Eat Food. Mostly Plants. Not Too Much.

from Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food:

1. Eat Food.

• Avoid food products containing ingredients that are unfamilar, unpronounceable, more than five in number, and include high-fructose corn syrup or transfats.
• Avoid food products that make health claims.
• Shop the periphery of the supermarket - stay out of the middle.
• Get out of the supermarket where ever possible. (buy from farmers markets, CSA, local stands)

2. Mostly Plants.

• Eat mostly plants, especially leaves.
• You are what you eat eats too.
• If you have the space buy a freezer.
• Eat well-grown food from healthy soils.
• Eat like an omnivore.
• Eat wild foods when you can.
• Be the kind of person who takes supplements.
• Eat more like the french, or the italians or the japanese, or the indians or the greek. (i.e., eat traditional, non western, diets).
• Regard nontraditional foods with skepticism. (Soy isoflavones are a good example).
• Don't look for the magic bullet in traditional diets. (its not one thing, its the whole way of approaching eating)
• Have a glass of wine with dinner.

3. Not Too Much.

• Pay more, eat less. (quality is better than quantity)
• Eat meals.
• Eat at a table. (A desk or a couch is not a table).
• Don't get your fuel from the same place your car does.
• Try not to eat alone.
• Consult your gut.
• Eat slowly.
• Cook, and plant a garden if you can.

Slow and steady progress.

I've finally seen some progress in the scale, just a little but my body is starting to feel better, so hopefully it will start letting go of this excess weight. I really am trying -- although I can do more and make better choices. It *is* getting easier, and importantly, portion control is coming along well. Friday night at dinner and again this morning at breakfast (both times out in restaurants), I was unable to finish my meal (veggie pad thai, and multigrain blueberry pancakes). Good news for me, as I can, honestly, be a bottomless pit when it comes to good food. Friday I left the remnants on my plate and walked away. This morning, I packed up the left-overs for a breakfast one day this week.

Also today I had a pretty good "long" wog, on my "hilly" loop route (as hilly as it gets here on the beach). Over a 3.75-3.9 mile route (depending on how the footpod measures it that day), I was 1 minute/mile faster than last week. Definitely feeling like its easier to string together the running portions of the wog, and I feel like those running portions are actually a little bit faster than in the past. Still a long way to go, but I'm planning that my next event will be more of an actual race than Hyannis was.