U R What U Eat

The third aspect of overhauling one’s physical being is diet (sleep and exercise being the other two).

No single aspect of health is so complicated, contradictory and overwhelming.

Here’s my take. And mind you, I have absolutely no credentials whatsoever, save life experience and something like two dozen complicated, contradictory and overwhelming books that I have either skimmed or studied.

My best advice: Eat as close to vegan as possible without being a vegan.

But it’s not a zero-sum game. Recognize right now that your diet is less than optimal and it is effecting you, manifesting in subpar performance on some level. Every effort you make towards eating as close to vegan as possible without becoming a vegan will improve your physical well-being.

You all know that the healthiest way to eat more is to eat less. How’s that? Well, by eating less you’ll live longer, so cumulatively you’ll be able to gross more chow.

(Somehow, that last sentence has curbed my appetite.)

So, if I could condense all the things that I’ve learned, that made sense to me, that I have tested out to varying degrees, into a few pithy points, I guess it would be this:

1. Eat six smaller meals spaced equally throughout the day.

Everybody says and writes this. I think it’s to balance out your blood sugar spikes as well as your hunger to keep you from overindulging. I also read somewhere that an average-sized average meal takes three hours to go through your digestive tract (fruit being the exception), so ideally you want to space your meals three hours apart.

2. Make at least two of those six meals consist only of fruit or only of vegetables, preferably raw.

If you ate only raw fruits and veggies, you’d live to be 120. You know that, right? The best way to do this is to get all your fruits and veggies for the whole week Sunday morning at the grocery store. Cut up whatever you need to Sunday afternoon, and it will be available in the fridge all week long.

3. Drink gallons of the best-quality water available to you.

I add lemon and it makes it tasty and easy to go down. Currently, thanks to not adhering to this rule and what I shove down my gullet, I am plagued with dehydration, and that affects everything negatively: energy levels, sleep quality, state of mind, you name it.

4. Limit red meat.

I’m not militantly anti-meat. Indeed, hypocrite LE had roast beef, ham, and turkey sandwiches twice a day since Sunday (leftovers from my father-in-law’s birthday party). But it did give me fierce heartburn. I do enjoy a good steak, say, two or three times a year, usually in the winter, usually at a restaurant. Burgers are craved in the summer, though there are very, very good veggie burgers made nowadays that you can pick up in your grocery store. Again, it ain’t zero-sum. Limit the red meat more than you limit the white meat, but cut back on both.

5. Stop eating white sugar and white flour!

White = Bad. Very, very bad. Bad as in cancer bad. Cut back seriously on candies, cookies, cakes, crackers, etc, etc, etc. When I’m good (which is rare, as this is my current Achilles’ heel) I try to indulge just once a day, like two cookies before bed. When I’m bad, I’m feasting on this junk all day long.

A corollary, which I have read in more than one place and is such a neat soundbite, is: Don’t eat anything that comes in a box. That ain’t food. Nature doesn’t box her bounty.

6. Limit alcohol.

Okay, I really wanted to write “Eliminate Alcohol.” Today marks my one year anniversary alcohol-free, partly by choice, partly not, and let me tell you: I may not feel better but I know in my heart I’d certainly feel worse if I was a regular drinker. From what I’ve read, you shouldn’t drink really any more than once a week, and never to the point of drunkenness. But don’t think that you have to drink because of those endless studies you hear about red wine being good for you. I’ve read convincingly that a handful of grapes and an aspirin will give your heart the same benefits.

So I eat a lot of grapes.

Well, these are my handful of dietary rules. Again, I have no qualifications, but I have noticed that when I follow these rules I feel better.

How about you?

Bonus, and perhaps a subject for a later post: Fast every now and then.