At the moment, I am pretty content with the way of eating* I have settled upon. Of course, that could change at any time. It already has gone through several iterations, as I learn and tweak and adapt and tweak some more. But fortunately, I find this process interesting, rather than onerous. Kind of like solving a puzzle. And the outcome, feeling good and staying healthy (at least I hope so - thus far so good) seems worth it to me.
At 62 years of age, I am pretty much at my college weight. I know what my college weight was because my old college boyfriend used to joke "Nankie, 2 pounds per inch". Meaning I was 5'2" and weighed 124 pounds. I am now 126 pounds. I have never been really heavy, but I was definitely starting to head in that direction the past decade or so. My weight was creeping up, 134 at its peak.
Of course, it's no longer distributed exactly the way it was 40 years ago, but still for my age I feel I am doing pretty well. I wear a hand-me-down two piece bathing suit from my daughter (who has a great figure) and it's passable. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I could even get into it. (And Mr. Nankie said it looked nice!)
But worse, my blood sugar was becoming elevated, to the point of pre-diabetes. I have a strong family history of diabetes, hypothyroidism, hypertension, heart disease, and thin people in youth becoming heavy people as they aged (the last is true of many, many people). Really shocking was incidentally finding out I had a fatty liver when I went in for an ultrasound for another reason. It was mild, but still.
Anyway, to show how my eating has evolved, I will start with my childhood. My mother did her best to serve us healthy food and was ahead of her time in insisting on fresh vegetables vs. the canned that were so common in that era. She had it easier though, because of "Jack, the fruit man" who came from his farm in upstate NY to the suburbs of Queens NY, in his truck filled with fresh fruits and vegetables. She would stand at the back opening of his truck where everything was displayed and choose what she wanted. Sometimes she would just leave a list on our door and in the afternoon a bountiful bag would be sitting there. I guess he trusted her to pay up later.
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| It wasn't exactly like this, because we were on a much more urban street - but Jack's truck was similar. |
My mother also did not believe in junk food. To my dismay, we almost never had soda, candy, chips, etc in our house. I envied my friends who always had these things. An occasional box of Mallomars was about it for us.
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So of course, as soon as I moved out on my own, to the Nurses Residence at Bellevue Hospital in New York City, I pretty much ate primarily junk food. I was thrilled to discover a vending machine room in the building where I could purchase Hershey bars 24/7. I also recall making a lot of English muffin pizzas in the community kitchen. Beyond that, I can't recall (which is why I have so little faith in the findings of the Nurse's Health Study, which asks you to remember, in detail, what you ate decades ago, even though I am a participant in it.)
This pattern continued as I moved into my first apartment in Manhattan and became a full time working nurse. I honestly do not recall thinking much about food or the right way to eat. Taste was my main criteria. I don't think at this point I thought much about if it was healthy or not. Of course, neither did most of the rest of the world yet. Nutrition labeling was still far off in the future. The term obesity epidemic was yet to be coined. I also smoked cigarettes for a few of those years. So clearly health was not a major concern of mine.
Then in a few more years I followed my boyfriend (the present Mr Nankie!) to California where he had taken a job - the land of the wacky health nuts that we New Yorkers always ridiculed. But still my eating habits remained the same until we married and had a child and by now I paid a bit more attention to the "proper" way to eat.
Which from what I could glean from pop culture magazines and media, was more carbohydrates and less meat. (Although I took a Nutrition course in college for my nursing major, I don't remember learning any useful information there except for post surgery patients needed extra protein and Vitamin C to heal.) I remember serving lots of pasta meals and feeling virtuous when we chose pretzels as snacks instead of nuts. Wheat Thins were another big favorite of mine that I felt was a good snack and I would eat them by the boxful. I also served a fair share of frozen dinners (Stouffers Lean Cuisine) just because I was often too tired to cook. A half gallon of orange juice, a loaf of whole wheat bread, and a box of breakfast cereal were always on my weekly shopping list.
It wasn't until many years later that I discovered low carb eating. I decided it was time to start eating more healthily and try to lose a few pounds, and I added in lots of quinoa, other whole grains and fruit, thinking that was healthy. Two weeks later I had GAINED 5 pounds! Clearly this was not the right path. A friend who was smarter than I said "well carbs are still carbs, even healthy ones" and that started me doing research into what exactly was the best way to eat. Fortunately, by now the internet had made its appearance, so it was a lot easier to look things up and figure things out (and also to get distracted and waste time)!
I was in love with low carb because suddenly I could eat all the cheese I wanted and was still losing weight! But alas, after awhile, this effect started to wane and I started looking for what I could change. I was particularly surprised when I trained for a hike down and up the Grand Canyon, and while doing more exercise than ever before, I ended up gaining five pounds! And it wasn't muscle.
That is when I realized that what I always thought was just an excuse "my hormones are off, that's why I'm fat" - actually had some basis in reality. I think the increase in exercise without a corresponding increase in carbs shifted me towards a more hypothyroid functioning. I've since read this has been observed in many Crossfit followers, particularly women.
I came across The Perfect Health Diet by Paul and Shou-Ching Jaminet and this has been essentially my guide. Although I never weigh or measure anything, I do try to stick with their overall recommended and forbidden foods. I make plenty of exceptions, but in general these are the guidelines I follow. It is essentially a paleo low carb type diet, but with the addition of some carbs (mainly rice, not grains). Although I don't agree with everything they say, they do strike me as intelligent, thoughtful people who read the scientific studies. And know a lot more about nutritional science than your average doctor.
So this is where I have been at for the past few years, because it has been working for me. I have also introduced intermittent fasting. And lest you think I am someone with crazy strong will power and self-discipline, I am not! By any means. I never believed people who would say "you will lose your cravings" or "you don't get as hungry" but I have in fact found these to be true. Not to say, I never grab a chocolate when there is a box of See's candy sitting on the desk at work. I do. But I am much more able to eat healthily without it feeling like a tremendous sacrifice.
*I do not call it a diet because I have never followed a specific "diet" and allow myself to eat anything I want, if I really want it. However, I do try and follow certain guidelines, most of the time. The 80/20 rule works pretty well for me. If I stick to my guidelines 80% of the time, I am happy with that.
