Trying Out Before Buying In

I had originally drafted this post up discussing the science of sugar and the impact it has on the body. While doing so, I felt unqualified, and my head was spinning. Instead, I’m going to get some ideas that have been bouncing around my head regarding diet for a little while now.

What Works Best

There are a countless amount of diet plans out there today. Many boast opposite approaches, but promise the same results: better health, better appearance, and a better life.

If the entire concept of this blog hasn’t provided the impression that my philosophy is that self experimentation is often the best approach to answering any question, then I must be failing at my job here. Without trial and error, it is impossible to really know what works best for the individual.

What to Focus On

I’ve done a handful of diet trials, but all seem to boil down to “don’t eat this.” I think this is because of a limited view in how I see diets, that hasn’t really come to mind until writing this up.

Most diets, though not all, are centered around what SHOULD be eaten, but I now realize how easy it is to shift that focus to what SHOULD NOT be. It’s easy to get caught up in demonizing the elements we think should be avoided at all costs, while forgetting to give praise and focus to the parts that are good.

Stick To Your Guns, Or Should I Say Buns?

After finding a process that works for you, stick to it. “The good program followed is better than the perfect program you quit,” is a quote from guy I can’t shut up about, Tim Ferriss, and I really do believe in it.

As with many beliefs, dieting has camps of people who believe their approach is the best and everyone should obey. If you find something that works, to hell with what someone else is feeding you – hopefully not literally.

When it comes to sticking to what works, this of course doesn’t mean to hunker down and never budge, but to only make adjustments on your own terms. Continuing to experiment will help to make things even better over time. Experimenting can provide insights into new ideas, as well as prove old methods are still ideal.

In the end dieting can be as complicated as desired. My approach is to experiment over a short time and see how the diet affects me, for better and for worse, and adjust accordingly.

Another week down of avoiding added sugar. While difficult, I believe it has gotten easier as time passes. The biggest challenge is finding what to eat when grabbing a bite out. While restaurants have a number of nutrition facts available, “added sugar” isn’t explicity in that list.

Easier With Time

I was drafting up my thoughts for this trial last night and was ready to write a lengthy post on how diet related trials have been the most difficult. Today, however, I’ve overcome the thought that this is a burden. Admittedly, if not for the current challenge, I would probably grab a treat without thinking about it, but restraint is not a taxing effort.

Some of the initial information that inspired this trial discussed the addictive properties of sugar. Addiction made the first two weeks of this particularly difficult for me. As I’ve taken in less and less, my body has begun to physically stop relying on or expect sugar.

I’ve thought a lot about whether this would be a practice I continue or not beyond the trial, and it’s difficult to say. As of now, I’m not seeing any particularly clear health benefits. The metrics I am using may be flawed, or the benefits may only be observed over a much long period. Even with resistance being easier, I still think of enjoying the occasional treat. I’ll definitely need to think about the long term more as the trial continues.

Researching Restaurants

One element in avoiding added sugar I’ve found difficult still is handling situations at restaurants. As of now, my strategy has been to simply research the menu online. Most major companies have a pretty expansive list of nutrition facts. Unfortunately, added sugar can be a difficult one to discern.

Nutrition facts will often list the sugars present, but not if they are natural, i.e. from fruits and vegetables, or added. This usually leads to avoiding things that seem to have a much higher than expected sugar content, assuming natural sugars should be present. One simple solution of course is to stick to foods with zero sugar at all.

In general, I’m appreciative of the habits this trial is instilling in me to get a closer look at what is going into my food. I’m surprised at how much easier things have gotten in a short amount of time. It definitely sucks missing out on some of my previously favorite foods, at restaurants especially, but so far this has been an eye-opening challenge.

For the past week, I have avoided consuming any products with added sugar, though based on how much food has some form of added sugar in some form, I doubt I was 100% successful. This has definitely been a challenge, but an interesting one at that.

Sugar’s Many Names

It can be easy to spot “sugar” in an ingredients list, but I wanted to go all in and avoid any forms of sugar that are added. I started looking for all kinds of added syrups, i.e. corn syrup, rice syrup, etc, and molasses to name a few. I was shocked to see just how many items have added some sort of sweetener added.

After the initial shock wore off, it did make sense though. I mean, sugar does taste really good, and adding even just a little bit to anything is a simple way to increase it’s flavor.

Eating Whole Foods

No, not the store, but in order to avoid sugar, nearly all processed foods are off the table, literally. One of the only ways to make sure I don’t have any is to make sure I know everything that goes in a meal. The easiest way to do that is to simply make everything from the raw ingredients.

I’ve long enjoyed cooking, but this has really forced me to step my game up. A lot of sauces and condiments have added sugar, so I need to make sure the food itself is flavorful enough to not require them.

Even with some well cooked meals, I wish I can say this was easy. Normally cutting out a particular habit has been the easiest trial for me to do, but this one has been rough. I found myself in a candy aisle looking at dozens of candies to find something sweet without sugar. You can probably imagine the futility in that effort. In the end, having a strict policy has made compliance easier to follow. A solid no means there is no room for exceptions or thinking about if something passes or not.

Is It Any Healthier?

In order to add some objective matters to this trial, I have been weighing myself and taking measurements daily to see if I can see any positive effects. After a week in, I haven’t seen much improvements yet, so the jury is still out.

This past weekend has a role to play in that. I was quite the glutton with a friend visiting town and a Superbowl party to indulge at, even without sugar. This definitely bumped the scale up a bit, but now that this week is moving along, things are stabilizing out.

We’ll see how this week shakes out as I press on in my campaign against added sugar.

A weekly check-in has become a much larger cornerstone to a number of areas in my life than I expected. It’s funny how such a small habit can ripple throughout the week. Knowing I have to give myself a grade at the end of the week has made sticking to daily habits and routines much easier.

Like a Doctor’s Appointment for Everything

If the past two posts on this trial haven’t proven that I am seeing improvements then let me spell it out once more. Forcing myself to look back on my week has made me feel that I’m actually becoming a better person. Sure, not everything is perfect, but that’s never the goal. The only goal of this is to get my thoughts on the past week into something tangible.

Taking the time to review each week has inevitably led me to think about what I’m doing each day and what that means for those categories. In turn, I’ve made sure to do something right each day to improve one of the selected categories: Health, Finance, Relationships, Projects, and Learning.

That’s a Wrap on This One

There is definitely room for experimenting with the general idea, but I believe this will be a habit I continue for an indeterminate amount of time.

What’s next? I’ve had a number of ideas of what to start next, but I think this one is the simplest, but possibly most difficult. I won’t be eating anything with added sugar.

Regular review sessions have not only helped my weeks as a whole, but even the smallest decisions. This week especially, I’ve noticed that I’m more willing to do little things that benefit at least one area I’m tracking, particularly when it comes to relationships.

Micro Makes Macro

The core inspiration of this trial was to breakdown a the huge concept of these areas in my life to just single week chunks. With that in mind, I’ve naturally started taking note of most decisions I make. This has really helped with making better decisions, though certainly not fool proof.

It’s interesting to see the impact of the smallest decisions build up into essentially our human experience. From the time we set our alarms to pursuing that impulse buy or not, even a single decision can ripple out to a number of areas. For example, deciding to wake up and run early in the morning this past weekend not only made me feel accomplished, but gave me a huge opportunity to catch up with a friend I hadn’t seen in probably close to two months. Catching up gave me a boost in energy and confidence that has stuck with me through today.

Decisions are often like dominoes. One good decision can build momentum for a number of others.

Anything to Say Hey

Something I’ve found myself doing more is to be willing to send someone a simple message or text just for no reason other than I thought of them. For some reason, this is something I’ve had weird reservations against. I don’t know why, but sending a no context message was never something I was particularly comfortable doing.

This trial has somehow gotten me to get over that previous restraint. This past week alone, I’ve sent a few messages out of the blue because something reminded me of a joke or a cool thing made me think of someone.

Keeping in touch with friends and family is something that is so easy nowadays that it can be even easier to take that for granted. With that said, why don’t you shoot someone you haven’t heard from in a while a text or if you’re really feeling bold, a call to say hey and catch up.

A weekly grade has so far been a small change that rippled out into a number of larger improvements. Knowing that any choice I make has a chance to impact what score I give myself across a number of categories, has led to an increased adherence to quite a few habits.

Measured is Managed

I’ve mentioned this adage by Peter Drucker in the past and this may be the best implementation of this principle. Taking the time to reflect on the week allows me to recognize what decisions were positive to some areas, but may have had a negative impact elsewhere.

When I sat down on Sunday, I started by simply writing out all of my thoughts on the prior week. I sought to drain every detail from my mind, then gave my grade. This allowed me to see the whole picture, even if I had some expectations for each area before writing, as I’ll touch on a bit below.

This may become a cornerstone habit I can use to develop many more habits beyond this. I’ve already taken better steps to improve a few areas in my life with a single assessment.

Personal Progress

Last week turned out better than I expected overall. There were a few moments that led to more average scores than poor ones.

Relationships is where I felt I really excelled, though this was largely impacted by starting a new job. Meeting a lot of new people increased my assessment pretty well. I also fostered a number of existing relationships spending some quality time with friends.

Health was the category I saw the lowest performance in. Diet and sleep were the major factors there, even though exercise and mental health were better than I initially though. A few poor decisions in what I ate and my sleep habits offset any good decisions otherwise. I’ve definitely worked to set up better habits for both of those areas since.

With deeper reflection, finances turned out to look better on paper than I initially thought. I felt I didn’t do a very good job of where I was spending my money and decisions made financially, but sometimes it’s the things we don’t do that really improve our lives. A few bad decisions avoided gave me a bump up.

Projects and learning were areas that I felt were just about average. Nothing in particular stood out for these. Decisions made didn’t lead to overall gains or losses in these areas of my life.

Are these areas you can measure in your own life? What do you think of your last week? Let me know in the comments below!

New Year’s Eve allows many of us to see the ideal version of ourselves we want to be in the next twelve months. The difficult part is actually taking the everyday steps to become that person. While it can be easy to set lofty goals and resolutions, it’s often the simple things we can be doing each day that actually matter.

Report Cards

In school, there was one objective matter that counted, the grade at the end of a course. That grade was, of course, made up of every small decision that was made since day one. I like to think of goals as that way too.

Goals are easy to set, but can be really hard to achieve. What I am hoping to start off for this year is a weekly report card on a number of metrics: health, finances, relationships, projects, and skills. I added that last one after sending out a sneak peek to newsletter subscribers. Not all of these areas are tied to specific goals I had in mind, but all are things I believe need momentum to maintain. Throughout the year those areas may change, but that’s what I have in mind right now.

When it comes to health, I am thinking both physical and mental health. Diet, exercise, and sleep are critical to both, but managing stress, boredom, and happiness should be considered as well.

Finances is straight forward in that I want to keep track of my thoughts on my spending. I’m out of town for work this week and so it’s not looking so good. Hopefully, I can turn things around for the latter half.

Relationships include family, friends, co-workers, and I might as well throw in strangers. I want to make sure I am being sociable and connecting with the people around me.

Projects and skills might end up becoming one, but for now, I have projects as progress in a few specific things, including this blog. In regards to skills, I want to make sure that I am making actual progress on things that I am learning. For example, a goal of mine is to pass a Japanese proficiency test sometime this year. I haven’t done much research into exactly what that entails, but I’ve been learning since late last year.

Correcting Course

One thing I don’t expect out of this is to always get “passing grades,” but that also doesn’t mean I’ll be struggling each week. The final grade I give myself will ultimately be subjective, though there’s a vague idea of what each will be.

To make things a bit easier for self-applicaiton, I’ve pretty much determined that a “C” will be staying the same. No real progress may have been made, but things haven’t gone for the worse. An A or B would be given for progression depending on the scale, and vice versa for a D or F.

A major piece I am looking for out of all of this is patterns. Trying to detect that I’m slipping in one place for the worse is something I’d like to course correct. Even an F one week may not be so bad if I have an A or two. For example, maybe I had to miss out on a few social events, but was able to make huge progress on a goal or learn something big. For me, the problem starts when performing poorly becomes a trend.

Getting Granular

I’ve already found myself taking note of things I do throughout the day and how they impact my weekly score. It’s only been a few days into the week, but having the regular check in helps to keep me on track for what I really want to be doing.

Knowing I need to grade myself at the end of the week, I actually jotted down a few key events of the day tipping the scales for each section. While I did journal in the past, I didn’t really like the daily commitment, but maybe a weekly cadence might be enough to get me to at least jot down the key moments of each day.

It’s good to be writing again, though the time off was definitely rejuvenating! I have a lot of fun ideas for 2019 and hope you’ll read, if not follow along!!

The title of this post is in reference to a popular quote from Peter Drucker, a management consultant and author. The idea is simple, in order to get true control of something, measuring it is key. While I may not have enjoyed all of the tracking and “journaling,” it was what I set out to do when I opted for this food tracking trial. Unfortunately, without something to work toward, I was just measuring without any goal to manage.

The Start

In the beginning of this trial, I was good with tracking every meal and snack I ate. I used the app My Fitness Pal, and the app just spit out what I needed by just looking up the food I had. With a little bit of work, I had all the metrics I could imagine.

It was interesting to see what I was eating and where I was at day after day. Unfortunately, that interest didn’t really last.

No Goal: Why Measure?

The only goal I set out for this trial was to start measuring what I was eating. In doing so, I didn’t have anything to really strive toward or compare. I lost interest in tracking my meals closely, because I never really had a reason to.

Goals can be powerful in helping us make positive progress, whether we actually attain them or not. Not having one isn’t bad, but it can make gathering data seem pointless.

In a conversation with a co-worker, I mentioned that My Fitness Pal is what I used. From that he lit up. He mentioned that he had lost over 70 pounds tracking his meals and activity with the app, shout out to you Rob! When he mentioned this, I believe I found at least one reason why it was so hard for me to get on board with meal tracking. Not having anything to work toward meant I was just doing the boring work with none of the reward. I didn’t get to watch the scale drop, or even stay the same. I just recorded what I ate and moved on.

The past week, I all but gave up on tracking. In doing so, I’ve gained some weight and lost some of the lean look I started to have going for me. I don’t think I’m unhealthy by any means, it’s just gotten me thinking about what I can do next time to make things better.

Mindful Eating and Gratitude

One thing I do appreciate about this trial is how much it’s made me think about the food I am eating. I may not be measuring every bite, but I certainly think a lot more about the miracle that is the simplicity of food. I try to not take it for granted.

It may be a coincidence, but recently learning about the book Thanks A Thousand by AJ Jacobs ties closely together. In the book, Jacobs attempts to personally thank every person involved in making his morning cup of coffee. The list of all the individuals involved is extensive. I try to keep this in mind when enjoying a meal, as many hands were involved. It helps me appreciate the unnoticed miracles of day to day life. Doing this often spills into other aspects of life as well!

This trial wraps up what I’ll be writing for 2018. I’ll be taking the next few weeks off to recoup and spend the holidays with friends and family. I hope the year has been good for you. If you want to keep up with what I’m up to, sign up for my newsletter. Every Tuesday, I send out a few things I’ve found interesting. Sometimes links for podcasts, videos, articles, quotes, songs, and whatever else I come across living my life. Either way, I’ll be back with a new post on January 9, 2019! 

Throughout this trial, things have felt to be a huge hassle. I’m not particularly enjoying trying to keep up with and record what I’ve eaten. I think I know why. Most things in my life I prefer to take a proactive approach, rather than reactive.

Planning vs Tracking

For the past few weeks, I’ve been tracking and journaling what my meals. It’s been interesting to think about but also become more work than I feel the benefits are worth.

Something I’ve found I’ve gotten more benefit out of is simply planning meals in the past. Instead of trying to stay on track with what I’ve eaten during or after, I have the idea in mind. There are many things in general that I feel I operate better at by simply being proactive. In regards to food especially, I feel when I plan ahead, I waste less food and worry less.

My personal tactic is to use a calendar and plan meals through that. I’ll often only need to plan dinner, as many lunches are simply leftovers and breakfast is usually a quick bite or coffee, depending on how I feel in the morning.

I see how closer tracking can be beneficial for people following a particular regiment, but I’ve never enjoyed overthinking food.

Quick Thoughts on Diets

Something I tried a little over a year ago was a vegetarian diet. I feel I’ve discovered more and more diets as time goes on. Each claiming to be the healthiest and best for you.

In general, I kind of hate diets. Call me stubborn, but I am not a fan of losing the creativity that comes with cooking or sharing food. Creatively structuring meals around particular diets, on the other hand, that I can get into. Constraints develop creativity. Coming back around to the vegetarian trial from last year, I’ve been trying to experiment with vegan and vegetarian meals. Putting together plant based meals that don’t feel lacking has been an interesting adventure in cooking.

Food plays a big role in our personal lives and in society as a whole. It can be easy to take it for granted, but on the other side of the coin overthinking and analyzing food is just as bad. I’ve definitely enjoyed thinking a bit more about food than I normally do, but there’s definitely a limit.

It is by no coincidence I’ve felt the desire to write on this subject the day before the holiday centered around thanks. Over the past week, I’ve found myself eating quickly and moving on to the next thing. No moment of savoring the food or appreciation for all the work that was done to bring it to my table.

Extreme Thanksgiving

A.J. Jacobs wrote a book around a remarkable idea, thanking every person involved in the making of his morning cup of coffee. You may think, “Okay so the coffee shop and barista. Done, right?” If you’re particularly clever, you may think okay there’s also the farmers who grew and harvested the beans and the company that shipped the coffee around. The book, however, takes the idea to the extreme.

What about the equipment used to farm, ship, process, and make the cup of coffee. A.J. thanked the people who provided the materials for those. Then there’s the pest prevention company that kept the beans protected during storage and shipment.

While you don’t need to head to the farm or track down the manufacturer of the silverware used for a meal, I think recognizing that the list of all factors that go into creating a single dish are near incomprehensible. This is a good habit at any time, but especially on a day committed to gratitude.

Mindful Eating

In college, I was in a class called positive psychology. In the class, we had a practice called “mindful eating.” It was a mixture of pleasure and “pain” as we took different foods and really processed every element.

There were foods that eating slowly felt right. Letting the flavor and texture change by simply letting it breakdown and savoring it was satisfying. Other foods not so much. As it sat in the mouth it formed into a nasty flavor. The texture grew worse and worse, but we weren’t supposed to swallow for a few minutes at a time.

This is again a situation where daily practice isn’t necessary or even recommended. We all know  we should slow down when eating. Often, I find myself mid-meal thinking I need to slow down and enjoy what I’m eating, but moments later will start scarfing the plate down trying to get to the next thing in my day. It could be lunch at work or dinner at home.

With the holiday tomorrow, I really want to focus on the meal I’m sharing with family. All of the effort that was put in to feed me and those celebrating with me. Taking my time to savor that effort.

Thanks for your continued support in what I’m doing here! This has been a fun project for the past year and a half.