fitfather

Jared? You can shut up now.

If you watch TV at all, you've probably seen a commercial for Subway sandwiches, featuring Jared - that dude who used those same sandwiches to help control his eating and managed to lose a lot of weight doing so.  Congratulations Jared - I have tremendous respect for someone who can lose over a hundred pounds at all.  That he has managed to turn his weight-loss efforts into a lucrative spokesman job must be gravy (I make no assumptions that this blog, when I get down to 175 pounds of whatever, will suddenly start making me lots of money).  I think though, that it's time for Jared to move on.

Jared's continuing presence on the Subway commercials is designed to lend veracity to Subway's claims that their sandwiches are healthful.  In a currently airing commercial, they compare a particular Subway sandwich with chicken to a Burger King sandwich with chicken.  They cherry pick the fat numbers as an illustration of the relative healthy qualities of each sandwich - the Subway sandwich predictable has little fat, while the Burger King sandwich has an excessive amount.  The viewer can then extrapolate from this context free statistic that the Subway sandwich is good for you, while the Burger King sandwich is not.  My problem is not that Subway is lying about the Burger King sandwich being good for you - the sandwich they chose for their illustration (the Tender Crisp) is a whopper (ha!) to the body - but both the assertion that Subway sandwiches are good for you and the way they go about doing it.

Subway deliberately chooses the worst (nutritionally speaking) chicken sandwich Burger King makes.  Let's look at one of the worst sandwiches Subway makes - the tuna sub.  The 6" version has 530 calories and 31 grams of fat, not to mention over 1000 mg of sodium.  The chicken teriyaki (the subject of the commercial, I believe) has over 1200 mg of sodium - almost the entire recommended daily requirement.  Burger King makes a chicken whopper - this has only 570 calories and 25 grams of fat - very similar to the Subway tuna (a sandwich that you might foolishly think was actually going to be good for you).  I hate cherry picked statistics. 

I don't mean to be too hard on Subway here - I actually like some of their sandwiches, I like that you can get fresh vegetables on them (which is in my opinion really the thing that sets them apart from other fast food restaurants).  But Subway is still fast food - this means it is processed with way too much salt, and there are plenty of unhealthy options on their menu.  You need to be especially careful if you order a 12" sub.

My biggest complaint here is the choice of fat content as a comparison.  Can the whole notion of fat being bad for you just die already?  Can we replace it with the nuanced view that some fats are bad (trans fats = horrible!), some fats are good (omega-3) and that you do in fact need to eat some fat everyday.  There is also ample evidence that low fat diets do not work - besides the food tasting bland and unappealing, people trying these diets do not feel as full for as long.  The human body is very, very good at turning excess calories into fat - it does not care where it came from!  A 7oz bag of Jelly Belly jelly beans is a fat free food (yay, right?).  Eat it all, and you've eating over 1000 calories.

Ok, so this post ended up being more about Subway in general and less about Jared in particular.  Still, whatever valuable lesson Jared can teach is can be summed up as this:  control your caloric intake and move your body more.  What I want to know from Jared, is how he managed to two Subway sandwiches a day for as long as he did.  That would be both expensive and boring.  The way to achieve that willpower is infinitely more interesting to me than any particular suggestion of eat this, not that.

Focus? This entry don't need no stinking focus!

Has this ever happened to you?  It's hot - you're marinating in the humidity, your car is broken, you're trying to decide to do with the stray kitten you took in who is really sweet but you really don't want another pet right now, your toddler has just decided to empty her dresser onto her bedroom floor for the third time today, not to mention all the other crap she's strewn throughout the condo and Baby Bach is repeating for the... 4th?  5th? time that day (and woe to the father who turns it off!) and now that toddler is whining at you because she's really tired but she won't nap, so you just have to head to the kitchen and grab a diet coke and that Almond Joy you bought at the store last night, because right now, you need Need NEED that Almond Joy.  Who doesn't need a little Almond Joy once in awhile, right?

I eat for comfort.  I know what I'm doing, when I'm doing it, but you know what?  When I need that food comfort, I do not care.  Luckily, I don't usually need much eating comfort - this isn't a typical, or usual, thing for me.  What is more dangerous in my experience, is the eating because I'm bored, which since I've started this blog and been so much more concious of my dietary inputs has mostly stopped.

Weigh-in after my workout late last night:  225.  In a little over two weeks of eating right and moving my body more.  I can tell I am on the right track.

Rambling Man - looking for advice

How do you continue a healthy lifestyle when you go on vacation?  The family got back on Tuesday from our trip to visit friends in Cincinnati.  It wasn't too bad - we didn't eat out at all, other than on the drive, and snacking was minimal.  We went for a few strolls around the neighborhood.  I kept eating my "power breakfast" (pomegranate juice, healthy cereal, soy milk, grapefruit).  Still, it wasn't exactly a model weekend of healthy vacation living.  On the 3rd, I made grapefruit margaritas (which are tasty and full of sugar).  On the 4th there was grilling of burgers and red hots, and I ate entirely too much grilled meat.  And of course on the driver there was fast food and candy to make the 6-7 hours in the car with a hollering toddler bearable.  I know it could have been worse - Jessie and I were at least very conscious about what we were eating the whole weekend, and we had several conversations with our friends about diet and weight loss.  Turns out that these two tiny, dear to us people, both struggle with their diet and weight (it's not laziness - dieting is hard!).

Overall, I am feeling very good about this new path I am on.  Jessie and I walk to and from the El train each morning as she goes to work.  It's about 0.8 miles one way so I'm getting a lot more exercise than I was just a few days ago.  Jessie has started going to Bally's at 5:30 in the morning to workout (yay Jessie!  You are an inspiration!) and we just got me a guest pass to Bally's (we might add me to her membership) so I can go workout also.  Eating is better too.  I've made up side salads several times now, as well as made breakfasts, lunches and dinners too.  My idle snacking on a bag of chips or a candy bar is pretty much gone, though I still will enjoy a small bowl of ice cream in the evening.  It's still hard though - the siren song of friend crunchy goodness is hard to resist, and damn, salads are one of the most boring foods ever. 

So here's a plea for two bits of advice - 1) how do you stick to your healthy eating when you vacation, and 2) how the heck do you spruce up a bed of leafy greens?  I know they're good for me - that's why I eat them.  How can I make myself enjoy eating them, without adding gobs of creamy dressing, cheese, or friend chicken strips?

"We thought she was just lazy"

A while back I was out with a group of guys, drinking, partying and having a good time.  At some point in the evening, the conversation turned to a mutual female friend who had recently lost a significant amount of weight.  "Just wait till you see her," one of my buddies said, "she's really, really cute now."  He went on to add "turns out she had a medical condition that caused her to gain weight, and that's under control now.  We thought she was just lazy - it was a medical condition!"  Most of the guys laughed, and looked forward to seeing her.  They drank more beer, fueling their own growing guts (none of them was a vision of fit athleticism).  I was silently uncomfortable.  I knew this girl before she lost weight.  I never thought she was lazy.  I just thought that she was what she was.  I wondered - what do they think of me?  My belly is the biggest here - am I also "just lazy"?

I guess part of the problem is that weight loss is an active endeavor.  You can't just lose weight by doing nothing.  Every fat person who wants to lose weight knows how to do it - you eat less!  Exercise more!  It should be easy, but it's not.  Losing weight and maintaining the loss are one of the very most difficult things a person can try to do.  What are the statistics?  Four out of five dieters gains back more than the weight they lost?  It's something like that.  I'm one of those four.

I'm not lazy though.

The thought of silent judgment kills me, especially when my suspicion is that guys judge women much more harshly in that regard then they will other men, or themselves.  A medical condition is an adequate explanation for excess weight - nothing else will do.  But food tastes good.  I like to eat because chocolate, steak, beer etc are all delicious, and one does not have to eat much too much of this to gain a lot of weight over time.  Besides, gyms are expensive and my time is precious - I like to see my wife in the evenings.

I believe that people need to take responsibility for their own weight, but at the same time, society needs to change to be supportive of this medical problem.  It appears to be happening slowly.  The new food eating guidelines are a good start (much more healthful than before), fast food restaurants are constantly rolling out low calorie, low fat foods and grocery stores are stocking more whole grain, high fiber foods.

Still, weight loss is hard.  Not because its intellectually daunting, not because the options for success aren't out there, not even because society isn't as understanding and helpful as it could be.  No, weight loss is hard because it requires a whole-scale lifestyle change and that is daunting.