What do you think? Leave it all in the comments.

So how do you get around this? Think in the long range. Conceptualize your new diet in simple terms: how much time do you want to spend thinking about it? If you’re anything like me, when you start, that answer is, “Not much.” It’s no fun constantly thinking about the months-distributed change you won’t see well day-by-day, so think of each day as a singular goal. Did you take a walk today, and substitute a salad for a starchy/greasy meal? Congratulations! You totally won. Tomorrow you’ll do it again, but that’s tomorrow; worry about it then. Don’t beat yourself up for doing something against the rules; just concentrate on how good you’ve been the rest of the day, and will be again tomorrow. It’s okay to try the cookies, or the cake, once in a while.

Meanwhile, there’s exercise. All you really need is about 20 minutes/day of medium cardio. That can mean taking a walk after dinner, or if you’re an early riser, before work or class. So if you’re doing more than that – while sticking to a lighter diet, full of vegetables and a moderate quantity of fruits – expect to see more of a difference in your waistline. But remember, the goal here, as with your evolving diet, is to find rhythms that work for you. This isn’t a temporary fix, or three-week beach abs. It’s your body. Your life. How you wanna live it?

Try making some simple (if sweeping) rules about what you will and won’t indulge in, and feel good about following them. The first few weeks of developing new habits are always the hardest, but soon you’ll be distinguishing your particular needs from the pangs of unfamiliarity. (And don’t worry; everyone sorts this out.) After a while – a few weeks, a month, whatever feels right – try introducing a new rule, and repeat.

The world, by and large, is not out to help you with this. And just as your coworkers might be satisfied with the result of making sure every leaf is covered in Honey Mustard, many corporations market deliberately to muddy the facts. If cigarette manufacturers get away with it, what makes food any different? Diet and exercise are personal decisions. When you find someone else who believes in it as you do, give yourself permission to geek out a little with him or her. Socializing shares some of the burden.

For the moment, the FDA still requires food manufacturers to print their nutrition facts, so have a look at the items in your basket before you leave the aisle. Consider if it meets your long-term goals, or your short-term needs. One of the reasons the Co-op’s such an essential resource is the fantastic, food-obsessed staff; they’ll often do the research for you, just because they care about what they eat – and what they offer.

The last month I’ve been juicing every morning. I mix a hearty scoop of protein powder in with an ever-shifting mix of veggies (carrots, broccoli, kale, collards, leeks, onion slices, beets, escarole, zucchini, spinach, red & green cabbage and more have all made appearances), and tip that surprisingly sweet nectar for breakfast. This provides a great deal of vitamins at the start of the day, without unnecessary carbs or calories – I sit at a desk all morning, c’mon.

Start with something like this…

All this juice creates a lot of pulp. Seems an awful waste to toss all those nutrient-heavy veggie-leftovers in the trash – in my current living situation, I’m in no position to compost. A quick web search returned a lot of iterations of the same idea: toss said pulp in a pot, add garlic and onions, boil for an hour, and strain: boom! Instant stock!

There are so many benefits to this process:

• Juicing, you’re first getting a ton of the good stuff out of your vegetables, which the body processes almost immediately into the bloodstream.
• You get a second life out of all that heavily nutritious pulp, which saves you the cost of store-bought stock or boulianne cubes. If you arein a position to compost, kick that number up to 3x the use from that simple produce.
• Since you’re creating this stock, you’re in control. Don’t like cooked celery? Don’t add it! Want an all-organic stock? Buy all-organic produce, and get twice the use out of it.
• You’d be shocked how good a randomly amalgamated pot of vegetables tastes with some simple spicing. Many veggies go very well together, and a little additional salt and garlic goes a long way. This weekend I tried adding a solitary boulianne cube for some extra kick, and the results were marvelous.

…to wind up with this.

In tough economic times, it can make a big difference in our budgets to make our food stretch further. I hope this little addendum encourages you to try your own homemade broth.

Already juicing? Got a killer recipe you think other Co-op shoppers could benefit from? Leave it in the comments! And happy brothing.

First, let me clear something up right now. If you’re tempted to combine Juice Fasting and Intermittent Fasting: don’t. I know, sounds obvious enough, right? Why would you deny yourself food the first half of the day, then consume only liquids for six hours, then go back to fighting the urge to blend another cucumber? Because it’s real easy to go overboard.

Both kinds of fasting promise (and deliver) healthy weight-loss, but within their own systems. To review terms: Juice Fasting is just what it sounds like, an all-liquid diet of home-made juices. You control what goes into them – a good friend buys Naked Juice in big bottles – and can manage your caloric/nutritional intake. Intermittent Fasting forces a more sensitive relationship with insulin by denying you solid food during some predetermined period of the day. You might elect for 16 hours fasting, 8 hours eating (16/8), or if you’re feeling really ambitious, 20 hours fasting, 4 hours eating (20/4). Me, I go in for about 18/6.

The energy I get immediately from a good hearty juice – say, several carrots, a beet, a few zucchinis, a wedge of red cabbage and some fennel, to keep it interesting – is profound. Unlike caffeine, which for me often feels like being propped up, this is a boost from within. A ‘get outside and run around a bit’ rush; a ‘go lift heavy things for a minute’ rush. I’m also getting to try out all these roots and vegetables I was always uncertain of – juicing means something I don’t like can always be compensated for. I’d long been able to feel the energy difference between organically-grown produce and the so-called “conventional stuff.” But who knew I had such a thing for daikon radishes?

The energy I get from my first solid meal of the day, circa 1:00, is likewise profound. Waiting that long to eat – drinking mostly tea and water through the morning – gives the first meal both terrific flavor and shrinks the stomach, so it takes considerably less to reach capacity. Considering most of my day is passed in a seated position performing knuckle exercise on a keyboard, I don’t really need that much fuel. A small salad at 1:00, I’m finding, is perfect. Followed with copious water and tea, I’m good to go.

Both options, seems, are fine ways to encourage your body back toward healthy practices. Obviously, they each require some forethought and maintenance: an all-juice diet is low on a number of items, like protein, and you could just as easily eat cookies for your six feeding hours as salad materials. (I think you’d notice the energy difference pretty quick.) I find it helps to remind myself these are just frameworks to help the body get back on track, and each meal is a tiny, fun project. I don’t know if this is a life-long eating pattern for me, and that’s okay right now. At least it’s got me on a nickname basis with most of the Valley Produce staff.

Meanwhile, I hit the gym to run and lift three days/week. I tried to bracket those workouts with solid food, so I’d have enough calories to burn during, and plenty to keep my bloodsugar from tanking after. It was a disaster: I could never get portions right, often felt underfed, and irritable.

So here’s what I’ve come up with: intermittent fasting with juicy flair. On non-workout days, I start with an all-vegetable juice and 35g of pea protein powder. It’s vitamin-rich, under 300 calories, and gives the stomach something to work on during the long stretch between waking and first meal. Between 1:00 – 7:00, I make a salad, reheat soup, munch some fruit, make a sandwich, sneak a cookie, or whatever, and target 1800 calories. (I’m trying to add a little running to the mix on those days, so I may bump that number a little higher. If you’re at this moment tuning out at the mention of calorie-counting, relax – it’s not only for starting out, but redundant if you’re eating mostly vegetables.) Workout days are essentially the same, but I try to give my stomach a little more, and a little earlier.

So far, I’ve lost five pounds in three weeks. So I’ll see you at the Co-op, right?

Luckily, I did not succumb to a full-level bacchanalia of hard eating, drinking, and snacking, as in years past, so that right there is something to feel a touch grateful for, and maybe even lend some buoyancy to the work to come.

Work to come? Did I say that? Well, yes. The thing about attaining Physical Fitness is that it requires work to attain it, and ongoing work to maintain yet, once achieved. I do not mean work in the Ur-Calvinist sense of the term, wherein you have to struggle all the time and feel badly about smiling at something. I mean work in the real, practical sense: using effort and discipline to achieve and maintain a goal.

And a goal is what I’m working on here, so let’s define what physical fitness will be to yours truly.

As of this writing I weigh a substantial 220 lbs. This has been my approximate weight, give or take five pounds, for about the past seven years. My stated and hoped-for goal is to weigh 200 lbs. or less (and be healthy doing it) by my birthday in June, so I need to lose about 20 lbs between here and there to meet that goal. That’s about 3.5 lbs./month. Very doable.

My current resting heart rate is 68 beats-per-minute. Data for what this figure means varies depending on the source, but broadly speaking I fall into the “normal-to-good” range for a male my age. The better your overall physical condition, the more efficiently your heart works, and the lower the overall rate. Elite athletes (think a Michael Phelps, Venus Williams, or LeBron James) can have resting heart rates as low as 47. That’s a mighty fit heart.

I am working on getting into better shape, and I have no immediate plans to run a marathon or scale K2 wearing stilts or some such, so for my purposes I would like to have my resting heart rate drop to 60 or fewer per minute. Again, being healthy doing so.

I made mention of focusing on my eating habits more closely, but I traveled out of state for a wedding recently and ate a tremendous quantity of tremendously delicious food. So for the moment I am begging off describing a “typical” day of meals, as I don’t eat duck-fat-cooked French fries or lobster rolls on a regular basis (though I would certainly like to).

My next entry, oh diary, will describe my food habits in a typical day, along with some further look-ins on my current health picture.

Oh, and I had asked what a galaxy, a pinecone, and sugar have in common.

All three contain large amounts of carbon, and indeed require carbon in order to maintain themselves. Imbalances or disproportions of carbon will result in the destruction of our three friends, and over the course of my fitness journey I will take a closer look at the role that carbon (and other elements) plays in my own body, and life, and what lessons/modeling can be drawn from our sweet and woody celestial trio.

Until next time, think good thoughts.

Stay Up
A.C.

Beethoven once said only the pure of heart can make a great soup. Perhaps he should have stuck to music, because I’ve never found soup that hard to make. Or perhaps there’s more folks “pure of heart” than anyone would have suspected. I just follow a few, simple rules, with fine results.

Use a flavorful broth or stock. I have a hundred cookbooks and they are all in agreement on this. It’s very hard to get good flavor if you don’t use a flavorful base. I prefer my own homemade broth, but I don’t always have an hour or two to tinker in the kitchen, and I find most of the packaged broths that the Co-op carries (Shelton’s, Imagine and Pacific brands) to be very good substitutes. I make soup too often, however, to pack that volume of packaged broth in the cabinets, which lead me to Better Than Bouillon soup base. They have reduced sodium choices, which don’t get too salty as the soup cooks. They also make good vegetarian bases.

So what’re my secrets?

• Build flavor by browning the meat and onions first. I sometimes add tomato paste, mushrooms and soy sauce during browning, depending on the recipe. If I’m going to add wine, I use it to deglaze after browning. These ingredients all contain natural glutamates, which bring out a rich, savory flavor.
• Add the remaining ingredients in the order of longest to shortest cooking times: carrots first, potatoes later. That way each ingredient is cooked according to its individual needs.
• Brighten the soup at the end. A splash of vinegar, lime or lemon juice can really draw out the flavor without adding salt. Sprinkle in some chopped, fresh herbs, like cilantro, mint or basil, or some feta crumbles or grated parmesan. A little hot sauce maybe? How about a dollop of pesto or sour cream? You’d be amazed what a difference it can make!

This winter, I’m hooked on grass-fed beef stew: the whole family likes it, which makes dinner a cinch. When the latest virus knocks at the door, everyone gets chicken soup with garlic. I am also a big fan of green chile stew and tomato soups, of which there are endless varieties.

It’s hard to imagine a winter without soup. Stop by the Co-op tonight and pick up some pre-made stock, or a box of bouillon, and start your winter night warm, easy, and satisfied.

And I guarantee you: if it didn’t have eyes, in the last six years I’ve eaten it at a Holiday table. Candied yams, butter-dipped steamed collars, canned cranberries and mashed potatoes, homemade sugar-cookies and biscochitos, hand-crafted nachos and 75-layer dip, SO MUCH STUFFING, a 15-passenger salad, cheese enchiladas, veggie tamales, bean & cheese burritos, SO MUCH CHILE… and on. Once, I even ate a bowl of my best friend’s grandma’s posole – I had to know what he meant by “Mexican Ambrosia.” Come the first week of November, I start sharpening my fork.

And all that undoes much of my goals every other morning of the year: eat mostly fruits and vegetables until satisfied, exercise, and keep off the 40 lbs. I lost in 2009. In the last year I’ve even been working out, and deepening the bond between brain and belly. I learned tricks to muscle my way through what seemed a small meal – my most effective was visualizing how I’d feel about that cookie tomorrow morning – and it became easier. Of course, if you’re the gregarious type, who connects with friends over lunch, dinner, drinks, or at anyone’s house, at any hour considered normal snacking-appropriate, it’s Herculean. But if you’re like me, the slow realization that you have control over your physiology can be itself a hammer of the Gods.

The Holidays always break me of good habits. I remember a time before the Holidays, approaching my body differently, and every year it’s a struggle to return to it. In my fantasy, it’s the dawn of summer, I’ve returned the last of my tummy to the universe, in the form of heat and reduced need, and I look awesome at the beach. I turn 30 this summer, and intend to ring in the new decade with habits (and evidence of them) my body deserves.

This is the start of a series I’ll be posting here about my adventure through the last steps. The ones everyone knows require gritted teeth. Is Juicing the way? Intermittent Fasting? A carefully-vetted diet of salad and protein powder? I don’t know. I’ll be talking to my physician, a personal trainer I have a few hours banked with, and, in my case, trying to kick the last of my gut. We present it in tandem with Atlas Charles’s series from earlier (or later, depending on your perspective) in the process. As he rides his way to a slimmer frame, for the moment I’ll be exploring a combination Juice and Intermittent Fasting.

Social accountability, here we go.

Please note that this series – and this blog – are not a source of medical advice. This blog is intended for entertainment purposes, in no way makes medical recommendations, and should not be taken for such. Please consult a medical professional with any questions.

If I had to pick one food to live on forever, I’d pick the sweet potato.  It seems sad it’s so associated with autumn.  It’s got “prevent childhood blindness” levels of vitamin A, enough sugar and starch to satisfy any winter-craving belly, and seems to help the body regulate blood sugar.  The sweet potato’s also so filled with antioxidants that it protects the body from a lot of different challenges.

It’s no wonder that these humble lumps are grown and eaten around the world.  But the most important reason I’m eating sweet potatoes is that they are delicious.  It’s only icing on the cake that I’m eating something genuinely good for me.  Personally, I always opt for organic sweet potatoes, since they tend to draw up toxins from the soil.

My preference is to cube, then steam or roast.  I can serve them as a very respectable side just like that, or mash or whip them with butter and salt, maple syrup, or lime juice.  I can sauté them with greens and a little garden basil.  I can throw them right into soup or chili, or I can purée some with broth and spices, for another soup entirely.  Because the texture of butternut squash and other winter squash are so similar, I sometimes cheat a little, when the potato’s not yet in season. Butternut and winter squash also have high levels of beta carotene and dietary fiber.

If we’re supposed to eat the rainbow every day, bright and sunny sweet potatoes are the yummy way to see to see your orange needs are met.

Editor’s note: This post was written in October, and though it’s only finding the light today, we thought there’s really no bad time of year to enjoy a sweet potato dish. And as we plough forward through the coldest time of year, what vegetable better connotes warmth? Sweet potatoes are still available in the Produce dept., and even more deserving of a good purée than ever.

I was riding my bike in the morning cold, huffing a bit and cursing the chill, when it hit me: I am getting fat and lazy.

I eat pretty well, but too much and not carefully and mindfully enough. I exercise, but fitfully and almost grudgingly. I am reasonably healthy, but have a tough time shaking colds and haven’t had a health workup for years.

Of course, all of this is stuff that I have thought about time and again. But this time, I have decided to act upon it.

So here is the question: Can an American male who certainly qualifies as middle-aged somehow find, in the midst of holiday indulgences and excesses, a pathway not only to not gaining weight, but to becoming, in the New Year, healthier and skinnier than he has been in decades? Can I make it into and through the holidays not only maintaining my weight and mien but actually losing weight and getting healthier—and maybe even happier?

I believe it is possible. In fact, I am willing to lace up my boots and proclaim so here, in public, for all and sundry to see.

Over the next month or three, expect to see postings from yours truly as I work on detoxing my body of processed ingredients and general free radicals, finding out the specific picture of my overall health with the help of a doctor and nutritional advice, lowering my resting heart rate, getting more exercise, and getting my weight below 200 pounds for the first time in over a decade.

Can it be done? You bet it can.

Until then, here’s something to ponder: What do a galaxy, a pinecone, and sugar molecules have in common?

Welcome back, friends old and new, to the Food Notes blog. Thanks for dropping in in this cold Solstice month.

We’ll be shaking things up here in 2012, with regular postings from some of your favorite Co-op pontificators – and a few you don’t yet know – and an exciting new layout. Please come visit again soon, and get ready for fun, delicious opinions on where to find food, health and wellbeing at your Co-op.