceland to Try

I read a review of this and found it this morning at Whole Foods:  Skyr 

This is basically no-fat yogurt with fewer carbs and more protein than any other. Also completely ethically correct with milk from grassfed cows and vegetable rennet. I generally don't eat yogurt at all because it has so much sugar, even if no sugar is added.  And the "low carb" yogurts out there are filled with artificial stuff and don't qualify as food.  Here is the nutrition content of the orange-ginger Skyr:

(All the flavors seem about the same values.)  By contrast, StonyField Farm no-fat yogurt is the same number of calories for a whole cup of yogurt (about 250 grams), but with 33 grams of carbs and 9 grams of protein.  So I got it to try. Of course, my eating approach is that I wouldn't worry about some fat grams in there, but the company doesn't make another option.  I worried about not enough protein or fat meaning it won't "hold me" until lunch, so I added an ounce of almonds because that was quickest and handiest. It's quite tart and the kid didn't like it, but I did. We'll see how I feel about it after some time has passed.

Meat: My Heart, My Soul, and My Planet (Part Three)

The story so far:  I believe meat is a big part of a healthy diet. A grain and soy based diet is likely to lead to the "diseases of civilization" - heart disease and diabetes, among others. I have no doubts on the first point. However, current factory farming of meat is horrific and is an unethical treatment of our fellow creatures. I uneasily remain complicit in this. I try to make better choices, but often compromise.

Now, looking at the ecological consequences of eating meat, I find myself much less knowledgeable. My freshmen roommate at college was a vegetarian, inspired by Frances Moore Lappe's Diet for a Small Planet. I never read it, but got the gist: it takes energy to convert sun energy into plant energy and then into animal energy, and a lot is lost at every step. The planet cannot afford, on a global scale, the inefficiency of relying on animal protein to feed the world. I actually took enough advanced ecology classes later in college to work through the fairly complex math myself in a few specific cases.  Everyone agrees with the principle, that energy is lost in each stage, but the actual numbers remain subject to a great deal of dispute.

Mark Bittman, in his Food Matters, bases his advocacy for eating less meat on climate change. He asserts, with a series of top level statistics, that beef cattle are a huge source of green house gases and switching to three meatless meals a week is equivalent to more than taking an SUV off the road. I am skeptical of the statistics, but haven't worked through them myself, and he does have endnotes and a bibliography, but doesn't go through their derivation in the book itself. I haven't done any other outside reading on the topic. Here is my big difficulty with this:  Cows make methane gas? They fart a lot? Cows fed on grain fart more than cows fed on grass?  My understanding of greenhouse gases on a geological timescale for global climate change is this: it is the mining of fossil fuels that makes a permanent contribution to atmospheric CO2. Biofuels are good because its a closed cycle: grow the plants, pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere, then burn the plants, releasing it again, but grow more plants, and net-net there is no atmospheric increase.  Wouldn't it be the same with cows? They eat grass and corn, which contains CO2, they themselves contain CO2, and it's a closed cycle, yes?  I guess there is the same possible criticism that corn-based ethanol and other biofuels face: there are fossil fuel inputs into the cycle, required for the raising of corn or cows, resulting in a net increase of CO2 over the whole lifecycle.  I just can't accept how the numbers work out without more reading. I'm willing to accept the premise (that our current meat production is a net contributer to greenhouse gases), just not the magnitude, without more study (that I may or may not get around to).

Mark Bittman also predicates his "eating as if food mattered" prescription on the total planetary resources required for meat versus plant energy.  Again, I accept the concept and have never grasped the numbers.

The problem I have is his prescription for eating is heavily dependent on grains to make up the calories.  He acknowledges the bad health aspects of sugars and simple starches, and focuses on grains and beans as the alternative to meat. This just does not work for me, at least not now.  

Michael Pollan's final answer on "what to eat" is much the same:  

Eat food. 

Not too much. 

Mostly plants.

I am totally on board with the general sentiment, but the "mostly plants" part for me cannot be grains and beans. It should be the kind of plants that look like plant parts:  leaves and stems and things that can be plucked, pulled and dug up. And its really hard to get enough calories, and the right nutrients, solely from those parts of plants. I remember the story that during World War II, in Norway, cabbages were grown in every available square foot of soil, served at every meal, and people were still starving to death because they could not take in enough calories. (Cabbages thrive in the short cold climate of Norway and were the most practical local food source, as all meat and fish and what limited grain they could grow were seized and sent to Germany). Back to the hunter-gatherer food sources for me: at least 60 percent animal-derived calories. But is this feasible on a global scale?

Mark Bittman asserts the humane standards are simply not scalable to replace meat in the quantities we currently enjoy.  Again, I haven't studied the issue but I suspect he is right. Factories are more efficient than handicraft markets, and it may well be we couldn't have grass fed beef and free range chickens on the scale we have cars churning out of Detroit.  There are, however, some big-ish corporations producing meat according to much more sound principals; Niman Ranch is one. 

So I worry at this, while continuing to live uneasily with choices I know are not pure. Instead, they are expedient, and serve me and and my family in the short term. I haven't delved deeply into the ethics and ecology, because I'm pretty sure where it would make me end up finally and I am not ready to go there. I struggle at every meal to add a plant-based component and decrease the meat and dairy.  But I know for my own heart health, and that of my family, it can't be white bread and white rice and pasta filling up the plate instead. I need dark green. because I won't do whole grain or soy. And that is more work, and can't supply all of what we need.

After I reach goal weight, I will experiment with more whole grains and legumes into the mix. Right now, I'd rather stay away from them almost completely. My family will resist the shift, and if I'm not going to eat them myself it is not worth the battle. So it's off to Whole Foods for me now, and maybe swinging past the farmer's market later to get some more happy meat.

(Note, I never before said or wrote "after I reach goal weight". That just came out. I'll need to think about that whole premise, that there is a goal and an after.)

Meat: My Heart, My Soul, and My Planet (Part Two)

What does eating meat do to my soul?  This question derives from wondering if it is right to kill animals - furry mammals especially - to feed me. Completely separate from the questions of health or ecology.  Simply the ethics of the situation.  Sadly, I have to do this. As my friend says, I can't "un-know" what I know.

I believe that violence and oppression are bad for the perpetrator. They do violence to and oppress the perpetrator's soul. Slavery was bad for the slave holders. They were worse human beings for their acceptance of violence as a way of life. People who abuse children or dogs are diminished by their own actions.

I see being a vegetarian as a more enlightened, more highly evolved state. There are several science fiction books, and even Star Trek episodes, where this comes across. Rational and cultured beings regress to hunting animals for food, and then turn violent towards other people. (Vulcans seem especially vulnerable to this trend.  Maybe eventually we will reach a state where there are synthetic substitutes for meat that are healthful and ecologically sound.) But right now, grain- and soy-based highly alternatives are less healthful, in my opinion, than meat, and therefore not an option.

Factory farming in America is horrific.  I have deliberately stayed away from movies such as Food, Inc., or videos by PETA. I do not need the pictures to know what is going on. Much of my understanding on a visceral level of what it means comes from Michael Pollan's book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, where he buys a calf and follows it through its short and unhappy life. He also explores a farm where cows and chickens and pigs live much more naturally, moving through pastures and forests eating foods they evolved to eat. He has an essay in this book that was the most cogent and reasoned discussion of the ethics of eating meat I have ever read. Ultimately, Pollan goes off hunting wild boar, determined if he is willing to eat meat, he needs to be willing to kill it, at least once. The daughter of my friend was defiantly a vegetarian during her teenage years, but always was willing to hunt, and prepare and eat what she killed.  I've read of the work of Temple Grandin, who has transformed the way some slaughterhouses work so as to minimize the panic and pain of food animals at the end of their lives.

After reading The Omnivore's Dilemma, I swore off mass-produced meat. I vowed to only eat meat from happy animals. This means, as a practical manner, only farmer's market or Whole Foods meat. Whole Foods has a program with at least minimal standards - you can read about them here.  Organic certified in a pinch, though that is less certain what it means to the animals.  Eggs only "cage free", which even the Giant has these days. So I maintained my standards, only eating meat whose provenance I knew of. The food budget went up, but I felt better. I had a chat with a friend at work who keeps kosher. For all practical purposes, that means he is a vegetarian out of his house, because if he isn't sure it's ok, he just passes on meat. I decided I should be as firm in my ethical convictions as he is in religious ones.  (Apparently there is a raging controversy about the role of humane conditions in kosher meat. Some suggest it can't be kosher if it isn't humane, others claim that is irrelevant.)

Now, however, I buy food and cook for other people, using other people's money. Properly raised animals cost extra money, and I waiver between different imperatives.  And some of the family snickers at my notion of meat from happy animals.  "Yeah, right up till they die!"  Is ethically raised meat ethical enough to justify eating it?

On this point, I remain conflicted, but still committed to serve and eat meat. I pick my way through different choices, looking for the sale on grass fed beef at Whole Foods but not refraining from the occasional purchase at the Giant.  So far, I don't feel the need to pick up a gun and hunt my own.

Next up:  the ecology of eating meat.