The QLog

Diet Day and 14 More Years!

If weight loss or fitness is a goal for 2008, then these two items might interest you.

1. National Diet Day is the Second Tuesday of January (today). No, this is not a day to pick a fad diet. Instead, it is recommended that you choose a long-term plan and adopt healthy lifestyle habits that includes a smart diet that you can sustain for many years.

2. The PLoS Medicine, a peer-reviewed open access journal, published a new study today that concluded that four very basic and easy behaviors could add as many as 14 years to one's lifespan. The evidence came from the EPIC-Norfolk Prospective Population Study which had a large data set of 20,244 men and women.

The four longevity lifestyle behaviors are:

• not smoking
• being physically active
• moderate alcohol intake
• eating at least five vegetable servings a day

If you are looking for some lifestyle habits to improve your life, these are obviously a good four to adopt today.

Here is the download citation for the full article:

Combined Impact of Health Behaviours and Mortality in Men and Women: The EPIC-Norfolk Prospective Population Study Khaw KT, Wareham N, Bingham S, Welch A, Luben R, et al. PLoS Medicine Vol. 5, No. 1, e12 doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0050012

Here is the link to the PLoS editorial on the article:

From Theory to Practice: Translating Research into Health Outcomes The PLoS Medicine Editors PLoS Medicine Vol. 5, No. 1, e15 doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0050015

The Great Pumpkin!

Until recently, I only considered the Pumpkin in three limited contexts:

• Scary Jack-O-Lanterns
• Salty Pumpkin Seeds
• Delicious Pie

I thought as Pumpkin as a subpar food and mostly a relic of an earlier age. I thought the inclusion of the Pumpkin into the American autumn holidays of Halloween and Thanksgiving was merely due to tradition.

This year, I've have a new appreciation of Pumpkins and have a whole new viewpoint. Instead, I understand that they are an excellent food, a superfood! In fact, they are the GREAT Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! Here is why I love this fruit (yes, Pumpkin is a fruit):

1) Pumpkin flesh has a high fiber content.
2) It is also very low calorie!   
3) Pumkin has significant amounts of Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Calcium, Potassium and Iron.
4) Pumpkin possesses dense phytonutrients that prevent cancer and promote longevitiy, especially alpha-carotene and beta-carotene. A serving of Pumpkin has more alpha-carotene than any other common food source.
5) The canned version is a year-round product and has the same health benefits and is very easy to prepare.

Plus, the seeds are a good source of omega-3 and omega-6 essential fatty acids and contain cucurbitacins that are anti-cancer phytonutrients too.

So, I have added Pumpkin to my regular diet this fall, and plan to keep it a staple year round. 

Tyromancy

Perhaps this is a legacy of being raised in Wisconsin which was known as “America’s Dairyland” when I was growing up; however, here is my new favorite word: tyromancy. It means to divine the future by studying the patterns that form during the coagulation of cheese!

Every now and then, I see house with a sign outside advertising that an authentic palm reader or psychic resides within and is immediately available for consultation. Perhaps I could learn this ‘art’ and become the premier practiconer of tyromancy for the 21st century! I could setup a cool website and have groovy business cards that state:

Thom Quinn
Master Tyromancer

Of course, I’m just kidding. Nevertheless, the evolution of language is fascinating (at least, to me and professional linguists). Today, this word is a fossil; however, at an early time, there were enough individuals practicing this particular methodology to understand the future that a distinct term was deemed neccessary by society-at-large.

I wonder what common words today will become laughable in a few hundred years.

The Share Diet Plan

This is very simple and it is eatting with significance. Here is how it works:

1)      Pick one night a week and plan to fast that evening for the next 52 weeks. You should eat a healthy breakfast and lunch that day.

2)      Calculate the amount of money you would have spent on dinner for that night over a single year.

3)      Donate that sum to a charity that focuses on feeding others from starving kids to homeless shelters.

5 Plus 2

I’ve talked to over 25 dietitians and nutritionists over the past 18 months. So far, not a single one has disagreed with this 5 Plus 2 strategy: eat SEVEN servings of fruits and/or vegetables per day! The standard recommendation from the US Government is five per day. Most Americans have a hard time eating 35 serving a week; however, I challenge you to go beyond, especially during the holiday season where treats seem to lurk on every table. Instead, be healthier and strive for 49 serving every single week.

To learn more about the benefits of eating fruits and vegetables, check out www.5aday.gov

Productivity 101 (Day 47): Eat Less

“Eat not to dullness” - Benjamin Franklin

“We seldom repent of having eaten too little.” - Thomas Jefferson

I can not count the number of times I’ve heard people come back from lunch and complain, either publicly at a meeting or privately at their cubicle that they have a “food coma” due to eating too much. Of course, I think everyone can remember going to a party, celebration, or feast when they had consumed so many calories that we were tired and lazy the rest of the day.

On the short term, eating less overall calories, but more often (every 2-3 hours) will keep you more energetic and alert. Try to insure your portions are smaller at breakfast, lunch and dinner.  In between meals, avoid processed foods and sugary treats. Instead, focus on fresh fruit, vegetables, or items with high protein like a can of tune or a boiled egg.

The long-term benefit is simple: eating less will either help you lose weigh or maintain your current one.

Eating less is a simple productivity strategy that anyone can employee. Why not begin today?

Productivity 101 (Day 12): The 80/20 Kitchen

Question for the Day: Does one really need two crock-pot slow cookers or three blenders?  

A few days ago, I got a wonderful surprise from my grandma: a popover pan! If you are new to ‘joy of popovers’ I suggest you check out The Perfect Popover site for more background.

However, after bringing this gift home, I realized that my kitchen drawers and cabinets were completely full. I didn’t have room to store it….or did I?

I began to reflect on the Pareto Principle. Then I remembered Dr. Joseph Juran’s phrase of the “vital few and the useful many” as he preferred to call it later in his life. I think the majority of people who spend a great deal of time in their kitchen will agree that they use approximately 20% of their pots, pans, utensils, gadgets, and labor-saving devices 80% of the time. Conversely, 80% of the other items are only occasionally part of the food-preparation process (e.g. 20% of the time or even less).

This meant that the majority of the things in my kitchen were used a minority of the time, and these rarities were taking up valuable space. So, I decided to spend this Saturday morning re-examining my entire kitchen in order to eliminate some of the clutter. Here are the basic guidelines I used to re-create my 80/20 Kitchen:

1)      Broken Rule: If an item was damaged in any way, I would no longer store it (for parts or to be repair later), but promptly throw it away.

2)      Lack of Use Rule: If I had something in my kitchen which I had not used in the past three years, I would donate it to a friend, family or a charity.

3)      Redundancy Rule: If I had two or more of an identical item, I would donate one to a friend, family. or a charity.

My Answer for the Day: No, I did not need so many crock-pots (2) or blenders (3). In addition, did I not need a broken egg timer nor an unopened cheese slicer from 2002.

The Bottom Line: With the above basic guidelines, it was easy to decide what to remove and what to keep, without nostalgia clouding my judgments. After the clutter was taken away, it was easy to optimize the kitchen and I knew everything remaining would be used. Plus, it felt good to know that these other items would be functional again and not simply lying dormant in my kitchen.

The good news is that my new popover pan has a very happy home, my kitchen is more organized, and there is a lot more empty space in my cabinets and drawers. This activity is something anyone can do in a few hours and it has an immediate pay-off (both functional and emotional). I suggest you try this exercise and re-organize so you can have an 80/20 kitchen too.

The Four Word Diet, Part 3

Is there an easy, affordable, and effective way to implement the Four Word Diet? I think so. Yet, this is no free lunch (pardon the pun). It does require an investment of time, energy, and thought.

Eat Less
Reducing the number of calories one ingests on a daily basis can be achieved without beginning a strict regiment. How? Simply reduce the portion of the food you currently eat at each meal. Start with 10% less. A balanced diet is the next step. I highly suggest eliminating fast food and striving to eat, at minimum, 5 fresh fruits or vegetables a day.

Exercise More
One of the best solutions does not require a gym membership, but will require a small investment of about $30 dollars and is available to the vast majority of people: Manpo-kei. I’m talking about walking! This Japanese word literally translates to “10,000 steps meter” and this means you’ll need to purchase a reliable pedometer to measure the numbers of steps you take. In addition, I highly suggest you keep a daily journal or log this within a spreadsheet to count the number of steps you take daily with the goal of gradually increasing this number to 10,000 a day. This can be done by increasing the number of steps by 20% a week from your initial count or by adding 500 more steps every two weeks.

Is 10,000 a magic number? Not really. It is a useful one and an easy to remember number. Although every person has an individual stride length, 2000 steps is approximately equal to a single mile, so 10,000 steps equals five miles or so. Although every person has a different metabolism, walking a mile typically burns 100 calories, so, walking 10,000 steps is the equivalent (give or take a few) of burning 500 calories. WOW. And while you walk, you can enjoy nature, think about the mysteries of the universe, or listen to educational programs/audiobooks/music via headphones. If you walk with a friend or loved one, you can have a meaning conversation while staying healthy together.

Two experts and researchers in this field provide the following Lifestyle Guidelines:

• < 5,000 Steps: Sedentary
• 5,001 - 7,499: Low Active
• 7,500 - 9,999: Somewhat Active 
• >10,000: Active
• >12,500: Highly Active

Tudor-Locke, C., & Bassett, D.R. Jr. (2004). How Many Steps/Day Are Enough? Preliminary Pedometer Indices for Public Health. Sports Medicine, 34(1): 1-8.

Bottom Line
The Four Word Diet is very possible, but it is a choice and requires consistent action and can not be a ‘part time’ endeavor. Also, I strongly suggest that before beginning ANY weight loss program that you first consult with your primary physician or a heath care professional.

The Four Word Diet, Part 2

The Four Word Diet seems so simple: Eat Less, Exercise More. Yet, obesity is a real problem in America. Why? There are two major forces behind this:

·         We have many opportunities to eat beyond what is truly necessary for growth or maintenance of our bodies. For most of human history, food was expensive and/or scarce. The main methods for acquiring food (hunting, gathering, and farming) were labor-intensive and did not always produce results. Also, cyclic events, such as drought, famine, and disease could greatly impact the available supply when local foodstuffs were really 99% of what was consumed by people. In 21st Century America, food is extremely cheap and abundant. It is easily procured without much effort from a fast food restaurant or a mega-sized grocery store.

·         We move less than we should. Unlike most places in Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America, the design of cities and neighborhoods of the USA are centered on the automobile. The main assumption is that people will drive from location to location when they need to go somewhere. Although there are environmental reasons and community quality issues that should force one to question the wisdom of urban sprawl, from a wellness perspective, this has resulted in a population that is dependent on their cars. Although there are exceptions, few people can do all the following from their residence on a regular basis: walk to work, walk to the store, and walk to a nearby café or pub. There are many people who rarely have to walk more than several hundred steps each day. Of course, sedentary entertainment choices, including TV, Movies, and the Internet, contribute to this 'moving less and less' phenomena as well.

In our modern ecology, our health and wellness needs to be an active choice. Likewise, every single meal is choice…or should be seen as a series of choices (what kind of food to eat, how much to eat). The Four Word Diet then is based on deciding to follow those principles and make the correct choices, each day, at every meal, for a lifetime.

The Four Word Diet, Part 1

This formula will never result in a best-selling diet book, but here is <drum roll, please> the Four Word Diet plan: Eat Less, Exercise More! Although some charlatans will always be peddling magic potions and so-called 'super-scientific' methods for shedding pounds, Caveat Emptor. There are three main ways to lose weight:

1) You can eat less (e.g. reduce the input of calories).

2) You can exercise more (e.g. increase the output of calories as energy so they are not stored as fat).

3) You can do both! The best strategy is to eat less and exercise more as changing both variables is the most effective method.

The key to weight loss is simply to burn more calories than one has ingested on a daily basis and to do that consistently over a period of time until one achieves an ideal or target weight.