There’s something fascinating about extreme weight loss. Judging by the runaway success of The Biggest Loser and Extreme Weight Loss, not to mention our national obsession with anything and everything that promises shed pounds, I’d say a lot of get easily sucked in to the drama of The Incredible Shrinking Man or Woman. Maybe it’s curiosity about how someone could be the same person inside after such monumental external transformation. Maybe we just want to know what they look like with their clothes off. Maybe our brain can’t wrap itself around the idea of someone shrinking to half their original size. Author Shauna Reid’s weight loss memoir, The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl, chronicles her journey of doing exactly that–going from 350 pounds to 175 over seven years.
When I finished reading the introduction to The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl, I turned to my husband and said, “That’s got to be the best introduction to a book I’ve read in a long time”–and proceeded to read the whole thing out loud to him. Any book that opens with the line “I’ve got the biggest knickers in Australia” is probably going to be a winner, if you ask me. And it was. From the introduction on, Shauna Reid’s story proved humorous, heartwarming, and inspiring. I thought I’d share my thoughts on it here, in case any of my blog readers are also book readers.
I’ve read a lot on the subject of weight loss–memoirs, nutrition texts, even a book on the psychology unique to thin people. Here’s where The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl stands out. First of all, it’s hilarious, which I can’t say for the “Energy Balance” section of my Nutrition textbook (or the psychology book, for that matter). Reading it in bed at night, I was giggling to the point of tears, which I haven’t done since reading David Sedaris’ “Six to Eight Black Men” one slap-happy night way past my bedtime. Reid has a wonderful way of making light of her status as what she calls a “lardy lass,” and seems basically like the kind of friend you’d want to split a bottle of wine and a chocolate cake with…or, you know, a salad and some ice water. Still, Reid doesn’t shy away from the seriousness and perpetual struggle of prolonged weight loss. She acknowledges right from the start that her extreme overeating stemmed from an abusive family situation. Having read Andie Mitchell’s It Was Me All Along (another weight loss memoir), it was impossible not to draw comparisons between the two. Where Mitchell’s book was a heavy read that focused to the point of melancholy on family issues that drove her obesity, rather than the buoyancy and joy that came with getting healthy, Reid’s memoir gives a balance of both.
Besides the humor in the book, the other virtue of Reid’s story is that her weight loss happened the old-fashioned way: with portion control and exercise. There were no quick fixes or fancy fad diets, no plugs for any special program to bring dazzling weight loss. Just an admirable example of the slow-and-steady-wins-the-race type of loss that any dietitian will tell you is the most attainable and realistic. And ultimately, as Reid plugs away at the process, her weight loss becomes personal gain. In getting healthier, she begins to break out of the shell she had built to confine herself in a lackluster, going-nowhere life. It’s an interesting look at the underlying truth that, usually, excess weight is not just about the weight itself–it’s part of an emotional package deal that affects people’s entire lives. When she chooses to make positive change in her weight, Reid finds the rest of her life following suit.
Every year, I keep lists of all the books I read, and will usually go back and star the ones that were the best or that I would confidently recommend to friends. As soon as I wrote this one down, a star went immediately next to it. My only criticisms would be that, at over 400 pages, it does run a bit long, and it contains some foul language. All in all, though, it’s a funny, inspiring pageturner. If someone without an athletic trainer, dietitian, or personal chef can have the tools, the gumption, and the willpower go from morbid obesity to a healthy weight, what can that inspire me to do?
If you’ve never heard of a SNAP Challenge, you might logically be thinking it’s some kind of competition where folks get together to see who has the best snapping skills. (“Good thumb strength, adequate form. I give it a 9.2.”) At least, that’s what I probably would have thought a few weeks ago. As it turns out, though, a SNAP Challenge involves taking a week to live on the same amount of grocery money as someone on food stamps, now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). For this summer’s community nutrition rotation of my dietetic internship, as a way to identify with the low-income population I am serving, I was assigned to participate in this challenge. This meant trying to eat only what $31 could buy for seven days. And whoa. It was tough. But as a result, I learned more than I ever expected, from the basic experience of how difficult it is to stretch such a limited food budget to philosophical meditations on food and personal well-being. So here goes a bit about my week and a run-down of my thoughts post-SNAP.
The picture at the very top of this post shows my week’s haul for $29.90, as this receipt reflects. Before the week started, I did some pre-planning to make sure I had enough ingredients for breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. (But holy crap, could I have bought any more carbs? Bread, tortillas, waffles, pasta, and brownies? After a week, you could break off a piece of me and it would crumble into flour. Looking back, I could have thought that through a little better. I also could have chosen some healthier items than chips and brownies. Caught red-handed!) There were some guidelines I established for myself, too, which an outside observer might call “all the ways Sarah cheated.” I figured that, to be realistic, unless you’re a refugee from another country, fleeing a domestic violence situation, or outright homeless, many people on SNAP benefits have some basic pantry items at their disposal. With this assumption, I allowed myself a few small extras, up to about a half cup. This included some vegetable oil, some flour, some butter, and a few spices. I also chose not to include my morning coffee in the budget, for the sake of my sanity and the safety of my children. Lastly, I decided that if someone offered me free food, I would take it, because if I’m on food stamps, you better believe I’m taking free meals.
I started on a Sunday at lunchtime and finished the following Sunday at breakfast, so as to do 21 meals. If you’re curious, here are the particulars of the meals I ended up eating:
SUNDAY
Lunch: What a way to start off my week–I got ragingly sick! In a way, I guess you could say it was good timing…because I didn’t even end up eating lunch on this day, thereby saving the food I would have eaten. Lucky me?
Dinner: Peanut butter on toast. (Still sick.)
MONDAY:
Breakfast: 2 toaster waffles with Greek yogurt and strawberries.
Lunch: Unexpectedly got a free lunch at my internship–score!
Dinner: Ate the lunch I had packed for work that day: an egg and cheese sandwich, potato chips, and grapes.
TUESDAY:
Breakfast: Bless me, SNAP Challenge, for I have sinned–I cheated already. (Minus 5,000 points!!) I foolishly made one of my favorite breakfasts for my family–peach almond baked oatmeal–and failed to resist the temptation. I did calculate, however, that the portion I ate cost 87 cents, so you can add that to my grocery bill of $29.90 and I still squeak in under the $31 mark.
Lunch: Peanut butter and jelly sandwich, chips, grapes.
Dinner: Chili and some cheese curds I got for free at a Dairy Council presentation that evening.
WEDNESDAY:
Breakfast: 2 waffles, Greek yogurt, strawberries.
Lunch: Leftover chili topped with cheese, grapes, brownie.
Dinner: Spaghetti with homemade tomato sauce using tomatoes and basil from our garden.
Thank goodness for our garden!
THURSDAY:
Breakfast: Toast with grape jelly.
Lunch: 2 open-faced egg sandwiches with cheese, strawberries, banana.
Dinner: I was literally about to dig in to my third bowl of chili in three days when my son piped up next to me, “I love chili! Can I trade with you?” Call it cheating if you will, but I said yes and ate his chicken, roasted potatoes, and carrots while he ate my chili.
FRIDAY:
Breakfast: Waffles with yogurt.
Lunch: Peanut butter and jelly sandwich, fruit, brownie.
Snack: Smoothie of Greek yogurt, banana, and strawberries.
Breakfast: Toast with cinnamon sugar (one of the extras I allowed myself–my guess is I used 25 cents’ worth).
Mid-morning: Cheated and had a tall Starbucks coffee.
Lunch: Leftover zucchini fritters and potatoes.
Dinner: A friend bought me dinner this evening–yep, I’ll take it!
SUNDAY:
Breakfast: Toast with grape jelly, eggs with cheese.
Here’s what was left at the end of the experiment. I didn’t use the tortillas at all (fed them to my kids instead) or the black beans and had portions of all these other items left. I’d guess I used all but about $6-7 worth of my original $31:
WHAT I LEARNED………..
1. PREPAREDNESS
As I reflect on the past week, I can’t help but think of an analogy from childbirth. When I had my first baby, I remember approaching labor and delivery thinking, “I’d like to do it naturally! Maybe I’ll just give it a try and see what happens!” HA. HA. Like every other woman who has ever said that, I was pretty much a GET ME THAT EPIDURAL NOOOOOOOWWWWW hot mess immediately after contractions started. By my third child, however, I realized that doing natural childbirth successfully requires lots of preparation. For months I meditated, made an ambient playlist, and established a headspace that allowed me to go drug-free for my daughter’s birth. A SNAP Challenge is a lot like that. If you go into it blindly, like, “Hey, I’ll just get creative! Maybe this’ll be fun!” it’s not gonna happen. To actually eat on $31 for a week takes extreme preparedness and forethought (if you don’t want to be eating THIS twice a day):
As an individual on SNAP, you also have to plan for things like fresh berries going bad faster than you can eat them, or how you’re going to use leftover odds and ends to make the most of your supply. Which leads me to…
2. STRENGTH IN NUMBERS
Having done this experiment on my own, I can guarantee you it would have been easier if I could have included my family in my meal planning. Grocery store items–well, cheap grocery store items–are not ideally suited for one-person meals for one week. There’s no way I was going to get through an entire container of grape jelly in a week, for example, but if I wanted it for PBJs, I had to buy the whole thing. Also, as someone who got married right out of college, I am at a loss as for how to cook for just myself. So that was tricky.
3. MONOTONY
Life on food stamps is undoubtedly monotonous. Chili several times in a week? Check. Peanut butter and jelly comin’ atcha again? Check. Variety costs money.
4. FOOD AS UTILITY
When it’s Saturday lunch of a food stamp week that started on Sunday, that meal is not about what you want to eat, it’s about what you have to eat. This experiment really put me in touch with the visceral sense of food as fuel, rather than food as pleasure. Only in the last century and a half or so have we become affluent enough and time-surplus-ed enough to cultivate our modern perception of food as a fun hobby. Cookbooks only began to gain popularity in the 1800s. Cause you couldn’t be a foodie caveman, you know? And you certainly couldn’t be a food blogger cavewoman. Rough lesson for a foodie like me, but an intriguing concept about the privilege we enjoy in our culture.
5. FOOD AS PERSONAL WELL-BEING
Food is an opportunity for choice–for most of us, at least three times a day. And choice gives us a feeling of freedom, and a feeling of freedom contributes to our sense of personal well-being. During my SNAP Challenge, I was shocked at how sorry for myself I felt looking at all the food my family got to eat without me, knowing it was off limits. I also came to realize that not permitting myself to eat out at all really affected my sense of personal comfort. Apparently, I get a lot out of my bi-weekly coffee shop runs. I found myself thinking things like, If I could only have one little coffee from Starbucks, I’d feel so much better. And once I cheated and did have a Starbucks coffee, that $2 indulgence meant so much to me.
All in all, I have to say I’m really glad my SNAP Challenge week is over. It was no walk in the park. I freely admit my upper middle class weenie-ness when it comes to eating on such a tight budget, and I absolutely have new-found respect for people who make it work. I would love to learn more about how to do so more healthily and help others do the same.
This is a bit of a risky post to write. There are a lot of rather bossy articles and blogs that love to tell you exactly how their author eats and that it’s the BEST, the ONLY way to live your life. “See, whatcha gotta do is this juice cleanse/this vegan diet/go gluten-free/be Paleo.” But if there’s anything I sure don’t want to be, it’s bossy…or obnoxious…or condescending. Still, in light of some recent conversations I’ve had about healthy eating, particularly as pertains to weight loss, I got to thinking about the way I eat and the fact that it’s effectively kept me at a stable, low-side-of-healthy weight for about 12 years. I don’t want to hold myself up as some kind of paragon of perfect eating, or decree exactly what anyone else should do with their digestive tract. I just thought, hey, if anyone is curious about how someone with a long-term healthy weight just one semester away from becoming a nutritionist eats on a pretty regular day, I’m game to put it all out there.
But there’s a second reason why writing a post like this is risky. There’s a lot of tasteless oversharing on the internet when it comes to food and eating. Why else would Weird Al include the line “I instagram every meal I’ve had” in his song “Tacky,” a parody of Pharell’s “Happy”? We live in an age where anyone can share anything on the internet–everything from meals going into their bodies…to meals on their way out. Maybe sharing everything I’ve eaten in a day is nothing short of navel-gazing grossness. But the fact is, as a fledgling nutritionist, I’m morbidly curious about what people eat. Taking a diet history is an invaluable part of almost any nutrition assessment, and I can tell you from experience that people are not always honest. And I really want to know the truth.
So here we are. I’m about to fling open the vault on the no-holds-barred nitty gritty of a day in the life of my eating. Today, as a matter of fact. For the record, I am 33 years old, 5′ 4 (and 1/2!)”, and weigh about 112 pounds. My BMI is 18.9, which is considered pretty low (underweight is 18.5 and below), but this weight is where my body feels comfortable and has for years. Prior to this weight, in college I weighed between 125-132, but lost about 20 pounds when I moved out on my own. My lowest weight ever was 102, taken the morning of my gallbladder surgery in 2008. P.S. I don’t recommend being 102 pounds…or having a faulty gallbladder. It sucks.
According to the Mifflin St. Jeor equation–a standard calculation for dietitians calculating appropriate calories based on age, sex, height, and weight–as a “lightly active” person, I should only be eating between 1,200-1,450 calories a day to maintain my weight. But that just goes to show that equations are largely theoretical, that “activity factor” is difficult to determine, and that every body is different. I regularly consume between 1,800-2,200 calories a day and haven’t gained any significant weight (other than my pregnancies) at any time in my adult life. Maybe I’m more active than I think I am (probably true), or maybe I’m lucky when it comes to metabolism. Maybe I just fidget a lot. That’s definitely true. The day I’m about to share is approximately 1,800 calories. I have calculated my calorie values mostly using food labels from actual items consumed. In other cases, I’ve done my best to estimate. As you’ll see, this day isn’t perfect. If you know me, you won’t be surprised to see that there’s a hefty dose of sweets, and somehow a Diet Coke snuck its way in there, too.
So without further ado, and at the risk of oversharing, here’s what it looks like when an almost-nutritionist eats 1,800 calories in a day. I have put individual calorie values in parentheses.
Breakfast:
Almond Joy Overnight Oats:
1/2 c. rolled oats (150)
1/2 c. Greek yogurt (85)
1/4 c. almond milk (10)
1/8 tsp. almond extract, 1/2 tsp. vanilla (0)
1 Tbsp. maple syrup (53)
1 Tbsp. sliced almonds (45)
1 1/2 Tbsp. shredded coconut (50)
2 Tbsp. mini chocolate chips (70)
Total: 463. I ate only about 3/4 of this oatmeal, for a total of ~350.
12 oz. coffee with 1 Tbsp. Coffeemate Natural Bliss Sweet Cream Creamer (35)
Is everybody as happy as I am that strawberries are coming back in season? Sometimes when I think about the impending heat of the Phoenix summer, one saving grace I fall back on is that at least good produce like berries will be in season. It’s kind of a rule of inverses: the higher the temperature, the lower the price of strawberries–and other summer fruits like peaches, nectarines, and cherries. Since the strawberry is one of my favorite fruits (and since I’m a big food nerd) I thought I’d do a little digging to find out more about it…whence cometh this juicy red treasure, and what secrets does it have to divulge? Here are a few interesting things I discovered!
A suit of seeds: Strawberries are the only fruit to wear its seeds on the outside, with an average of 200 seeds per strawberry.
Vitamin C powerhouse: Did you know that strawberries are packed with this antioxidant nutrient?Ounce for ounce, they contain more vitamin C than oranges.
Wash just before eating: Washing strawberries speeds the process of their degradation, so only wash what you will use immediately!
Fruit history: Strawberries as we know them are only a little older than the USA–the garden strawberry we eat today was first bred in Brittany, France in the 1750s (though there were of course wild varieties prior to this).
Purple strawberry?: You can actually buy/grow strawberries of other colors besides red. Purple, blue, black, white, green, pink, and yellow strawberries are available from various retailers. (Yes, they have been genetically modified.)
Strawberry bragging rights: The U.S. produces more strawberries than any other nation in the world, with estimates from 70-90% grown in California. A distant second? Turkey! (Followed by Spain and Egypt.) Who knew?
Strawberry homage: There’s a museum in Wepion, Belgium called Musee de la Fraise dedicated entirely to strawberries. The region surrounding Wepion is said to possess the perfect strawberry-growing microclimate, and Wepion is considered the strawberry capitol of Belgium. If I ever go to Belgium again, I’m totally checking it out, and totally trying their famous strawberry beer.
Rose family: Strawberries are actually a member of the rose family Rosaceae. They are classified as a subset of aggregate fruits within this family, known as Rosoideae.
Streoberie: The word “strawberry” has been in the English language (as “streoberie” in Anglo Saxon) for at least 1,000 years, though it was first recorded in its current spelling in 1538. The etymology of the word is debated. The two most popular theories behind the “straw” part of the word are that the appearance of a strawberry’s seeds were likened to a particle of straw, or that the plant’s tendrils were seen as being “strewn” across the ground.
Godzilla berry: The largest strawberry ever recorded was grown by a Japanese farmer in 2015. It weighed in at 250 grams (over half a pound!) and was 4.72 inches long. It looks more like a funky heirloom tomato than a strawberry.
Now that you’re informed to the hilt about everyone’s favorite fruit, go snap up those great deals on strawberries while they’re in season!
Last week, I started the first portion of an internship that serves as the capstone of my nutrition degree: my clinical rotation at a local hospital. Thus far, it’s been an eye-opening experience getting my feet wet with performing patient assessments and education, as well as navigating the labyrinth that is charting on electronic medical records. So, since I’ve got my Nutrition Professional hat on–and I even have a lab coat!–I thought I would dive in with another installation in my ThingsYou Didn’t Know Nutrition series. (Can I call it a series? It’s been almost 18 months since the last one…..so a series at a snail’s pace.) This time we’re focusing on……..
FIBER!!!
Better known as “that stuff that makes you poop”! But if that’s all you think fiber is good for, I have news for you. There’s a lot more to fiber than that! Here are 10 things you might not know about this important component in our food, and why we could do well to get more of it.
(I’m thinking of using this as my LinkedIn profile pic when I start applying for nutrition jobs. It seems to set the appropriate tone of professionalism and decorum, wouldn’t you say?)
1. Fiber is what your body can’t digest.
Yep. Your body cannot break down fiber, so it traverses your entire GI tract to exit through the gift shop.
2. Fiber is always plant-derived.
Can you think of a fiber-rich animal product? Cheese? Eggs? Grass-fed beef, perhaps? Nope, nope, and nope. Fiber is the part of a plant that gives it structure. So just like cholesterol is only found in animal products, fiber is only found in plant products. (Didn’t think you were gonna learn about cholesterol in this post, too, didja?)
3. So how do some non-plant-based foods contain fiber?
You may have seen some small amount of fiber listed in the Nutrition Facts of primarily animal-derived foods (or other food items you wouldn’t expect to contain a lot of fiber). This is probably due to what’s known as “functional fiber”: when plant-derived fiber is added to fortify non-fiber-rich foods.
4. Insoluble vs. Soluble
What’s the difference between soluble and insoluble fiber? It’s pretty simple: soluble fiber dissolves in water, while insoluble fiber does not. This creates distinctions between the mechanism of action each type takes in your digestive system.
5. Why do whole grains contain more fiber than refined grains?
The bran, or outer shell, of a wheat kernel is the part that contains the majority of the plant’s fiber. When wheat is processed to obtain refined (what we know as “white”) flour, its bran is removed. This is why whole grains contain more fiber, while refined grains contain less.
6. Dietary Recommendations
Current dietary recommendations for adult fiber intake are 38 grams/day for men and 25 grams/day for women. (Don’t ask me why the giant gap between the two.) The average American only gets about 15 grams/day, however–definitely not enough!
7. Why fiber makes you poop
Fiber adds bulk to your stool, causing increased pressure as it “comes down the pipes,” shall we say.
8. Fiber reduces risk of disease
Numerous studies have shown that a diet high in fiber has protective effects against certain types of cancer, especially colon cancer. One study showed that people who got 35 grams/day reduced their risk of colon cancer by 40%. One theory behind this is that fiber helps quickly bind to and remove potential carcinogens from the body.
Fiber has also been shown to lower the risk of heart disease, probably because (similar to the cancer theory) it binds to and removes cholesterol from the gut. Other research reveals that increasing fiber can reduce the risk of stroke, diabetes, and high blood pressure.
9. Fiber reduces risk of death
A recently published study by the National Cancer Institute that included almost 400,000 participants found that for every 10-gram increase in fiber intake, risk of death dropped 12% in men and 15% in women. (Presumably, this means risk of health-related deaths, not like skydiving accidents or anything.)
Okay, this part you may already know, but it’s always good to get a refresher! Whole grains, fruits, vegetables, beans/legumes, and other plant-derived foods are good sources. Here are a few ideas for fiber-rich meal planning:
