The Life Ledger

Fitness is a way of life.

photo credit: Nutsboutnuttn (Allison)

Lately, I’ve been suffering from a sweet tooth - I can’t get enough chocolate to satisfy my “craving,” and grapes just aren’t cutting it. I know enough now to just keep it out of the house so I don’t have access to it, but it’s nice to know my “addiction” might be more based on biology and less on my lack of will-power. According to an article on Science Daily, scientists found the brain can sense caloric values of foods independent of taste mechanisms:

Their finding that the brain’s reward system is switched on by this “sixth sense” machinery could have implications for understanding the causes of obesity. For example, the findings suggest why high-fructose corn syrup, widely used as a sweetener in foods, might contribute to obesity.

In their experiments, the researchers genetically altered mice to make them “sweet-blind,” lacking a key component of taste receptor cells that enabled them to detect the sweet taste.

In analyzing the brains of the sweet-blind mice, the researchers showed that the animals’ reward circuitry was switched on by caloric intake, independent of the animals’ ability to taste. Those analyses showed that levels of the brain chemical dopamine, known to be central to activating the reward circuitry, increased with caloric intake. Also, electrophysiological studies showed that neurons in the food-reward region, called the nucleus accumbens, were activated by caloric intake, independent of taste.

Significantly, the researchers found that a preference for sucrose over sucralose developed only after ten minutes of a one-hour feeding session and that neurons in the reward region also responded with the same delay.

So I eat chocolate, my brain releases an amount of dopamine relative to the caloric value of the chocolate, and I inherently place a higher value on chocolate because of the pleasant feelings it invokes. It’s like someone designing our bodies knew we wouldn’t eat enough if there weren’t some biological prompting. Frankly, I don’t know if this is good news or not - it’s like I’m my body is biologically designed towards obesity! Or, at least, our current society, with all it’s abundant and ready access to high-calorie foods, warps our biological mechanisms.

At any rate, I just need to keep grapes in the house, and evict the chocolate.

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photo credit: loveberry

It’s not often I get to report on health news happening in my own back yard. Our local newspaper, Asheville Citizen-Times, conducted a non-scientific taste test on 6 different diet bars with a four-person panel. Here’s a summary of the bars tested and the panel’s responses:

Special K protein bar, chocolate peanut butter bar
“It kind of tasted like air, chocolate air. It’s not very filling.”

South Beach Diet meal replacement bar, chocolate crisp
“It wasn’t really chocolatey. It’s brown, but not chocolate … this is why people don’t diet.”

Atkins Advantage, chocolate peanut butter meal replacement bar
“You definitely need water with this … It has the texture of dirt.”

Kashi GoLean, high protein and fiber bar, cookies n’ cream
“Play-Doh. Edible Play-Doh; that’s what it tastes like!”

Zone Perfect, all-natural nutrition bars, strawberry yogurt
“Comparatively, I like it better. You can definitely taste the fruit, but it’s not fresh.”

Met-Rx Big 100 meal replacement bar, chocolate chip cookie dough
“It tastes like a dog biscuit.”

Read the entire article for all the panel reviews and some recipe ideas.

What about you - was one of your favorite diet bars slandered here? Do you favor one not mentioned? Let us know in the comments!

I used to drink at least four venti (large size for Starbucks n00bs) quad-shot caffe mochas a week. I have since given those up, but after reading about the “latte effect” on financial blogs like TheSimpleDollar, I got curious again - how many calories was I consuming with each quad-shot mocha? (For that matter, how many uncounted calories do we as Americans consume from beverages and snacks?) Turns out each venti quad-shot mocha was 390 calories (add 100 calories if you take whipped cream). While specifying skim milk drops the calories, most people, like me, just accept the default.

That’s a lot of calories for a drink. Some have even more:

• A venti hot chocolate is 450 (add 100 for whipped cream)
• A venti white chocolate mocha is 530 + 100
• A venti white hot chocolate 620 + 100
• Going for cold blended drinks? Venti fraps range from 260 (Tangerine) to 620 (Strawberries & Cream) - even the “healthy” Pomegranate has 390. Add 130 for whipped cream.
• Even the light blended coffee fraps have 200+ calories.

Adding a tasty treat to your tasty beverage? The lowest-calorie item is the lowfat blueberry muffin, weighing in at 280 calories. Other items range from 280 (plain bagel) to 520 (coffee crumble cake). Some items still have trans fats. Apparently, the nutrition information changes depending on location, so check out the Starbucks nutrition page more accurate info.

Now, before I get slammed again, like I did talking about Subway - yes, there are choices involved. You could choose a smaller drink. You could choose soy or skim milk (soy has more calories and, depending on brand, may have HFCS, by the way). You could choose a different drink - black coffee has nearly 0 calories. The point isn’t the choices you could make, it’s awareness of the choices you do make - how often did I mindlessly visit a Starbucks and walk out with a venti quad mocha and blueberry scone for a total of 800 uncounted calories? Uncounted, because it’s small, not a meal and mostly beverage. Were I not aware of the caloric value of these drinks, how can I make a healthy choice regarding my Starbucks consumption? Healthy lifestyle choices require mindful decisions, which I cannot make without educating myself on things I consume.

So, what about this “latte effect” I mentioned earlier? According to the basic premise, every time I would buy a $4 coffee, I should instead put that $4 into savings. Trent at The Simple Dollar presents a nice breakdown of the impact the latte effect could have:

If you walk into a coffee shop on your 25th birthday and plunk down $4 on a latte, that $4 goes away. If you just took that $4 and stuck it under your mattress for 40 years, you’d just have $4 when you’re 65. But if you took that $4 and put it in an investment that earns 5% (like a treasury note) for 40 years, you would have $28.16.

Let’s say again that you buy a latte a week until your 65th birthday. That’s 2080 lattes, which costs a total of $8,320 (and that assumes the price will not go up for 40 years, which means it’ll be more than that in reality). With that same investment, you’d have $26,590.67 at age 65.

Granted, there’s no direct analog to applying the latte effect to physical fitness - there’s no calorie bank you can places calories into when not spending them on a venti mocha, whereupon at age 65 you suddenly shed 80lbs. There are, however, two important concepts that do apply:

1. Every single calorie I consume counts towards weight loss.
   No matter how big or small - whether snack, meal or beverage - every single calorie contributes to obesity. Just like every single unbudgeted dollar spent keeps you from being rich, every single unbudgeted calorie consumed keeps you from your ideal weight. It is, of course, much more complicated than that, but the basic concept stands - count every calorie.
2. Every single food and exercise decision I make impacts my lifestyle.
   Saying to yourself “it won’t hurt to have a piece of chocolate just this once” is a fallacy - one choice becomes a pattern, patterns turn into habits, and habits become permanent mindless routine. Instead of reacting to a momentary impulse or craving, treat your body like a bank account and budget for that chocolate. Are you going to finger-food party later? Eat greens and fruits for your meals prior and walk an extra mile at lunch. Budgeting your calories helps you keep it real and honest, both with eating and finances. Before, I would charge a treat on my body’s charge card and pay finance charges - “I’ll walk an extra 20 minutes tonight to work off this chocolate.” Now, I budget ahead of time, making choices instead of reacting to impulses.

Now that I budget my calories and dollars, I have a healthier body and money in the bank. Still drinking those Starbucks drinks and eating Starbucks scones and muffins? Head over to http://www.starbucks.com/retail/nutrition_info.asp and start budgeting for your snacks, or apply the “latte effect” to your life and start saving what you’d spend. Your body, and your bank, will thank you.

Today’s the day when men comb the local Hallmark store, settling on that perfect sentiment for that perfect someone. Why we men can’t get our act together and shop ahead of time, instead of thumbing through the slim pickings left-behind, full of fart jokes and armpit hair (*chortle*), I’ll never know.

At any rate, today’s also a day when Whitman, Russell Stover and Godiva rake in millions from their chocolate sales.  As a recent convert from Sweet-tooth-ianity, I know how easy it is to justify a nice big box of chocolates that you’ll share with your sweetheart over the next week, and end up tossing the empty box the next day.  Maybe the dog ate them.

So, since this is the first Valentine’s I’ve celebrated since losing 70+ pounds and dedicating myself to a more fit lifestyle, I’ve been thinking about different ways to celebrate that don’t focus on candy and comfort food.  Here are some suggestions:

Plan a meal and cook together.  The entire process, from finding a recipe to enjoying a home-cooked meal together, can be a fun and romantic experience.  Flip through some cooking magazines together, folding down the corners of the ones you like.  Put together a meal using your favorite recipes, complete a shopping list (my wife and I love grocery shopping together - great people-watching!) and gather all your ingredients.  Play some Norah Jones in the background, assemble your meal, and enjoy a peaceful, romantic, candle-lit evening in.

Do something you’ve never done before.  Shake your routine up - take a yoga class together, take dancing lessons, go to a local play or operatic production, listen to a local band’s live performance, visit a museum exhibit or local art gallery together.  An evening out together doesn’t have to center around a meal at a restaurant.

Hold hands.  Ok, I have to admit, my love language is touch.  I tell you what though, there’s nothing as affirming as holding hands.  Do you know what your significant others’ love language is?  Do you know what yours is?  Communication is one of the most important things to having a healthy relationship, and you can’t communicate if you don’t speak each others’ languages or if you don’t know what language you speak to begin with.

There’s probably a few books on this, but in a nutshell - you can fairly effectively categorize love languages into 5 basic categories - touch, verbal, quality time, gifting and service.  Pay attention to how you seek affirmation, and how your SO affirms others.  Does your wife buy random little silly gifts for people who are having a bad day?  Does she frequently ask if you bought something for her when you run by Barnes & Noble after work?  That may be how she asks if you thought about her today - she may be asking if you love her.  Communication is important, and requires more than just talking.  Take some time to discover what your significant other’s love language is - then you can truly say “I love you.”

Look at your wedding video and old photo albums together.  Bring out those boxes of memories you keep tucked away and flip through them together.  Maybe start a new scrapbooking project together, or re-watch that wedding video.  Sharing pleasant memories together serves as a powerful reminder of how important that person you share your life with is to you - it’s easy to lose sight of that amidst the day-to-day drudgery.

Take the evening off.  Unplug from your phone, your computer, the Internet, the TV, whatever it is that diverts your attention from one another.  Remember, just because you’re in the same room does not mean you’re spending time with one another.

My wife and I are making dinner together tonight - a wilted spinach salad and mojo-style fondue with chicken and steak.  If it goes well, I’ll share the recipe tomorrow.

How about you - how do you plan on celebrating Valentine’s day?  What are some things you do to unhook food from celebration and special events?