"What Gets Measured Gets Managed." - Peter Drucker

e of my biggest food weaknesses is salty carbs.  Some people may go for the sweets, the fast food, or the big greasy meats, and I can certainly understand the addictive possibilities there.  But with me,  it's all about salty snack foods. I have to use some self control on those, or the next thing you know I've eaten half a bag of Blue Corn Chips- I thought "Blue Corn" meant it was good for you!  

Chips and other things that satiate the salt, fat, and sugar cravings are ok in moderation, or on rare occasions.  But the emphasis on fresh fruits and veggies, whole grains, fish, nuts, legumes, dairy, and lean meats is the best way to go.  Smart snacking is also important.  Sometimes when you're really hungry you need to have something you can go to that's not gonna pack on the weight.  

Things like chips and cereals and granola aren't really that bad either, with one major caveat.  We need to measure how much of that stuff we're eating.  What gets me in trouble is not pouring out an actual serving size. It may say 200 calories  and 10 grams of fat on the label, which is a fairly moderate-calorie snack, but if you eat 3 times that much without knowing it then it doesn't matter.

What gets measured gets managed.  The late great Peter Drucker said that about business, but it also applies to eating well. I touched on this in "3.0 Nutrition" but I wanted to be more explicit about it.  Measure your portion sizes in teaspoons, tablespoons, and cups.  That way you will know exactly how much you're eating.  You may not have to do it your whole life, but if we are in a weight loss phase we definitely need to be very objective about measuring.  

Once you achieve your weight goal, you can scale it back a bit and relax.  At that point, simply pouring out your portion sizes in a bowl may be sufficient.  Just remember, the portion sizes we're taking in may not match the portion sizes on the label.  It's not a good idea to eat out of the container so take a few seconds to grab something to put your food in.  

What gets measured gets managed. So if we want manage weight and body fat, we better start measuring!

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And remember...there's never been a better day than TODAY to make it happen!
 
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If you want to eat better and improve your health I'm now accepting clients to work with privately on Nutrition. We're going to use the concepts I laid out in my Nutrition book, "3.0 Nutrition: Eating Better than Ever", and utilize the nutrition application, Cronometer, which is the best out there for dramatic changes in eating. If we work together, you'll have access to the Gold Edition, which tells you everything you'd ever want to know about what to eat and what not to. I expect participants to see dramatic results.
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Check out the Cronometer site below and / or download the app. We can work together online and in virtual appointments, so there's no need to meet in person. Send me a private message for more info.

3.0 NUTRITION: Intro to Nutrition Coaching

This video explains exactly what I’ll be doing with my clients in Nutrition coaching. I expect to see massive results, relatively quickly, affecting both health (weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, inflammatory markers, energy, digestion, skin) but also in regards to leanness, fitness, and fat loss. Let me know if you have any questions.

Some other nutrition tidbits.....

PLANT BURGERS

I read a long research article about plant burgers and decided to try the “Impossible Burger” today. I have to give it a thumbs up on taste, it was excellent. I think it’s prudent to not overeat these though, maybe one per week max. They are definitely modified to taste this way, so who knows the long term effect. On paper, they’re better for people with heart disease and definitely better for you than your typical fast food fare. I still eat meat, but it’s good to limit it somewhat. Primarily this is because of the industrial practices involved in the huge amount of meat we eat. Long-term it depletes the soil. We eat twice as much meat per person now as we did in 1960. Grass-fed beef is better for you and also better for the soil, the environment, and it ironically makes the planet healthier. I grew up on my Grandpa’s cows and I can tell you that beef is healthier. 

Eating more plant foods is definitely the way to go overall, incorporate as many plant foods as you can (French Fries don’t count). But I’m definitely not giving up meat. Give it a try and see what you think!

HEALTHY SNACKS & LOW CARBS?

People are asking me quite a bit about healthy snacks. The perfect is the enemy of the good. It doesn't have to be perfect. Just go for some protein and healthy carbohydrates. The key is to avoid sugar and fried foods like chips and fries. I like a little green tea in the afternoon for antioxidants and light caffeine. I usually eat something like this 30-60 minutes before training martial arts. All of you low-carb people come and live in my world for a day, and I'll have you desperate for some whole grains and fruits. Try working on your feet 10 hours, since 5 am, running sprints for 30 minutes, and training martial arts for 90 minutes. You need carbs for the vitamins, for the antioxidants in fruit, for focus, for fiber, and most importantly for energy. No great athlete eats a low-carb diet. Dr Dan Benardot, in his book "Nutrition for Serious Athletes" specifically states that athletes' number one mistake is not eating enough. Now athletes and the general public are drastically different situations. You have to adjust. Keeping your blood sugar steady is the bottom line.

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On Sunday, my friend Robert gets up, puts on a suit, eats breakfast, and goes to church.  Afterwards, he and his family have lunch together.  He’s been doing that his whole life and I predict he will do it all of his life, because it’s a habit and something he loves to do.   Even when he doesn’t want to do it, maybe because he’s tired, or would rather do something else, or is in a bad mood, he does it anyway.  Because it’s a habit.  

Habits are the single most important thing in life.  Practically everything we do in life is a habit, good or bad! Our habits determine our destiny.

As we all know, habits, like drinking, social media, saving money, reading, studying, looking at pornography, shopping, lying, and yes exercise and so on, can be really good or they can be really bad.  Habits determine who we are as people.  The amazing things about habits is that if we can only form good habits, that make us better people, we will actually start to change as people.

•    People who aren’t very generous can become generous by taking repeated generous action and even start to enjoy it.

•    People who don’t like vegetables can start to eat small amounts and then over time actually start to like them.

•    People who are naturally a little lazy and don’t like to move much, if they start to make themselves move, can learn to habitually exercise and even get to a point where they love it and do it every day.

There are many other examples of how positive habits form.  In my own life, I always believed in God, but never prayed much, except in emergencies.  But deep down I always wanted to and I admired people who did.  Then I read some writing from an Orthodox monk that prayer was a virtue- like courage, prudence, or justice, that could be developed over time with effort.  This piqued my interest and motivated me to want to do this because things that require discipline, effort, and strength appeal to me.  So I started using written prayers like the Psalms, which a friend recommended, prayer books like the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, and memorization to develop the virtue within myself.  I’ve got a long way to go, but this approach has helped me to become a “person of prayer” in the sense that I am now doing it, habitually, every morning and evening, and throughout the day.  I’m not perfect of course, not virtue-signaling, and I want to do better, I’m just showing you how habits work in this example.

Do what you want to do, even when you don’t want to do it, and eventually you’ll want to do it and you’ll do it automatically.  Do things repeatedly until they become a habit and you can’t not do them.  

Habits are so important that I wrote about them in my first book, Movement & Meaning: Managing Stress and Building Mental Strength through Exercise. This is an excerpt:  

Creatures of Habit

Humans are creatures of habit, much more than we realize.  For example, when we learn something, such as the route to get to work, how to tie our shoes, or how to ride a bike, a habit loop is formed in the brain and we don’t really have to “think” about these routine actions anymore—they become second nature.  Engrained habit loops free up the rest of the brain to reason, process information, engage in critical thinking, and to work on more complex tasks.  

Humans are able to walk upright because our brains have become very efficient at creating these habit loops in the brain for repetitive tasks.  If the brain needed a lot of computing space to process things we do every day like driving, brushing our teeth, or making our bed, our heads would be so big we wouldn’t be able to walk upright.  This phenomenon explains why bad habits, such as drug addictions, which have become ingrained as memory loops in the brain and function like computer programs, are very hard to break.  Repeated often enough, we physically wire ourselves for addiction through habits.13 51  

Charles Duhigg describes in his fascinating 2012 book The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, how AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) became the most popular and effective form of drug treatment in the world.  AA began as a movement modeled after first-century Christianity when a group of people who had alcohol problems started getting together for regular Christian-based religious meetings.  Bill Wilson, the founder of AA, took the group concept and moved it away from religion and solely towards helping people with substance abuse, while keeping the spiritual emphasis.  Wilson himself claimed to have given up alcohol with the help of the group and so he recruited others to join and then AA exploded from there. 

Duhigg, in The Power of Habit, reveals how AA, with no initial scientific basis, has helped thousands of people overcome addiction by implanting new life-changing habits and beliefs in place of substance abuse.  AA participants gain the confidence that they can change and replace their old habits with new ones.  By attending AA, participants are taking action consistently, habitually, and ritually, changing their life by creating a new one. 51

Alcoholics have triggers which bring on an insatiable desire to drink and eventually they give in and gain the reward, which could be an emotional release, a social connection, or one of a variety of other things.  These “rewards” then reinforce the addictive behavior and this pattern continues between trigger and reward unless the downward spiraling cycle is broken.  With alcohol or drug addiction, the substance itself takes on a person-like reality and binds itself to the addict and the two unite to create a new “person”, just like in a marriage.  This intimate union, no matter how negative, is hard to break away from just like any destructive relationship.   AA intercedes to replace this addictive habit loop with a healthy feedback system of meetings and emotionally bonded relationships in which the meetings replace the ritual of drinking and the relationships provide the emotional rewards.  

We really are creatures of habit, even more than we realize.  Our habits are our life because they are largely unconscious.   A key component to managing stress and building mental strength is to replace bad habits with healthy and life-affirming new ones. 

Briefly, be careful what habits you develop.  They can ruin your life.  I had a bad habit of binge drinking like many college students, and it took a long time to get over that.  It was action, reward, and habit.  Many lives have ended because of bad habits.  This is what happens:

Action > Reward > Habit 

This example:

Drink > Temporary Stress Relief (But also poor decisions and poor health) > Habit 

If you want to start a new habit then don’t forget the reward!  This is how you develop a habit:

Take the Desired Action Whether You Want to or Not > 
Reward Yourself in Some Way for Doing It > 
A Positive Habit will Develop in Time

Positive Example:

Desired 30 minutes of Exercise (Action)  > 
Club Soda with Lime on Ice (Reward) > 
Physiological Drug-Like Effect of Both the Reward Drink and the Exercise (Habit)

Remember two important things:

1)    Your habits determine your life.
2)    You can develop new habits.  

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