Lesson & Thoughts As I Gradually Re-embrace Meat . . .

So, seven months after I embarked on an animal-free April (which transpired into meatless May, jumping off flesh June and so on...), I finally gently slid off the vegetarian wagon and went back to eating meat, starting with sushi @ SugarFISH Downtown. Was it an epic struggle? A profound epiphany? Not really (and I say the same thing about starting and maintaining my months-long vegetariaism,) I simply craved sushi and decided now was just as good a time as any... it's half a year longer than my planned monthlong experiment, anyways.

No surprise to anyone, during the veg-stint most people asked me "WHY?" And as I've replied numerous times before, the short answer is really "no reason in particular" or "to see if I can do it and for how long." The slightly longer answer involves animal-eating's impact on health, the environment and humane treatment of animals. Now, I'm not PETA vigilant about any of those aspects (but I do give them kudos for their very helpful online resource on transitioning into & maintaining an animal-free diet,) but those factors combined did make me want to rethink my relationship with meat (and the quantities I, and everyone else in the U.S., get served of it nowadays.)

According to MyPyramid, someone of my height (5' 5.5"), weight (145) & age (28) should be eating around six ounces of protein a day (in meat portions, that's about two decks of playing cards worth, before cooking.) And note that I said protein, since that category (and my recommended 6 ounces a day) includes meat (land, sea or airborne), beans, eggs, nuts and seeds.

Speaking of nutrition and health, for most part my body didn't change -- I didn't drop any weight (thanks my love of dairy and desserts) and I didn't take on a sickly pallor or lose muscle mass, though my blood-iron has been on the low side (always just a bit under the requirement to donate blood) despite my regular consumption of iron-rich plant-based foods. So, in returning to meat-eating (and its easier-to-absorb heme-iron,) I look forward to making my regular pint donations again.

Having read and watched a good deal of books, essays and documentaries about the food industry, which usually pays special attention to how animals are raised, farmed, caught and slaughtered, I definitely want to be more conscientious about the meat that I do consume, and going vegetarian for this length of time helped recalibrate my food mentality; namely, that I don't need a dead animal on my plate to consider it a real meal. Heck, moving forward I may even be a "weekday vegetarian" (though unlikely to label myself as such.)

Of course, re-embracing meat in a humane, healthful and planet-friendly way is gonna be a learning process (for example, at the SUGARFISH dinner I found out towards the end of the meal that the featured seafood came from all over the world; not exactly eco-friendly in terms of carbon footprint; and as divinely delicious as the meal was, this is surely something I'll take into consideration for future sushi outings, which is simple as asking "which seafood on the menu is locally and sustainably caught/farmed?" or keeping a Seafood Watch pocket guide or smartphone app handy. Or just enjoy in moderation.)

But I definitely look forward to sharing those lessons with you here as I gradually and conscientiously step back into an animal-including diet. But in the meantime, I'll follow Michael Pollan's simple, sagely advice to "Eat [real] Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants."

And in closing this post, my favorite vegetarian meal during this animal-free period -- the chef's tasting @ Melisse (with the omnivorous Mr. Grumpy)

Foodie Fit Friday Tip: Balancing Your Plate

Even if waffly on taste, Take a Bao definitely got the balanced plate down with half a plate stacked high with a lightly-dressed veggie salad (not to mention more inside the baos themselves!)

Weekends are usually more challenging in managing what you eat; less structure, more celebrations, etc. -- so here's a Foodie Fit Friday Tip to help with healthful eating for the next two days (and onwards!)

For me, Memorial Day weekend is definitely the kick-off for summer, which brings with it plenty of barbecues, parties and potlucks that'll inevitably turn into eating too much. Again, once in a while isn't bad, but if you're heading to family-style, help-yourself, all-you-can-eat events with some frequency, it's definitely a good idea to keep the calorie intake in check. Hey, we all work hard for to shed those holiday pounds and get that swimsuit-ready bod, let's keep it that way!

One useful tip that I read from Brian Wansink's Mindless Eating (amazingly interesting book, by the way, on the psychological aspects and influences on what and how much we consume) is the "half-plate rule" where, when helping yourself, you fill half the plate with low-calorie, healthful fruits and veggies and use the other half for the more calorie-dense proteins, grains and starchy veggies (e.g. corn, potatoes.) Personally, I'd even take it one level further and fill up two-thirds of your plate with the healthy stuff and splurge on the remaining third, but 50-50 is still great progress for someone used to zero healthy stuff on the plate.

The benefits of the balanced plate rule are threefold: 1) it helps reacquaint/familiarize/remind one with the idea of the balanced meal, which should ideally be at least 50% non-starchy plant-based foods anyways 2) it fills up without weighing down as much because less calories are consumed overall and most importantly, 3) it's NOT depriving since it still allows one the freedom to pick whatever he or she wants, it's simply balancing it out so one don't overdip into one or two food categories at the negligence of all the others. You still get to celebrate with your favorite festive foods, but you're just doing it more sensibly.

So, at that next bash, keep the balanced plate rule in mind (again: one-half to two-thirds of the plate with healthy veggies and fruits) and you can enjoy yourself without feeling guilty the next day.

Foodie Fit Friday Tip: Slow Down and Savor

Jitlada's super-spicy (but tasty) fried soft-shelled crab will surely slow any diner's eating pace!

Weekends are usually more challenging in managing what you eat; less structure, more celebrations, etc. -- so here's a Foodie Fit Friday Tip to help with healthful eating for the next two days (and onwards!)

In a world of never-long-enough lunch breaks, quick-to-eat fast foods and eateries that can't wait to turn the table, it's all too easy for us to overeat, since it typically takes the stomach 20 minutes to send satiety/fullness signals to your brain to say, "enough food already!" But in a world where a meal can be finished a mere few minutes, by the time we get those signals we'd already have too much food from the sides, the appetizers, desserts and/or bread basket. And then comes that unpleasant bloated/food coma feeling, followed by the even worse thought of those extra pounds gained.

Of course, the obvious solution is to "slow down your eating!" but if you're anything like me, you've spent years honing down habit of wolfing things down in haste (and even nowadays, I tend to be one of the faster eaters in my group of friends.) But here's a few tricks I have to help me slow down the rate and give my stomach time to catch-up and send the appropriate satiety signals.

- Have a soup or salad beforehand (of course, opt for the lighter varieties like broth-based soups and vinegary dressings); because of their water content, they fill up your stomach space w/o piling on the calories.

- Have it hot (temperature and/or spicywise) both are great limiting factors to how quickly you can consume the food!

- Learn savor/enjoy/analyze your food (a la French Women Don't Get Fat); likely one reason why I started getting thinner AFTER I took on my foodblogging habit, between me evaluating what makes a particular dish so good/bad, jotting notes and taking photos, that's a lot of lag time for the food to settle in and the stomach to tell my brain it's full!

- Drink water (or any low-calorie beverage) between bites.

- For similar reasons, distract yourself while eating; engross in conversation with friends during meals, or if dining solo, bring a book / magazine to read or even sit at the bar and mingle with the bartender.

- and with buffets, take the smaller plate and sit at a table as far away from buffet as possible -- again maximizing the lagtime as you walk to and from helping yourself (not to mention squeezing in just a little more activity.)

- if possible, use smaller utensils; teaspoon instead of the soup spoon or salad fork instead of dinner fork, so it takes more time to finish a dish.

Got any tricks that work for you in terms of slowing down your eating pace? Would love to hear about it. And of course, stop when you feel full; doggy-bag or leave the rest. To those who think it's wasteful to just "throw away" food, let me re-frame it: a few dollars in wasted food/drinks, or a few wasted thousands (even millions) of dollars in medications, surgeries, devices and care for all the obesity-linked ailments?

Activia Experience While Running

Ugh, had a planned 10/11 mile hilly run cut short to a 7-mile due to getting an Activia experience 5 miles in. For your reference, courtesy of NBC's SNL:

First off, I didn't pull the full "Jamie Lee!" (possibly the look.) Fortunately, I made it home without incident and thankful I don't run far away enough to worry about where I have to take care of business. But now I'm just wondering what could've set me off, so to speak.

The top (or should I say bottom?) suspects are:

1) drinking coffee about half-hour before my run, which might have woken up my GI tract as well
2) having warmed milk in middle of night after unexpectedly waking up (and I'm just a tad lactose sensitive)
3) a meat and alcohol laden dinner from two days ago, VERY out of the norm for my body and probably tough to process

More likely, it's probably the combo of the three strikes that got me out. I guess lesson learned to keep a closer eye on what I eat.

And apologies for all the bad puns and possible TMI - believe me, it's way crappier experiencing it first-person.

Foodie Fit Friday Tip: Watch Those Portions

The bento box at Shojin is sensibly portioned and have great variety between the different food groups

Weekends are usually more challenging in managing what you eat; less structure, more celebrations, etc. -- so here's a Foodie Fit Friday Tip to help with healthful eating for the next two days (and onwards!)

Foodwise, we are definitely living in the land of plenty. Between meals with lots extras to add on, ever-larger meal plates and growing portion sizes, it's easy to lose track of what a 'serving' is. So here's a friendly reminder from me and the American Dietetic Association on what a serving looks like. (Sidenote: to clarify, servings are standardized whereas portions are variable.)

- A serving of meat is three ounces, or size of a deck of cards
- A serving of cooked veggies is half a cup, or a light bulb (raw veggies, by the way, is one cup)
- Each dairy serving is eight ounces of milk, one ounce or one slice of cheese; an ounce of cheese is about a pair of dice (and not those huge plushy ones you dangle about.)
- A serving of nuts is an ounce, or a modest handful
- One serving of cooked pasta/rice is a cup, or a tennis ball
- For breads, each serving is one slice (even less for denser, larger ones like oversized loaves or bagels)
- One drink in alcohol equals to 12 oz. of beer, 5 oz. of wine or 1.5 oz (a shot) of spirit (i.e. a full pint glass is actually 133% serving of beer, and a bottle of wine contains five servings)

I am not saying you should use a measuring spoon and cup to scrutinize everything you put in your mouth, but hopefully these visual cues will help you gauge how many servings of the various food groups you're consuming and make adjustments as needed.

Likewise, feel free to indulge occasionally in that large piece of steak, the must-have cheesy baked pasta dish or that decadent dessert, but try to compensate by cutting back on those food groups on days leading up to and following that splurgy meal. As noted recently, moderation is key.

What is moderation?

Given all my talk of moderation when it comes to eating, I guess I should disclose what my idea of the word means -- which to some may feel like a near-anorexic diet and to others a gluttonous feast.

But ultimately, if the goal is to maintain or lose weight, you have to gauge the calories you take in versus calories being burned, with caloric intake equaling burn for maintenance and intake less than burn for weightloss (approximately 3,500 calories per pound.) I'm not a obsessed, precise calorie-counter, but I do a fair job of guesstimating how many I'm eating -- as for estimating calories burned, there are calculators out there like this easy-to-use one at active.com, which takes into consideration your sex, current height, weight, age and activity level.

That being said, I try to stay within 1,600-1,800 calorie range on a normal day, enough to for me to have three satisfying meals plus wiggle room for snacks/treats/alchy while still creating a signficant calorie deficit (if the calculator's guesstimated 2,400 calories burned/day is to be trusted.)

So on a given week with 4-5 days of normal eating, I'll have a weekly caloric deficit of 2,400 to 4,000 calories -- which I have to "splurge" on more indulgent and decadent meals at home or out and about. And given my love of all things sweet and fatty, two to three splurge meals will easily fill that deficit up, so that's how I moderate my indulgences: no more than three blowout meals on a given week. I think of it as my own "three strikes" rule. And it works for me in the past two and a half years at this weight, since I've never deviated more than five pounds.

Of course, this is what works for me -- unless you're identical to me in body size, activity level, eating habits and food cravings, you're probably going to have different calorie needs and probably a different regimen. If you don't eat out a whole lot, you may do better with a consistent but overall higher-calorie intake everyday. Or if you go out-of-town regularly, perhaps a "three weeks clean, one week mean" schedule is more suitable. There's definitely some room to play around as to finding what lifestyle's best for you, but just remember and use the simple calories in-calories out formula to guide your eating habits to meet your goals (word of caution: don't try to restrict yourself too much trying to get fast results; as a rule, healthy weight loss is considered 2 pounds/week maximum a.k.a. 7,000 calorie deficit.)

P.S. if 1,800 calories a day sounds like a deprivation diet to you, keep an eye out for this blog where I'll share some of my favorite recipes and products that's filling, tasty and won't blow your calorie budget.

LA Times' DIY Weight-Loss Issue Today: Check It Out

Whether you'll still trying to make good on that New Year's resolution or getting into that trim summer shape or just attempting to blast those last few unwanted pounds, today's LA Times Health section is well worthwhile read, focusing on do-it-yourself weightloss: with a well-rounded look at developing a workout routine, modifying eating habits and building a support system to stay on-track. And kudos for mentioning the doctors' visit before the lifestyle overhaul to make sure the body's a-OK to go.

And of course, one doesn't have to follow these guidelines down to the very last details -- take the tips and advice that you can use and incorporate into your lifestyle.

Too full!

I am no saint and sometimes I don't follow my healthy eating habits to a 'T'. But boy does my body send me nasty reminder signals to keep me on track.

Totally ate too much Thai take-out today for lunch after a stressful morning of work, and now I feel totally grossed-out-bloated with a little cramping to boot. Ugh...

So there's my lesson today in not only getting proper portions of food but also eat slowly so my stomach has enough time to send satiety signals to my brain, allowing me to stop before it's too miserably late.