Transitioning to a 'Winning' Lifestyle - Diet

Part 1 of  5

TL;DR

Focus on the five elements of winning:  Diet, Exercise, Activity, Stress, and Sleep. 

Winning

I want to cover a few elements of transitioning into a lifestyle where you constantly win.  What do I mean by constantly win?  Where every day you have things that you view as success, where you are often in first place, and you hit goals you set with relative ease and pleasure.

What are the qualities of a person who is wining at life?  Let’s take the maxim that a great life may include things like happiness, health, longevity, energy, satisfaction.  To what extent to you feel happy now?  How is your general health?  Are you on the path to a life of longevity?  Is your energy level where you would like it to be?  How satisfied are you overall?  These are big questions we ask ourselves often, and may often see a need for improvement.

When thinking about these maxims, there are five changes we can make that may improve those areas.  I do not think this is a complete list, but I find that these five areas may be our best way to live a long healthy life.  I want to discuss a very basic transitioning plan for each of these items, so as to promote success and not failure.  This is not the guide that immediately puts you in the race, but trains you and educates you so you understand the elements and can apply them when you are ready to stand tall at the starting line. 

When you do all of these items and are ready to start, take a look at Robb Wolfs 30 day total transformation.  Armed with the knowledge you have gained during a transition phrase, the jump to full Paleo land will be easier and hopefully result in success.

And so the list includes Diet, Exercise, Activity, Stress, Sleep. 

This first post will focus on Diet. 

Diet

You are what you eat!  No but really, more and more research is showing us how important our diet is for life and health.  We are seeing trends in diet being associated with more and more diseases, cancer, and obesity.  We see people improve their energy, happiness, and mental health with dietary improvement. 

By simply eating healthier foods, I was able to reduce risks with Type 1 Diabetes with more refined blood sugar control, reduce my BMI from overweight to normal, remove allergies associated with eating (congestion, stomach issues, heartburn, headaches), and feel happier and way more energetic.   I am never tired after I eat (no this is not a joke!).  I haven’t taken Tums in over 2 months (used to take them often).  Keep in mind, your mileage may vary.  Everyone experiences their own unique set of  benefits when making this change.

Often times when searching about Paleo and people who have switched to this lifestyle you find one of the following observations pasted on PaleoHacks.com or some other popular forum:

1. I am 3 weeks in, loving this diet.  I lost 12 pounds and have more energy than I could imagine!
2. I am 3 weeks in, and I hate this diet.  I am lethargic, hungry, unbelievably weak, and feeling generally ill. 

I have seen posts where people have had to been hospitalized and posts where type 1 diabetics have had the best blood sugar control of their lives.  Why such a variation in results?

This is common among other lifestyle changes (veganism, Atkins, ketogenic) and I think is the result of a few observations.  The first being that everyone has a different physiology, so adaptation may differ from person to person.  The second, and I think most common, is changing into a lifestyle without having a well-defined plan that ensures success.  Often times, people end up weak and hospitalized because their macro nutrients out of balance.  They get sick because they are not getting enough fat or protein.  They may not understand what is okay and good to eat, and focus too much on eating foods that do not make you bulletproof. 

When eating a standard American diet, we unintentionally end up terribly addicted to sugar and refined carbohydrates, that we exhibit many withdrawal symptoms common with smokers who are quitting.  This term is commonly referred to as the low carb flu.  If you have already begun your transition into Paleo and are hitting roadblocks, check out Mark’s blogpost on carb flu. 

So how should you start?  Some folks go head first in, but I find big changes easier to commit to if you go gradually.  Try doing the following over the course of 30 days, so you are ready to go full Paleo.

Day 1 - Start cleaning out your cabinets and go shopping

If you don't have good self control, make it harder to eat bad food.  Throw away pasta, cookies, crackers, packaged foods, ice cream, juice, soda, ketchup, sugar, yogurt, soup.  When you are done, I imagine you'll have some olive oil, some canned tuna, some cans of tomatoes and tomato paste, and some vinegar in the fridge.  Keep it simple!  

Stock your house with Paleo foods.  Start with good beef (grass fed if you can find it), lamb, fresh salmon.  Throw in some pasture eggs or omega-3 eggs if you can find them.  Get tons of vegetables and stick to low carb veggies like asparagus  avocado, leeks, celery, fennel, cabbage, romaine  arugula, kale, spinach  summer squash.  If you love fruit, grab some berries but not too much fruit has a lot of sugar.  Get some good fats to eat like extra virgin olive oil, coconut, avocado oil.  And don't forget spices, grab small quantities whole if you can and grind them as needed.  Spices will keep things from getting boring so switch it up from time to time.  

Day 2 – Remove gluten entirely

Replace your plates of pasta and bread with more vegetables and fats.  Read labels as gluten is in so many processed foods.  Eating fat is so important you need the calories.  Some example good fats are egg yolks, fish oil, coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil, avocado oil.

Learn what gluten is and what it is in.  Read articles on gluten’s effect on your body’s metabolism, weight, inflammation (Google Scholar is great for this).  Some suggested searches are: gluten, gluten weight gain, gluten health)

Day 7 - Cut out sugar

No more soda, fruit juice, sugar in your tea.  Sugar shouldn’t need to be replaced if you were using it sparingly.  But when in doubt, eat more fat! If you are seriously dying not having something sweet, try a small serving of fruit like berries.

Research sugar and its effect on metabolism.  Learn how sugar effects insulin levels and leads to fat storage.  Some suggested searches are: sugar and type 2 diabetes, sugar and fat loss, fruit juice and weight gain

Day 14 - Cut out soy, corn, other grains like oats, and grain oils/vegetable oils

Soy is also in everything, and is anti-nutrient and phytoestrogenic.  Replace tofu and other factory soy meats with grass fed meat and pastured eggs (if you can afford them or find them).   

Ditch other grains and ditch the corn.  Corn is okay maybe every once in a while but HFCS and corn processed crud is in a lot of prepackaged food.  

Ditch the grain oils and vegetable oils.  This stuff is freakishly made and doesn't really do anything good for your health.  Need to use oil in something?  Grab coconut oil or extra virgin olive oil instead.   

Today's homework?  Learn how canola oil is made.  

Day 21 - Cut out synthetic additives and dairy

At this point, you have probably cut out enough stuff to not really need to explicitly cut out synthetic additives.  But this includes things like dyes, aspartame, MSG, flavorings, etc.   If you have been sticking to it, your pantry is probably pretty bare and your refrigerator is full of colorful vegetables, eggs, and meat. 

Dairy is a tough one.  Remove process, homogenized, and pasteurized dairy while you begin your transition.  You may be okay in the future to work dairy back in, but it depends on your ability to process casein and lactose.  Casein causes my blood sugar to spike, which is a sign I probably shouldn't eat dairy (casein has no carbs but 25 grams of unsweetened whey protein can cause a 70 point blood sugar spike).   If you must have some cheese or something, go raw cheese from grass fed cows if you can.

Research how aspartame affects brain function and fatigue.

Day 28 – Remove legumes (things like peanuts, chickpeas, black beans)

I don’t eat them or really miss them.  If you have to eat them, sprout and ferment them first.  If you are trying to lose weight and maintain high energy, remove them.   

Day 30 – Paleo Time!

You are basically in Paleo land now.  Around day 21 you probably realized you lost a bit of weight and your energy seems to be better than normal. 

If you feel flu like and exhausted, you are most likely not eating enough fat.  Log your meals on myfitnesspal.com for a few days and make sure you are eating 50-60% of your calories from fat.  Make sure you are eating enough!!!!

There are more changes on the diet side to take into consideration.  For brevity sake I will list them here:

• Replace grain fed meat with grass fed meat
• Replace factory eggs with pasture raised eggs
• Don’t overcook food, keep meats rare if possible, and cook gently.  I make a lot of slow cooker meals and chili (which is meat well done) but I try to eat some rare steaks and raw tuna a few times a week
• Switch to organic vegetables and organic everything else

Stay tuned for part two, where I will discuss the importance of exercise!

**NOTE**

After you commit to a 30 day ramp-up period, make sure you are actively researching this lifestyle change.  I suggest getting on reddit.com/r/paleo and paleohacks.com.  Start listening to Robb Wolf podcasts and reading marksdailyapple.com.  Buy yourself a copy of “The Paleo Solution” and get the Nom Nom Paleo recipe app for your iPad.  Start writing down recipes you like after perusing the 1000’s of Pintrest Paleo food boards.  If you can, get a good friend to hop on board so you have someone to share your progress with.  No friends interested? Post your progress here and to the other support forums like reddit!  Get jazzed for this!

Living With a Non Paleo Partner

I received a question from one of my readers and wanted to address it in this blog post:

From A.P.:

How do you deal with meal preparation with a partner that doesn’t follow the same diet?  How do you deal with getting tempted by your partner’s treats and snacks?

I actually live with and in love with a girl (we can call her N) who doesn't follow my modified [1] Paleo diet.  She eats a very typical SAD diet, with more carbs and grains that you can shake a stick at.  She frequently loves junk food, pizza rolls, creamy risotto, and huge plates of pasta. 

N’s got an interesting health bill.  Since we have dated, she has basically never been sick.  She’s maintained the same body weight in the last 2 years, with an unreal low percentage of body fat.  She has no auto-immune related problems, no family history of any real illness, and no real complaints about how she is feeling (outside of being tired here and there).  We used to talk about how it was so easy for me to put on weight eating pizza and how she would wake up the next day 2 pounds lighter.  It drove me nuts, but I chalked it up to my terrible metabolism I developed after becoming hypothyroid.

When I first decided to cut out gluten, I think it was pretty annoying for N.  If you jump 6 months ago, we were typically eating out 2 times a week, ordering a lot of pizza, making breaded fried pork with huge piles of potatoes.   Fast forward to gluten free, we aren’t going out very often and I’m making a lot more food at home.  Now I wasn’t strictly all gluten free, I was still having beer occasionally but I eventually cut that out too.   N would offer me some snack or make a treat in the kitchen and not realize that gluten was in the soy sauce or was in the salad dressing.   I then went full out on Janurary 1^st, with cutting out grains, soy, processed foods, sugars, and fruit. 

The first few weeks, I just cooked and ate all my own food.  I had N try some of my stuff, which she actually liked (especially the no-chili beef chili I made) and she continued to eat her own stuff.  I asked her what she thought about what I was doing, which she responded.  “I don’t like your diet at times, but you seem way more normal.  Your blood sugars are good all the time, and you are much more upbeat.  And because you like it, I want to support you and it does make me happy that you feel better”.  What a great thing to hear! 

After January, I have noticed a few changes that have happened with both N and I.  First and foremost, the junk food items have shrunk down to a minimum for N.  She hasn’t bought Pringles or much junk food at all outside of some frozen meals and pizza rolls.  She likes most of the food I’m making, and eats it when I offer it to her.  Sometimes I believe N thinks that I’m only cooking for myself, and will therefore eat some risotto or a huge plate of pasta, but I always try to make a little extra for her.  In the end, she probably hasn’t realized but she’s eating about 50% Paleo just by eating the stuff I’m making.  She has admitted to me on multiple occasions that she likes my food but she still loves carbs and grains.  She won’t ever go full Paleo, but I am okay with that.

I’m the only person in my tight group of friend that eats Paleo.  I wanted to do a blog post on siloed lifestyle change, when you completely change your life and find it hard to share or relate your experiences with friends and family who have not made the same commitments.  For one, most of my friends read the book “The China Study” and all became vegans right around the time I started researching my diet and decided on a Paleolithic structure.    Since our diets are drastically different, I at first found it hard to talk to them about what I was cooking, eating, loving, etc.  My family thought it was weird that I wasn’t eating gluten, or drinking beer, but like good parents my Mom/Dad said to do what makes me happy.  

So when I was first toying with writing about feeling siloed, I started to realize that I’m really not siloed at all.  My friends, who are vegan, although their approach is different, still are working on bettering their health (just like I am).  Now, I don’t agree at all with a vegan diet, but we can all agree that avocados taste great and that taking care of your bodies is a great idea.  My mother doesn’t eat Paleo but is happy to eat steaks and asparagus when she is visiting.  And the blog world[2] and reddit.com/r/paleo have been super fun to be involved.  I noticed that what I really meant by siloed was, I wished someone would do this along with me that I knew personally so we could share recipes and our progress.  I realized how much I depend on the acceptance of others and wish to relate to someone especially when completely changing your life.  When I came to this realization, I decided that I didn’t need someone to do exactly what I was doing.  I just needed myself to feel comfortable with what I was doing, to know that it was working based on how I’m feeling, and to talk to anyone who asks me about it and share my stories with those who will listen. 

Being okay being the only one wearing red to a party where everyone else is wearing blue is a powerful thing, if you love the way you feel in red.  It took some time to figure this out but since I have, I have been happier.   Just having support for something even if the support is coming from someone who can’t relate or may disagree with you, is a strong motivating factor.  I suggest that anyone you know who is working on self improvement, regardless of approach, you stand by and support them.  Support is a powerful motivator!

So what do we do when our partner supports us, but it’s 6pm and we are both hungry?

To really get down to how this works, if you are Paleo and your partner is not, cook Paleo all the time and always offer your partner the food.  Paleo food is delicious and isn’t crazy or bizarre.  Last night we ate huge bowls of chili and bacon fried cauliflower, 100% Paleo.  If you luck out and your partner isn’t a huge fan of cooking, I cook 90% of the food anyways. And N lately has been getting a bit interested in slow cooking and has been making some Paleo foods that we both can enjoy.  She still sneaks in her gorganozla crackers but we seemed to have found a balance where we are both enjoying what we like to eat, but don’t feel that exclusive.

What about when your partner eats cookies and  potato chips?  How do you not cave?

Now when  N eats all this totally rich in carby deliciousness goodness, I just remind myself that I have very strong will power and how being Paleo has fixed a lot of systemic issues from developing Diabetes at age 8 to putting on way too much weight.  After you fully commit to something and it works, the lure of cheating on food diminishes to a point where I can’t rationalize the decision.  This takes time and patience with you, and a serious commitment at first before it becomes second nature. 

In the end, good habits tend to rub off on people.  Continue to make healthy choices, and talk with friends and family who have questions about what you are doing.  Self improvement is inspiring and people who love you will always support that.  If your partner doesn’t fully agree with you or want to commit, just ask for their support and don’t force dogma down anyone’s throats.  What you do for yourself isn't always the best for everyone so stay humble but open.

-Arbit

[1] 

When I say modified, I eat grass fed butter.   I chose to eat butter when I read about butyrate and its effects on brain inflammation, blood chemistry (cholesterol normalization), and weight loss.  Inflammation is something I have to be very careful of; I have a tender immune system and would like to halt or prevent any further auto-immune related conditions.  Since I started eating more grass fed butter, I do feel like it’s rocket fuel when going on very low carb.  I have heard some folks have negative effects on cholesterol, so your mileage may vary. 

Butter holds a funny place in the Paleo universe.  Some say it’s cool some say it’s not.  Since I think it’s best to be flexible with one’s health, I’m going to keep eating it until some research or blood work tells me otherwise. 

I also eat raw honey, which his as you can imagine is debated quite a bit.  Did cave men harvest honey?  Probably not, but when you are a type 1 diabetic with an unexpected low blood sugar, you need something with a high glycemic index to get your sugars back in control.  And I think raw honey is the perfect fix for me when I need to make adjustments.

[2]

Two links I have been loving lately:

http://robbwolf.com/ - podcast rules.  Research Biochemist that talks fitness, food, and health.  Reads and fact checks like a mad man, completely love this blog.

http://nomnompaleo.com/ - the best recipe site for paleo food.  Seriously

Good...Bad...Good?

I was thinking about how we often double and tripled check our health and wellness choices, and sometimes we act purely on a feeling or observation after making a change.  I often catch myself wanting to have ‘factual’ or scientific evidence when I feel like something is working and will quickly start fact checking what I am doing. 

If you are fairly current with general wellness scene you will have a hard time finding a ‘global consensus’ on any one element of health or food.   I caught myself falling into this trap this week when I was questioning if all the butter I have been eating is good for me.  I read this article where this person got a wellness screening before and after starting ‘bulletproof’ coffee (something I drink on a daily basis).  His bad cholesterol shot through the roof, and although his good cholesterol rose, his HDL/LDL ratio was worse than before.  He concluded that this is not a good idea on a daily basis.

Now of course, I start to panic and think, “Damn I am probably ruining my heart with this breakfast routine”.  I started to look around for information to ‘support’ what I was doing and found some folks who anecdotally improved their HDL/LDL ratio with butter.  But the consensus wasn’t universal.   

Did I stop drinking coffee?  I thought about it and decided that everyone’s physiology is different.  That I feel great drinking this coffee, and I don’t have any evidence yet to determine if it’s a good decision in the long run.  When I get my WellnessFX profile done in last March, I will be interested to see how my numbers look.  It’s great to have a way to use science to verify your health choices, but I also think it’s important not to be overly obsessive. 

Being overly obsessive about labs and numbers is a good way for you to never feel comfortable with your choices.  I think it’s best to stick to a plan for a few months and compare against things you have done in the past.  Do you feel better?  Do you look better?  How are you sleeping? How is your energy?  How about lab results?   Sometimes our body can take a while to really adapt to any change; maybe 1 month on ‘bulletproof’ coffee wasn’t long enough for the body to adapt.  Maybe if he went for 3 more months, things would have gotten worse.

I think my take away is to keep doing what feels right and check with ‘numbers’ to make sure what I’m feeling isn’t going to hurt me in the long run.

Some links I was perusing when researching about cholesterol:

http://paleodietlifestyle.com/cholesterol-is-not-bad/ (no citations...take it as it is)

http://renegadewellness.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/cholesterol-mortality-chart.pdf (chart correlating cholesterol with mortality...can't find dataset of the chart...take it as is)

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/how-to-interpret-cholesterol-test-results/#axzz1shNljE68 (Reading lab results)

http://paleononpaleo.com/paleo-cholesterol-testing/ (story, personal experience)

People that say this shit is bullshit (read and draw your own conclusions of course):

Chris Kresser

Mark Sisson

Chris Masterjohn

Peter Attia

William Davis

Kurt Harris

Food Pyramids and Meal Breakdowns.

What does my diet look like?

Often times we read blogs or fitness plans that discuss how you should break down your food and nutrition requirements.  I did a few searches for food pyramids, thinking maybe someone would do the same and print them off and stick them on their refrigerator.   When you are first starting to eat different, it can be confusing on how much of what you are supposed to eat.  Diets typically do a good job of defining this, but I started to notice when searching around for something to print off that I noticed some differences (especially in Paleo food pyramids).

Lets break down by a few popular diets: Paleo, Vegan, Ketogenic.

Paleo:

and

Problems?

Nut consumption is different in both pyramids.  Fat ratios are completely different in both pyramids.  

Ketogenic:
                                       

and

Problems?

Some sugars are okay in one of the pyramids.  Although overall the pyramids seem to line up.  

Vegan:

and

Problems?

Not that many differences here.  So that's a bit more clear although besides legumes, it's unclear where you get your protein from.

Who am I?

Hello!

Being a first post and all, I should probably introduce myself.  My name is Scott Arbit, nice to meet you!

I was born about 28 years ago to a super awesome Mom and Dad.  At age 8, I developed Juvenile Diabetes, also known as Type 1 Diabetes.  This disease is an auto immune condition where you body attacks your pancreas, resulting in your body not being able to produce insulin.  With supportive parents and a great doctor, I was quickly able to gain control of my diabetes and continued to have a relatively normal childhood.  By age 15, I had developed another autoimmune condition called Vitiligo.  This is where your immune system attacks your skin pigmentation cells.  A frustrating disease, I learned to be okay with being a spotty colored kid and just wore plenty of sunscreen. 

During my 'development years' I kept a lean body weight of about 145 pounds, and I was about as skinny as they come.  No matter what I did, I was unable to gain weight.  I had an unparalleled amount of energy and was extremely hyperactive.  I often think of that time as one of the best in my life, where I felt physically energetic and was happy with my body and its metabolism.  My diet during this time was all over the map, primarily similar to the S.A.D. diet but even more junk food than most.

Around age 21, I started to gain weight at a pretty fast pace.  My endocrinologist thought it may be related to my thyroid gland and we eventually discovered that I had Hashimotos Thyroid disease.  I started on synthetic T4 (Synthroid), which elevated some of the symptoms of the disease, but had no impact on my body weight.

Around age 25 and feeling worse and worse, I decided to have some food intolerance tests done.  My 'wellness' doctor was able to determine I was Gluten intolerant and Casein intolerant.  Like any middle aged 20 or something, I ignored the test results, and cracked open a beer with a marble rye ham sandwich   I ignored any of the symptoms I had always felt when eating either gluten or milk, and decided it was the way it was.

For the next handful of years, I got in and out of exercise and diet programs.  I went low glycemic index carb high fiber for a while, with no real weight change.  I began to run a few times a week, with no real change in body weight but a bit of an energy boost.  I fell out of the running habit and then started eating more whole foods, raw agave nectar, protein shakes, and a whole lot more soy.  I was still putting on weight and really not seeing anything change.  I even tried to cut down on my meat intake and replace it with plant based proteins but still had issues controlling my energy and body weight.

Fast forward to age 28, where I realized I was feeling about the worst I have ever felt in my life.  Completely drained of energy I was putting on weight at an incredible pace.  At my worst, I weighed in around 192 pounds and had blood sugar swings all over the map.  I would eat a meal, and watch my blood sugars skyrocket until I was able to get them back in control.  I was still able to maintain an A1C of 6, but my sugar spikes were from very high to very low.  This made me extremely cranky, frustrated, and downright crazy feeling.

When I last saw my endocrinologist I lamented on how hard it's been for me to get my control tighter and lose weight.  He suggested that I try eating better and exercising.  I have always hated both, but figured, at this point I need to do something or I'm going to get sick.

I started by doing the P90 workout DVD.  In the course of the 3 months that I did it, I didn't lose any weight, but started to feel better and looked a bit more 'fit'.  During this time I ate somewhat better, but still had a diet primarily consisting of starchy carbs, protein, low fat, highly processed.

After spending some time on the internet, frustrated with how little things were changing, I found out about Paleo eating.  I started to read everything I could about the diet, and how our 'food pyramid' is way off.  I also learned that my macro and micro nutrient contents were not correct and I was eating tons of bad food.  Further research lead me to Dave and his Bulletproof Diet.  Dave's diet closely followed Paleo, but helped categorize foods based on scientific research and health benefits.  After collecting more and more information, I decided at first to completely cut out gluten.  After 3 weeks, I lost a handful of pounds and stopped sneezing or getting sleeping after eating.  Holy ****, this is great!  I then decided to cut out soy and other grains.  I kept feeling a health improvement   Around January I decided to go full modified Paleo (more info on what this means in a later blog post).  I also decided to go low carb due to the health benefits which I will discuss in further posts.  I have got my weight down to 172 pounds as of today and have more energy than I have had since I developed thyroid disease.

In addition to switching my food lifestyle, I began Crossfit for exercise.  I work out 4 times a week and have noticed a crazy surge in energy and body physique   I’ll discuss why Crossfit rocks in some later posts, but if you haven't heard Crossfit is functional high intensity workouts geared at making you overall fit (not bulky or ripped).

The combination of eating well and exercise has started to slowly transform me into a much healthier and happier person!

Since I come from a scientific background and love emerging research, I wanted a place to collect my personal discoveries and experiments with food, fitness, and health.  In addition, I plan on keeping my posts research centered  and hopefully well vetted articles to clear up the plethora of misinformation that plagues health and fitness.  I dedicate plenty of time reading research journals and cross examining information, and would love to share that with you, my readers.

Please feel free to comment with your story and how food and fitness has changed your life.