I don’t think you are a bad person.

Too often I read these weight loss blogs and the writers suggest that their former, fat selves are people that they don’t even remember. They refer to their fat selves as existing in a previous or past life. They do everything they can to distance who they’ve become from who they were for, sometimes, decades.

It’s disgusting.

How lonely and pathetic must a person’s life be for them to want to distance themselves from… themselves!? And how much internal self-hate must these people harbor for them to despise who they “used to be?” Talk about people who seriously need to see a psychiatrist! For these folks, it’s not about losing pounds – it’s about getting over their own self-loathing and self-hate masked in the rhetoric of weight loss.

Don’t be fooled, people.

Let me talk from experience. After I lost 125 pounds I distinctly remember looking at pictures of my 380+ pound self and thinking, “That’s a fat guy in that picture, but that’s a very, very good guy, too.” I also distinctly remember a feeling of sadness when I looked at those pictures because I remembered all of the times when that 380+ pound guy would get snide looks or overhear exaggerated sighs in the airport and movie theater or have to deal with people look at him from afar. In fact, I remember walking in the store one day and seeing a really big person and thinking, “That poor woman. I bet she’s a saint, but that people judge her without hearing the first word out of her mouth.”

After I lost all of that weight people would ask me about what it’s like to live a new life and shed away my past. I’d immediately think, “New life? What the hell are these people talking about?!” I wasn’t a different person after I lost all of that weight. Not at all! The difference was that the portion of society that wasn’t overweight tried to bring me in to their cabal of divisive comments and unspoken disgust of fat people. It was almost as though they wanted me to say, “Yeah – I couldn’t believe what a worthless piece of trash I used to be!”

That type of drivel will never come out of my mouth because I’m fully aware of my self-worth.

Aside from the religious reasons why I don’t believe that any life is a worthless piece of a trash (least of all my own!), I don’t believe that a person’s weight should determine how society acts towards them. And yet I read people writing on these weight loss blogs about how they’re excited to have a new body and how they hated life before they lost the weight.

That’s not a weight problem, that’s a psychological problem.

The point of this entry is to tell all of you who might be in the midst of battling the bulge that you’re fighting the good fight. And, more importantly, don’t believe the voices of the self-hating people out there who already lost a bunch of weight and are now condemning their former selves. These are people who have a mental issue and are trying to compensate for their long lasting, deep-rooted, self-hatred. Love yourself. God gave you the beautiful body that you have. Treat it as the temple it is expected to be.

Don’t hate yourself – today or tomorrow.

The combination of writing yesterday’s entry and bitching with my buddy pushed me to a point where I had to do something about the week’s worth of results that I posted yesterday. And I did. Here’s the graphic from FitBit showing the statistics that I achieved yesterday:

Yesterday’s results from my FitBit Ultra.

This is what happens when someone gets annoyed at being forced into the proverbial corner. And this proves that I have the physical ability to generate these types of statistics (which I don’t think was ever in question anyway).

I’d like to suggest that I’ll keep this high level of activity going throughout the week, but I’m more realistic and understand that making such claims will ultimately lead to failure. For example, looking at my schedule for Monday I already know that I’ll be spending 13.5 of my 16 waking hours that day either driving, sitting in meetings, or crunching numbers behind a desk. Could I squeeze in a walk or two around the block while I’m at the office? Of course. Could I take the stairs instead of the elevator? Well, I normally do that already. Could I reasonably get the type of statistics that you see in the image above with the planned schedule that I have to navigate on Monday?

No.

And that’s the difference between reading weight loss and health-related stories on this blog versus reading them on other blogs. I’m realistic. If I was to buy-in to the bullshit that we sell elementary, high school, and college athletes, then I’d be panicking and going crazy right now. You know that line of bullshit that we sell those athletes. It takes different forms, but it mostly sounds like: “The only one stopping you is YOU!” or “If you WANT to do it, then you WILL do it.” or “Do or do not. There is no try.”

Alright, that last quote was from Yoda in Star Wars, but you get the picture.

Sometimes, there are legitimate reasons for you not to be able to get to the gym or walk the suggested 10,000 steps in a day. If you believe the bullshit hype (and, unfortunately, I think that most people do), then you’re going to drive yourself nuts trying to find out how you can fit in those 10,000 with almost no free time in your day and without compromising your professional efficiency.

It’s about balance, folks. It’s not about hysteria and it’s not about believing the motivational crud that we sell to people who don’t have any expansive, real world responsibilities. If you use your free time effectively – when you have it – then you might be able to get a day’s worth of work like what’s noted in the graphic above. Much more importantly, though, is realizing that you may not be able to achieve this goal on a daily basis because of other personal and professional commitments… and that’s okay.

I wanted a FitBit Ultra for two reasons: to track my sleep and to track my activity levels. For a while now I’ve not been sleeping well. I’d say that I began noticing this back towards the end of April 2012; I figured that the FitBit could at least provide some level of tracking to see what was going on with my sleep.

In addition, I’ve gone from being an athletically active guy in high school to an academically and socially active guy in college (i.e. not working out in the gym, but still up and about) to a graduate student with so much free time that he lost 125 pounds (most of which has been gained back) to a guy with a good job which, unfortunately, requires about two hours of driving every day and the majority of my time being spent sitting at a desk staring at a computer. That’s some roller coaster for a body to go through over a 7 – 10 year period!

However, just like I began feeling that something was wrong with my sleep back in April, for some time now I’ve felt extra-sedentary. It’s a weird type of feeling to describe, but the feeling of being extra-sedentary is somewhat unnatural. It’s an interesting feeling in that you have the desire to go out and workout and you understand all of the motivational bullshit that folks like coaches and personal trainers try to sell you. But at the same time, you’re swamped with commitments and requirements that force you to sit behind a desk, in a car, at a meeting, on the phone, etc. for extended periods of time.

And that’s the key to understanding this extra-sedentary mode that some people fall in. There is a tremendous mental weariness and physical drain that comes with being an office worker, a long-term commuter, an active volunteer who does great things for causes at the result of lost free time, etc. If you can understand that drain and creeping innate exhaustion, then you can understand the feeling that I’ve been feeling for some time now.

Combine that feeling with a lack of sleep and, well, you don’t feel right. So I wanted the FitBit to track some of these items and this is what I found out:

My averages from July 1, 2012 – July 7, 2012

Take a look at those statistics. They’re horrible! Those are my average outcomes for the week of July 1, 2012 – July 7, 2012. If you’re looking at that graphic and wondering what the 33,828 steps taken means, it means that I walk an average of 4,833 steps per day. That’s less than half of what you’re supposed to walk each day! That pie graph shows that 68.7% of my waking hours are spent in a sedentary mode with a scant 3.3% of my time spent in a “very active” mode. That’s terrible!

And then you have the sleep bar graphs. The first bar graph shows how long I slept each day that week. It may be hard to tell from the graph, but the average amount of sleep that I get each night is between 6 hours and 6 hours and 20 minutes. Wondering where that innate feeling of exhaustion comes from? There you go! The last bar graph shows that I wake up a lot when I sleep. I’d estimate that the average amount of times that I wake up is between 25 and 35 times each night. That’s terrible! FitBit provides a more exact tracking of your sleep on a daily basis showing exactly when you woke up and how long you were awake, but I don’t want to bog this post down with a ton of graphics. The point is that I don’t sleep well and these figures prove it.

There are other statistics that I can provide, but they aren’t the focus of this entry. For example, I always knew that I didn’t really eat that much (regardless of how much I weigh). By tracking my calorie intake through FitBit, I was able to confirm that I typically eat between 2,000 and 2,500 calories each day, which is right in line for what a guy of my size should be eating to maintain a decent level of health. I don’t need to track this through FitBit because I get quarterly blood tests and checkups at the doctor and I get it confirmed there, but I’ll track it anyway since it doesn’t take up much of my time.

This all begs the question – now what? Now that I have this information what is it that I plan to do with it? Well, I’m not entirely sure to be honest. I wanted to find some validation for what I thought to be true and I found that validation through the FitBit Ultra. What I need to do now is find a way to begin breaking the sedentary lifestyle. However, that’s a very tough task. For example, I look at my schedule for the coming week and I’m booked solid – in a forced sedentary mode – all day Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. On Saturday, I’m booked at two social events which will take up the bulk of my day. That leaves three days where I can potentially do something to get my activity levels up.

I suppose I could work out on those three days and I’m sure that I’ll do something active even if it’s just walking through the local mall or walking up and down the boardwalk by the beach. Yet, it all feels very disparate to me. In other words, it doesn’t seem like a long-term solution and, frankly, it doesn’t even seem like a short-term stop-gap measure.

In the end, I’m a data wonk (thanks, graduate school) and now I have a source of reasonably reliable data that confirms my prior suspicions. What this provides me is a better understanding of what I need to focus in on in order to improve my health. And those improvements center on two areas: higher activity levels and more restive sleep periods. If I can manage those two improvements, then they should combine with my already low caloric intake should put me in a much better physical condition.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this infographic – lots of interesting information to consume.

When I write “lack of ownership” what I mean is that owners have a different approach to their living space than renters. Owners want to improve or stabilize their living space in an effort to increase the value of their homes. Renters, on the other hand, by and large don’t care about increasing the value of the property (in some respects, they are against the value of the property increasing because it forces a higher rent on them). What I’ve noticed, though, is that people living in rental situations actually accept a lower standard of living. Let me explain with a visual example.

The picture below is what my rug looks like in the living room of my apartment:

Some spots on the rug before OxiClean

No, that’s not some weird modern art pattern on the rug – that’s filthy dirt and stains. It’s disgusting. It looks like they purchased this rug from a battlefield hospital during the Civil War. It’s gross. Now most folks would look at this and think, “Just clean your rug, Joe. Stop being a pig.” And those people would be morons.

The rugs were like this when my roommates and I moved into this place a few years ago. After a few years of complaining, our landlord paid for the rugs to be professionally cleaned. Like most professional cleanings, the rugs looked amazing when the job was done… and then a few weeks later they attracted an incredible amount of dirt and filth like magnets.

But my roommates and I are trying to take the typical property owner mindset and fight back a little bit. Below is a picture of what the same spot on the rug looks like after we hit it with some OxiClean.

Rug after OxiClean

Not too bad, right? Sure, there are dozens of disgusting stains all over the rug, but hitting them with OxiClean and getting this result is a good use of our time because it improves the feel of the living room. Who knows? Maybe after two or three applications of this stuff the stains will actually be gone.

Note: The pictures above were taken over a month and a half ago and the stain is still gone. I’m beginning to think that OxiClean can actually clean the rug and keep it clean for good. That would be a nice change from the “professional cleaner” that the landlord spent several hundred bucks on last summer.

Aside from discovering organic food, I try to make my own breakfast, lunch, and dinner when I have a chance. On that note, I make a pretty delicious oatmeal and berry breakfast. The pictures below detail my making an oatmeal and berry breakfast a few weeks ago. Incidentally, the oatmeal used here is Bob’s Red Mill organic rolled oats mixed with two tablespoons each of Bob’s Red Mill organic ground flaxseed meal and Bob’s Red Mill organic wheat germ. I like Bob’s Red Mill products. The berries are also organic from the produce section of the local Wegmans grocery store.

This isn’t a step-by-step guide to how to make my delicious oatmeal and berry breakfast, but I thought I would take some pictures and show everyone what I do every once in a while to make this delicious meal. The picture above shows the berries mixed together in a large bowl. I just leave them in the bowl until I’m ready to pour the cooked oatmeal on top. In addition to the blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries that you see above, sometimes throw in sliced strawberries, too.

I actually went out and bought this small sauce pot because I didn’t want to make my oatmeal in the small T-Fal pots that I have in my kitchen. I hate when that T-Fal stuff starts to chip and get mixed in with the food. Gross. So I went to Wegmans and purchased that little stainless steel pot that you see in the picture above. Inside that pot is one cup of water (filtered through the PUR filter on my sink faucet), a half a cup of Bob’s Red Mill organic rolled oats, two tablespoons of Bob’s Red Mill organic ground flaxseed meal, two tablespoons of Bob’s Red Mill organic wheat germ, a teaspoon of organic cinnamon (I’ve been using Simply Organic cinnamon and it has a very good taste), and a few twists of freshly crushed sea salt from the container (nothing more than a teaspoon). Once the water boils, I pour the rest of the ingredients in at one time and then bring the temperature down to mid or low.

After the oatmeal is done cooking, I dump it on top of the berries (picture down below), but I’m a huge stickler for keeping a clean kitchen! So once the oatmeal is poured and, on occasion, scraped out of the stainless steel pot, the pot goes right into the sink with hot water in it!

And you’re wasting your time if you don’t put some dish soap in with that hot water. As you eat your breakfast, the hot water and dish soap will eat into any bit of the oatmeal that is clinging to your stainless steel pot like its life depending on it (which, in some ways, I guess it does).

You’re supposed to clean everything! Can you tell how anal I am about keeping a clean kitchen (especially when you cook breakfast)? Here you see my measuring cup and the measuring spoons that I use to measure out my ingredients.

Ahhh… then you have the coup de grâce of the entire effort. This is what the delicious finished product looks like after the berries are mixed into the oatmeal. I’m telling you – if you like berries, oatmeal, and cinnamon, then this is what you want to eat in the morning. Trust me.

Oh, and I usually drink a nice glass of organic milk with my oatmeal and berries. I like Organic Valley’s fat free milk. Very tasty.

And there you have it! This is what I try to eat at least once per week or more often if I have the time to make it. It’s energizing, healthy, and most importantly – it’s delicious!

Is Your Sleep Debt Growing?

Or is your debt growing because of your sleep?

Your sleep shouldn’t cause your debts to grow. But poor sleep habits and poor mattress choices can give you financial nightmares.

How Can Sleep Debt Be Expensive?

Asleep at work?

Most Americans get by on 7 hours of sleep a night. But studies have shown that the average optimum amount of sleep is closer to 8. You’re probably running a sleep deficit or ‘sleep debt’ right now. But it’s just an hour a night, what harm could it do?

The effects of sleep deprivation of just one hour can be seen the next day. Just look at what happens when we move the clocks forward by an hour in the springtime. In the days following the first Monday of the change to Daylight Saving Time there’s a spike in heart attacks, workplace injuries and fatalities.

Also, drivers whose nightly sleep averages 6 to 7 hours a night are almost twice as likely to be involved in car crashes as those who snooze for an extra hour. And you’ve surely heard about how lack of sleep is associated with many diseases from obesity to high blood pressure.

Even if you avoid sleep related bodily injury and the obvious financial penalties associated with them, you haven’t avoided financial mayhem.

Sleep debt is also associated with lower productivity, increased impatience and difficulty concentrating. None of these traits will help you pay off those student loans faster. And definitely save those important investment decisions for days when you’re well rested.

How can you tell if you’re running a sleep debt? It’s easy. If you’re sleepy in the day, particularly around 2:00 to 3:30pm, you need more or better sleep.

But Don’t Good Mattresses Cost A Lot?

So now it’s obvious to you that you need a great night’s sleep to boost your productivity and keep healthy. But one of the reasons that you don’t sleep very well is that you hate your bed. And every ad that you’ve seen lately screams that you need to ‘replace at eight’ and spend as much on a mattress as you would for a small used car.

The ads are wrong. Good sleep can be cheap. You don’t necessarily have to replace any mattress more than 8 years old. And you don’t have to take out another loan to be comfortable at night.

The proof is in the same October 2009 Consumer Reports mattress survey of 17,000 subscribers that catapulted the expensive Tempurpedic brand to a national obsession. They found that “any new mattress beats an old one.” And for those who said that they often had sleep problems, 78% said that any new bed improved their night’s rest.

The study also found that among problem sleepers, Tempurpedic (memory foam beds) and Select Comfort (adjustable air mattresses) provided the most relief. On the other hand, Spring Air and Sterns & Foster buyers (both are lower cost inner spring mattress brands) were in the 10% of the survey takers that said that their new mattresses made their situation worse.

But buying a Tempurpedic or Select Comfort bed is one way to increase your debt. They’re expensive! So…

How to Get Good Sleep Cheap?

Determine if you need a new bed or if a much less expensive mattress topper will work for you. There are two instances where you can get away with buying a topper. The first is if your bed’s not sagging more than a half an inch. The second is if your mattress is too firm.

In either case, go online and buy a topper that’s 2 to 3 inches thick. You should be able to find a queen size for under $200. Here’s some memory foam mattress topper reviews and quick advice on what to look for in a pad.

If you do need a new bed because your old one is worn, you will have to spend a bit more. Buying a used mattress is not recommended, particularly since bedbugs have made a big comeback in recent years.

So what are the best mattresses for your budget? We’ve already seen that the lower cost inner spring beds actually made some people’s sleep worse. And unfortunately with airbeds, you do get what you pay for. Inexpensive air mattresses leak and you could end up sleeping on the hard floor. That leaves memory foam mattresses as the best alternative for people looking for good cheap sleep.

The good news is that the ‘any new bed is better than the old one’ rule also applies here. Buyers of inexpensive memory foam beds are almost as happy as those who buy the pricey Tempurpedic brand. Better news is that good quality budget memory foam beds are very easy to find online. Just google “best mattresses under 500” for reviews and recommendations.

Sleeping Smart Cuts Debt

Reduce both your sleep debt and financial debt by sleeping more and making better bed choices. And the side benefits are that you’ll also be more productive and have a better social life.

So what are you going to do today to shrink your sleep debt?

Bio: Nancy Ulrich writes for Memory-Foam-Maniac.com and is a local business consultant for web, mobile and social media marketing.

And last night was the night that I decided to dig through that milk crate.

All of the notebook paper that I did NOT use while I was in college... amazing.

Now some of you might wonder why I keep this old school work decided to dig through this milk crate. It’s simple. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, then you know that almost two years ago to the day I wrote an entry that talked about how I planned to use every disposable/short-term item in my possession before buying a new item of the same type. In other words, I don’t plan on buying any more blue or black ink pens until all of the pens at my disposal are used and gone. I don’t plan on buying any new highlighters or pencils until all of the ones that I currently have in my possession either run dry or run down to the eraser.

Why buy more of something that I have an abundance of already?

The picture above shows all of the excess notebook and loose leaf paper that I pulled out of my old college notebooks and random paperwork last night. I did this once before, but I only pulled out a few slices of paper (maybe 50 at most). However, once I had all of that old milk crate poured out on my bedroom floor last night, I figured that this was my chance to pull out all of the unused paper from the crate. And why pull out all of that unused, dusty paper?

To use it, of course!

Granted, I don’t have many uses for that paper in my at-home life. In fact, I’ve been working on depleting a stack of “scratch paper” that has been sitting on my bookshelf for the last two years. So I certainly don’t need to add to that pile. However, I’m going to bring that stack of unused college paper to my office and slap it on a clipboard to use when I go out for site visits to my clients or to take notes during in-office meetings.

Will it help prevent a tree from being chopped down somewhere on the planet? Maybe – I don’t know. But what I do know is that it makes a lot more sense to use the paper that I already have in my possession than to go out to Staples and buy a new pack of paper. Not only does that generate a greater need than is really needed, but it’s a waste of money.

So, what resources or items do you have laying around your house, closet, or storage unit that you don’t need to buy any more of any time soon? Take a look around. You might be surprised at what you find!

What happens when this scene does occur, but you still can't see it?

Whereas the last entry of this type focused on all of these unworn jeans in my closet, this entry is going to focus on what I see when I look at myself in the mirror. First, some history…

I’ve mentioned many, many times on this blog that I once lost 125 pounds before gaining some 105 pounds back. While I’m not going to rehash that story, I do want to comment on my perception of reality during that time. Specifically, even though I lost 125 pounds and I was getting compliments from everyone I knew and everywhere I went, I didn’t see much of a change in the mirror. Now, before you go and think that I have some type of body dysmorphic disorder (look it up), I certainly knew that I looked different and I definitely knew that my body was a different shape at 260 pounds versus at 385 pounds.

However, for better or for worse, whenever I looked in the mirror I just saw… me.

Was my stomach smaller? I guess so. Were my arms and chest more defined because of the intense lifting that I was engaged in? More or less, I guess. Did I see the same changed person that everyone else saw when they looked at me? Nope.

Maybe it was because I’m a pretty strong-minded person and I knew that even though my body changed, I was still “me.” You see, society seems to think that if you lose a lot of weight and your appearance changes dramatically, then you must be a “new” person. This weird cause and effect is played out in the media and in popular television shows (it’s actually the core root of NBC’s The Biggest Loser). Yet, becoming a “new” person was never my motivation to lose weight when I dropped 125 pounds and it’s not my motivation as I lose weight this time around.

That’s probably enough background, but feel free to ask for more if you’re interested. Now some more present day comments on this topic…

I decided to write this entry because yesterday I hit a pretty big milestone in my current weight loss efforts. Yesterday, I weighed in at 314.6 pounds, which is 50.4 pounds less than when I started losing weight at the beginning of the summer. That’s pretty damn good!

Just like when I lost all of that weight last time around, I’m doing the same things this time around – eating less and working out more. That’s the big “secret” to weight loss. It really is the secret!

And, just like last time around, I’m not “seeing” much of a difference in the mirror. However, because I was aware enough at the beginning of the summer to know that my eye-to-mind connection would lie to me again about what I was “seeing,” I took a measure to prevent myself from believing (disbelieving?) what my eyes saw in the mirror.

I took pictures of myself.

No, you’re not going to see those pictures on this website so don’t ask. However, I glance through the pictures every once in a while to get a view of the pre-weight loss version of my body versus the current version of my body. And truth be told, there is a striking, noticeable difference between the picture of me at 354.6 pounds (after already losing 10.4 pounds is when I started taking the pictures) and the picture of me at 335.0 pounds… but that’s about it as far as my eyes can “see.” I’ve also taken pictures of myself at 330.4 pounds and 326.8 pounds; I have yet to take some pictures of myself at my current 314.6 pounds.

However, here’s the thing – I don’t see a difference in the pictures between 335.0 pounds and 326.8 pounds.

Is there a difference? Well, there would have to be, right? I mean you don’t weigh 8.2 pounds less than you did a week or two prior and not look different. Yet, I don’t see it in the pictures. Sure, maybe I’ll see the difference in the 314.6 pound pictures, but I don’t see the change now.

And that’s the root of this entry because I’m finding it pretty hard to get as excited as I should be about losing the 50 pounds so far. Most folks would be jumping up and down for joy after losing that much weight and while I’m glad about it, I’m not ecstatic about the 50 pound drop. Part of me believes that I’m not excited because, frankly, I’ve been here before. In fact, I’ve gone another 54.6 pounds down this road and will likely retrace those very same steps in the next 6 months. But I’m just not overly elated at what I’m seeing in the mirror.

The analyst in me thinks that I need to heed the title of this entry and see the bigger picture in the physically smaller pictures of my body. In other words, I think that part of my problem is that I need to realize and begin to achieve the bigger picture items that come along with losing weight before my mind will allow me to see the physical benefit of losing the weight. What does that mean? Here’s an example: I go to the doctor again next Friday (second day of September). At that appointment, I will have hopefully lost a total of 55 pounds since I last saw the doctor. That’s an astounding amount of weight to lose. I think, however, in order for me to realize and achieve the bigger picture items that come from losing this weight, I’m going to need my doctor to lower the amount of my medications (currently at 10 pills and 1 shot each day).

I’m pretty confident that a development like that would begin to wrench open my mind’s eye so that it can see the smaller figure standing in the mirror.

The paragraph above is the end of this entry. Though, since this is a weight loss-themed entry, I thought I would add a few comments on my next goal and the longer-term goals that I have for losing weight. If you’re interested, read on…

The next goal is to drop below 300 pounds. As any big guy can tell you, when you’re losing weight that 300 pound figure looms above your efforts like a storm cloud waiting to burst. Once I break through that level and begin weighing something in the 290s, I’ll be content that this weight loss effort may actually have some longer-term legs. And on those longer-term legs, I’d like to carry myself to 275 pounds by the middle of October – in time for my older brother’s wedding. Again, as any big guy losing weight can tell you – once you breakthrough beneath the 300 pound level, 275 pounds doesn’t seem that far away (and it’s not in the grand scheme of things).

That’s about it in terms of my weight loss goals. Sure, one day I’d like to weigh around 230 pounds (I don’t know about going much lower than that weight, actually), but I’m in no great rush to get there. I could be very happy sitting at 275 pounds for a while just like I’m content taking small steps to get to that weight. If you’re interested in following this weight loss effort, stick around on JerseySmarts.com because I plan to chronicle as much of my thoughts and experiences as I can during this journey. It should be interesting.

Those rules seem pretty simple, right?

With yesterday’s entry where I wrote about how I’ve been losing weight (see the weight loss monitor on the bottom right side of the sidebar) I felt compelled to complete this particular entry – which I began writing back in February. But, before I offer just a few comments, I thought that I should provide those seven food rules that Pollan promotes:

1. Don’t eat anything your great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food. “When you pick up that box of portable yogurt tubes, or eat something with 15 ingredients you can’t pronounce, ask yourself, “What are those things doing there?” Pollan says.
2. Don’t eat anything with more than five ingredients, or ingredients you can’t pronounce.
3. Stay out of the middle of the supermarket; shop on the perimeter of the store. Real food tends to be on the outer edge of the store near the loading docks, where it can be replaced with fresh foods when it goes bad.
4. Don’t eat anything that won’t eventually rot. “There are exceptions — honey — but as a rule, things like Twinkies that never go bad aren’t food,” Pollan says.
5. It is not just what you eat but how you eat. “Always leave the table a little hungry,” Pollan says. “Many cultures have rules that you stop eating before you are full. In Japan, they say eat until you are four-fifths full. Islamic culture has a similar rule, and in German culture they say, ‘Tie off the sack before it’s full.'”
6. Families traditionally ate together, around a table and not a TV, at regular meal times. It’s a good tradition. Enjoy meals with the people you love. “Remember when eating between meals felt wrong?” Pollan asks.
7. Don’t buy food where you buy your gasoline. In the U.S., 20% of food is eaten in the car.

While Pollan’s rules seem very simple, some folks might think that they are exceptionally hard to follow. Well, they’re not. In fact, they’re very easy to follow. All you have to do is use your head and think twice before you pick up certain items in the grocery store. For example, don’t pick up something that is made with a ridiculous list of ingredients. Instead, opt for some fresh fruit or vegetables (which have a single, rather obvious ingredient). And stay the hell away from fast food joints. Talk about a combination of chemicals and stuff that isn’t really food!

From my perspective, I like the second rule the best because it leads to so many other great rules/laws for eating healthy. If you shop around the perimeter of most grocery stores, you’ll be confronted with fresh fruits and vegetables, meats, milks and eggs, etc. That’s the kind of stuff that you should be eating! Of course, you should always opt for the organic version of each of these foods – and don’t worry about the additional dollar or so that you’ll spend on the organic foods. You’ll make that money back by buying less food overall and saving on costly medical care for overweight-related conditions (what’s up Type 2 Diabetes?!).

Anyway, I don’t really have many comments on the rules above, but I did want to share them with you. And if you haven’t checked out either The Omnivore’s Dilemma or In Defense of Food, you should do yourself a favor and get a copy of those books right away!